Lonaconing Homes for Sale

Living in Lonaconing

Lonaconing is the newest large-scale neighborhood in Berlin Borough, a townhome community built along Cross Keys Road between 2004 and 2011. It went up in two phases, and the MLS still carries them as two separate names — Lonaconing and Lonaconing East. The original section came first, roughly 2004 through 2009; the East section ran later, into 2011. Same builder vocabulary, same streets in places, and buyers looking here should search both names or they will only see half of what is available.

The street names are the thing you notice first, and they are not decorative. Glacier, Sequoia, Bryce, Zion, Acadia, Olympic and Crater are all United States National Parks — seven of them, one per street, laid out in curving loops off the main spine. It is a rare case of a South Jersey subdivision picking a theme and actually finishing it. Whoever platted this place worked from a list and did not run out of ideas halfway through, which is more than can be said for most communities of this era.

The product is a three-level townhome, and the third level is the part that gets undersold. Above-grade space runs roughly 1,128 to 2,036 square feet in two- and three-bedroom layouts, interior and end-of-row, with a one-car front-entry attached garage. But nearly every one of these sits on a full basement, and a large share of them are finished — one listing here adds close to seven hundred square feet below grade to an 1,880-square-foot house, giving well over 2,500 usable feet. Finished basements here come through as family rooms, offices, bar areas and in at least one case a powder room plumbed to convert to a full bath. If you are comparing these against two-level townhomes elsewhere in the county, you are not comparing the same house. Buyers working the attached market should also see the borough's full condo and townhome inventory and the smaller Smokey Run.

Inside, these are better finished than the age suggests: nine-foot ceilings, hardwood on the main level, gas fireplaces, 42-inch cabinets with granite and stainless, two-story family rooms in some plans, tray ceilings in the primary suite, walk-in closets, and soaking or jacuzzi tubs. Builder model names still show up in the listings — the Biscayne is one — so plans do repeat, and it is worth knowing which model you are standing in before you compare it to the last one you saw. A handful of detached four-bedroom homes also carry the Lonaconing name, built in the same window at around 2,760 square feet on roughly a third of an acre. They trade in an entirely different band from the townhomes. Buyers who want land rather than a townhome should look at Centennial Square, where the lots run from half an acre up.

One thing to verify house by house: the HOA is not uniform across this community. Several listings here advertise no homeowners association at all — sellers treat it as a selling point and say so outright — while others carry a monthly fee. It tracks loosely with which section you are in, but not cleanly enough to assume, and the difference matters over a thirty-year hold. Ask on the specific address rather than on the neighborhood. The other mixed-product community in the borough, Carriage Stop, is worth a look alongside this one for the same reason.

Schools are simple here and the listings sometimes make them look complicated. Berlin Borough runs a single school, Berlin Community School, from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, and students then continue to Eastern Regional High School in Voorhees. Some records in this neighborhood name the borough district and some name Eastern — that is one district and one regional high school, not a split. Location is the other quiet advantage: Cross Keys Road puts you on Route 73 in minutes and at the Atlantic City Expressway not long after. The recently sold homes across the borough are the clearest read on where these townhomes are actually landing.