Fernwood Homes for Sale

Living in Fernwood

Fernwood is a detached neighborhood in Glendora, part of Gloucester Township, built around 1960 on the streets running east off Fernwood Drive toward Otter Branch. It went up as part of the broad wave of building that filled this end of the township at the turn of the sixties, and it has the character that comes with that — a settled grid, mature trees, and houses that have mostly been lived in rather than flipped.

The product here is the 1960 rancher, and that is the reason to look. Everything on one floor, no stairs anywhere, in three-bedroom layouts on flat lots with real separation between houses. Single-level living is a specific thing to want — for someone downsizing out of a two-story, for anyone who would rather not think about stairs in twenty years, or simply for people who like the way a rancher lives — and it is increasingly hard to find at this end of the market. Newer construction almost never builds it, because it costs more land per square foot of house. What exists is what was built sixty-five years ago, and this is one of the neighborhoods where it was.

The setting is better than the location on a map suggests. Otter Branch and its wooded corridor run along the eastern edge of this neighborhood, so the houses on that side back onto trees and a creek rather than another roofline — open ground that is not going to be built on. The interior streets curve and loop rather than running straight through, which keeps traffic out, and there are ballfields and open space at the northwest end.

Sixty-five years in, condition is the entire variable. Heating and air, roofs, electrical service, kitchens and baths have been replaced on completely separate schedules across this neighborhood, and some of these houses have had the major systems addressed while others have not. That gap is wide by now and it does not appear in a square-footage number. In a neighborhood this size a well-kept house coming to market is a real event rather than one option among several — Fernwood does not turn over often, which is good news if you own here and a timing problem if you want in. Being ready when something lists matters more here than it does in a community with steady inventory.

On the address: Fernwood carries a Glendora 08029 mailing address. Glendora is a section of Gloucester Township with its own postmark, not a separate municipality — every home here is in Gloucester Township, on Gloucester Township taxes and in Gloucester Township schools, with Black Horse Pike Regional for high school. For the rest of this section see Glendora, along with White Birch and Otter Branch Creek, the other two communities in the section. Buyers specifically after one-floor living should see Gloucester Township ranch homes across the whole township. Location is straightforward here — the Black Horse Pike is a minute out and Route 42 not much further, which puts Philadelphia inside a short commute. The recently sold homes across Gloucester Township are the clearest read on where these are landing.