55+ Communities in Mount Laurel
Mount Laurel has one of the largest active-adult markets in South Jersey, and it is not one community with a few sections. It is three genuinely different communities, built across sixteen years, offering three different kinds of living. The mistake almost everyone makes here is assuming 55+ means a low-maintenance attached unit. In Mount Laurel, most of it is a detached house with a garage on its own lot — and the one community that is not carries the highest monthly by a wide margin, for a reason worth understanding before you compare anything.
Holiday Village is the original and the largest, built 1983 through 1987. The great majority of it is detached Ranch and Rambler homes with garages — single-level, two bedrooms, on Bastian Drive, Eddystone Way, Newtown Court, Avandale Court, Fairfax Drive, White Stone Court, Taconia Court, Emory Lane, Gretna Court, Panorama Court, Adner Drive, Cortland Court, Sheppards Lane, Falmouth Drive, Hanover Court and Madison Court. There is a smaller run of flats and rows on Village Lane, Village Court, Center Lane and Berwin Way from the same era. The fee here is modest and it covers the grounds, lawn, management and, on many homes, a pool and health club. For a buyer who wants to own a house rather than a unit — own the walls, own the driveway, own the lot — with no stairs and no lawn to cut, this is the deepest inventory of that specific thing anywhere nearby.
Holiday Village East is the newer and larger version, built 1990 through 1999 on Peppergrass Drive North and South, Cascade Drive South, Elderberry Court, Clifford Drive and Court, Larkspur Place, Indigo Drive, Raleigh Drive, Yarrow Place, Carolina Way, Aster Place, Moonseed Place, Pecan Court, Sweetleaf Terrace, Bittersweet Place and Drake. Same detached Ranch/Rambler shape, with Loft, Raised Ranch, Colonial and Contemporary plans mixed in, and a good number of three-bedroom homes — which the original Holiday Village largely does not offer. It sits at the top of Mount Laurel's active-adult range and its fee runs slightly above the original's, buying the pool, recreation facility, lawn, snow and management. If you are downsizing but not downsizing much, East is where the space is.
Renaissance Club is the third and it works completely differently. Built 1985 through 1990 on Adelaide Drive, Scotswood Court, Neils Court and Thornwood Drive, it is flats and interior rows — no garages — two bedrooms, single-level, and it is comfortably the least expensive way into 55+ living in this township. It also carries fees roughly two and a half times what Holiday Village East charges, and that is the number people misread. Renaissance is a condominium: the fee covers the full ground fee, exterior building maintenance and insurance on top of the grounds, lawn and pool. You are not paying more for less. You are paying for the building itself to be maintained and insured, which a detached-home association does not do because those owners maintain their own houses.
That is the real decision on this page, and it is worth stating plainly. In Holiday Village and Holiday Village East you buy a house for more and pay a small monthly, and the roof, the siding and the windows remain your responsibility and your expense. In Renaissance Club you buy in for considerably less and pay a large monthly, and the building is somebody else's problem. Neither is the better deal in the abstract. Over ten or fifteen years, with one roof and one siding job in the picture, they land far closer together than the sticker prices suggest — and which one suits you depends entirely on whether you want to manage a house or be done managing houses.
A few things that apply across all three. Every one of these communities is single-level living, which is the actual reason most buyers are here — no stairs, at any age. Coverage varies unit to unit even within a community, so the individual listing is the only reliable source on what a specific fee includes. And because Mount Laurel's active-adult communities are attached-and-detached both, a number of these homes also surface on the township's condos and townhomes page and its ranch homes page. Worth checking all three, because what is available in any one community on a given week is often thin.
The other reason this market got so deep is location. Mount Laurel wraps the interchange of Route 38, Route 73, I-295 and the Turnpike, which put the corporate corridor here and, in turn, put the retirees here too — close to Philadelphia, close to the shore road, and close to the medical and retail that makes a difference when driving further stops being appealing. Laurel Acres Park, the trails of Rancocas State Park and Centerton Square are all inside the township.
If 55+ is not quite it, Mount Laurel has the deepest general attached market in South Jersey — two dozen condo and townhome communities without an age restriction. Ranch homes covers single-level living outside the age-restricted communities, homes under $400K is where most of this market trades, and just listed matters here — well-priced Mount Laurel homes often sell in under a month. To see what has closed rather than what is asking, start with recent Mount Laurel closings or the market report.
The data relating to real estate for sale on this web site comes in part from the Broker Reciprocity Program of the South Jersey Shore Regional Multiple Listing Service. Real Estate listings held by brokerage firms other than ThinkW Real Estate are marked with the Broker Reciprocity logo (a little black house) and detailed information about them includes the name of the listing brokers. 