Living in The Breakers
The Breakers runs along Pennlyn Place at the north end of Ocean City, a few doors from the 3rd Street beach and boardwalk entrance, and the first thing to understand is that these are not flats in a building. They are townhouses — multi-level homes with their own front doors, their own garages, and stairs you climb inside your own house. Three bedrooms and two and a half baths at around 1,800 square feet is the common layout, with four-bedroom three-bath homes and corner units carrying an upstairs loft. If you have looked at Ocean City condos and found them small, this is the community that answers that.
The variation that decides price here is position, and it is stark. Some homes at The Breakers front the beach and the boardwalk directly, with full decks facing the sand and ramp access straight onto the boards — sunrise from the primary bedroom, and the ocean out the rail. Others sit beach block, a few steps back, with street-side decks and ocean views over the rooftops. Both are Breakers addresses and both are excellent; they are not the same purchase, and the listing photos will not always tell you which one you are looking at. Ask where in the row it sits before you ask anything else.
What these homes carry that most of the island's condos do not is space and storage. Two-car garages with interior access, so you unload out of the weather and out of the sand. Double driveways on some units, which on a barrier island in July is worth real money. Large utility and laundry rooms rather than a closet with a stacked unit. Skylights, hardwood floors, and multiple balconies per home — three and four decks are common, and that outdoor square footage is where the summer actually happens. There is a community pool as well, and a small number of single-level flats mixed in among the townhouses for buyers who do not want the stairs.
The north end is the quiet end of the boardwalk, which is the other reason people buy here. You are walking distance to the amusements, the shops and the restaurants, with tennis courts and a playground nearby, but the block itself stays residential rather than turning over to visitors every afternoon. The Breakers also carries one of the deeper weekly rental histories on this side of the island, with the same families returning to the same units year after year — so it works as a second home that pays part of its own way. If you are comparing north end options, look at The Gardens and the island's beachfront, or work through every building on the Ocean City condos page.
