Gardendale Homes for Sale

Living in Gardendale

Gardendale is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Washington Township — the housing here reaches back to 1942, with the bulk of it built between the late 1950s and 1970 and a few homes added into the 1980s. The streets are Pine Street, Spruce Street, Garfield Avenue, McKinley Avenue and Hilbert Drive. Three and four bedrooms, one to three baths, on public water and public sewer.

The houses are mostly ranchers, with a Cape Cod, a colonial, a split level and a traditional in the mix — the profile of a neighborhood that filled in over decades rather than one a builder laid out and finished. That long build history is the thing to keep in mind here: a 1942 house and a 1988 house on the same street are not comparable properties, and Gardendale has both.

Two features to check on every listing. Most homes here do not have a garage — six of the last ten sales had none — while basements are on nearly all of them. That is the same inversion you find over in Bells Lake, built in the same years, and the opposite of what the township's newer communities offer. If a garage is a requirement, it narrows this neighborhood sharply.

The land varies more than you would guess from the street. Lots run from under a fifth of an acre to better than a third — roughly double, end to end — and it does not sort by street or by vintage. In a neighborhood where the houses are already inconsistent in age and condition, the parcel is one more variable that has to be checked rather than assumed.

Some of what sells here gets renovated and comes back to market. At least one address has traded twice inside a few months with the bedroom count changing between sales, which tells you the work was substantial rather than cosmetic. That is what happens in a neighborhood with this much older stock on decent ground, and it means the condition range at any moment is wide.

Note that Gardendale carries both Blackwood and Turnersville mailing addresses, both in 08012 — the municipality is Washington Township either way. Schools are Washington Township throughout, which means Washington Township High School; one district for the whole township, so there is no sending-district question here. The recently sold homes across the township are the best read on where this end of the market sits.