What's between LeisureTowne and Ridge/New Road?

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Badfish740

Explorer
Feb 19, 2005
589
44
Copperhead Road
So my girlfriend and I are harboring delusions that we might actually be able to afford a house in New Jersey on our meager federal government and schoolteacher salaries-what better way to shop for a town to live in than Google Earth! I was looking at this piece of land bounded by Ridge Road, New Road, Route 70, and the western reaches of LeisureTowne. I was just struck by the fact that it's a relatively large undisturbed area in the middle of a lot of farmland/houses.

Has anyone ever poked around in here or know who owns that land? I was looking at the houses along Ridge Road and in the small development off of New Road and thought that they might be nice places to house hunt. I grew up with the benefit of having a large wooded area behind my house and I'd like the same for my kids. Somewhere they can hike, ride bikes, build forts, and just be kids. However, at the same time I wouldn't want to encourage tresspassing either! Anyway, I just thought I'd ask about it and see if anyone here knew anything.

The other reason I chose it is because it has some interesting features such as the pond (which I assume is private property) at the end of Falcon Drive, the sand road that seems to connect Philo's Bridge Road with Westminster Drive in LeisureTowne, The meandering creek that feeds the big lake in LeisureTowne, and the junkyard on New Road. If you haven't been to that yard you should check it out-lots of good stuff! Of course there's also a lot of undeveloped land on the other side of New Road as well, anyone know the story behind that?
 
B

Badfish740

Explorer
Feb 19, 2005
589
44
Copperhead Road
Nice catch Guy. Interesting reading. VOCs and metals and inorganic compounds oh my! I'm guessing wherever you move out there you're using well water, so that's certainly a concern. On the other hand, I'd be more worried if I was living IN LeisureTowne rather than up on Retreat Road or Ridge Road, but I wouldn't want my kid playing in a swamp with God-knows-what oozing out of it. Ahhhh the pines, dumping ground of New Jersey. I'd still like to know what's back there though.
 
Boyd

Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,922
3,075
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
Regarding water quality, NJ adopted some really strict testing standards a couple years ago - the water test cost me something like $600 when I just sold my house IIRC. I don't know anything about toxic waste in that area, but if there's an issue with a well then it should show up on these tests.

For house hunting I think the only place is realtor.com. It's a pretty amazing tool - helped me find my last two homes which were both unusual in that they offered wooded acreage for a reasonable price. The zip code search is a good place to start. Just search for places with several acres - you will still get a list of everything, but the ones that are the closest match to your criteria will be at the beginning of the list:

http://www.realtor.com/FindHome/default.asp?mode=Zip&poe=realtor

I just moved last May and spent several months looking for a wooded place. I think a lot of it comes down to legwork and just blind luck - pick an area you like and drive around looking for forsale signs. I got lucky and saw a sign at the end of a driveway vanishing into the woods. 3 months later I was the owner of home on 10 wooded acres bordering on a state forest.

My impression is that there are many more wooded places for reasonable prices in Atlantic County. Many of the towns here have minimum lot sizes of 5 acres. Now my daughter is all grown and on her own, so schools are no longer a factor for me. But it sounds like you have kids, so that is going to put some limits on your choice. My daughter loved the Medford schools, but I was paying $7,000 in taxes there last year on a 3 acre lot, and now I pay $3,000 for 10 acres :)
 
Boyd

Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,922
3,075
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
Ah, OK - I was just going by your statement here: "I grew up with the benefit of having a large wooded area behind my house and I'd like the same for my kids. Somewhere they can hike, ride bikes, build forts, and just be kids."

But believe me, 4 or 5 years can go by pretty quickly so if there are some little ones in your future it's a good idea to consider the schools. They can be a big factor in home prices, and unfortunately some of the more remote rural/wooded areas don't have the best schools.
 
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