Morning Call Article:

Memo:Special to The Morning Call

Realtor Theresa Keim prepared for a large crowd when she held an open house at the historic Tilghman-Shantz home in South Whitehall Township in late June. "Two of us went because we expected a good turnout," she said.

But the crowd of about 200 people who came to see the 1810 landmark on Blue Barn Road was even larger than she anticipated. "We ran out of fliers in the first three minutes," she said.

Keim, who works with her husband, Loren Keim, of Century 21 Keim in South Whitehall Township, acknowledges that most of those who came to the open house were not potential buyers. At least three-quarters of them just wanted to see the three-bedroom stone farmhouse, which is for sale for $189,900, she said. (An offer is pending.)

Historic properties typically attract large numbers of "just-curious" people, and that's one of the many reasons selling to them is a special challenge, Loren Keim agreed.

Technically, any home older than 50 years qualifies as historic, said Clay Mitman of Prudential in Easton. "Fifty years is what's the (industry) criteria, which means that homes built in the '40s and (soon) '50s qualify as historic structures."

About the same number of historic and newer homes are for sale in the Lehigh Valley. Of the Lehigh Valley Association of Realtors' more than 4,500 listings, nearly half -- 1,903 --were built before 1950. A search of its database shows that 1,022 were built between 1900 and 1950 while 881 were built before 1900.

By comparison, 299 of its listings are new homes. However, Bett McCarthy, executive vice president of the Lehigh Valley Association of Realtors, cautions that the numbers do not reflect all the new construction in the area. Very often in a development, only the model will be listed in the multiple-listing service, she said.

Realtors agree that most buyers want new homes. Many people greatly admire older homes --especially for their workmanship and their charm -- but they don't want to own one. "I've heard it a hundred times: `I just love these types of homes, but I wouldn't want to live in one,'" Mrs. Keim said.

Buyers' biggest fear of older homes is the cost of maintaining them. The problem with an older home, McCarthy said, "is you always have to have a pocketbook that has extra money in it in case something goes wrong."

Still, the Keims, Mitman and other area Realtors who have sold a number of unique, historic properties say buyers who want them are out there. It just takes a special effort to find them.

Because the Keims have sold close to 70 vintage properties in their 14 years as Realtors, they maintain a mailing list of people who are interested in historic homes. "When a historic property becomes available we create a full-color brochure and mail it to those on our list," Keim said.

Keim said the list of previous buyers is an effective marketing tool because they very often know others who share their interest in history and antiques and will refer buyers and sellers to them. A woman who was one of Keim's first historic-home buyers has referred several other buyers to him, including her brother who bought a stone farmhouse outside Macungie that was built in 1795. One buyer referring another is how historic properties became one of his firm's specialties, Keim said.

Many of the people on the Keims' client list are from out of the area. But, Keim said, "people who are looking for this type of property are willing to drive a little further to find the right house."

They will travel more so than buyers of contemporary homes if the listing matches the picture they have in their mind of the home they want. He doesn't know why, but Keim said buyers of historic properties seem to have a more precise idea of what they want than buyers of more contemporary homes.

Mitman said that when his office recently listed a five-bedroom historic home in Riegelsville -- on 13-plus acres with a panoramic view of the Delaware River -- it advertised the $725,000 property in the Wall Street Journal. "The day we ran the ad we had 14 inquiries and not just New York calls, but international calls because it sounded so unique and so special," he said.

Keim said his firm has eight historic properties among its 61 listings, including an Orefield landmark, the Grand Dame of Siegersville, which had been sold at auction two years earlier to a Schnecksville antiques dealer, Barry Kolbert.

Keim said he has sold historic homes in every price range from a one-bedroom stone farmhouse in Lower Saucon Township for $62,000 to antique houses for more than a half-million dollars.

Pricing historic properties is a bit more challenging than contemporary homes, Keim said. Home prices are generally based on what homes of similar size, location and amenities have sold for in the last six months. While it's easy to find comparables when pricing a newer, four-bedroom, 2-1/2-bath Colonial in the Lehigh Valley, it's not so when selling a home built in the 1800s because no two are alike.

"Each historic property is so different, you can't say it's just like the one down the street," agreed Mitman, who has sold many historic properties on Easton's College Hill.

Mitman said pricing historic homes also takes a special knowledge of architecture and restoration. A home that has many special architectural features such as detailed woodwork, random-width flooring and Moravian tile might command a high price. However, he said, "different buyers will put a different value on these features."

Like contemporary homes, the asking price also must reflect condition. If renovations are needed, their cost is factored into the asking price. "Still, most buyers will take the list price and subtract the cost of renovations before making an offer," Keim said.

Theresa Keim added that buyers of historic properties seem to bring more contractors, architects and home inspectors through a home before making an offer than do those who consider newer homes.

Keim said he finds that buyers of historic properties are often capable of doing restoration. It's good if they are handy, he said, because it's getting harder to find craftsmen who can work on the materials used in homes of yesteryear, such as plaster for walls and slate for roofs.

Mitman said that when his fiancee, Elizabeth Becker, needed to replace the slate roof on her historic home on College Hill in Easton, she had to "search long and hard before finding someone she had faith in." Then she had to wait six months for him to get the slate of the right grain so it would look like the original 60-year-old roof, he said.

The time and money an older home requires could explain why well more than half the buyers of historic properties have no children or have older children, the agents agreed.

Keim said he finds that even when a historic home is priced right, it can take longer to sell than a contemporary home. "It's taking 4-1/2 to five months to sell, each depending on where it's located and what's in it," he said. The average market time for all homes sold by the Lehigh Valley Association of Realtors through September was 110 days, or a little more than three months.

Still, Keim said, the historic market is subject to supply and demand just as the conventional market is. "Right now, the demand for historic homes is high. But the historic-home market seems to move faster than the rest of the marketplace."

Mitman, who recently sold his own historic home in Easton, said the market for Victorian-era houses on College Hill has been particularly strong of late. "Some sell within a week," he said, and for top prices, too.

Many historic homes are close to, if not on, a road which wasn't there when the homes were built. "That's often a hindrance to selling them," said Archie Follweiler Jr. of RE/MAX Towne & Country in Maxatawny.

Carol Dorey of Carol C. Dorey Real Estate in Springtown agreed: "People will pay a premium for an old house that has privacy vs. an old house that's right on the road, as many are."

Kori Andralis of The Prudential MGM Real Estate in Hanover Township, Northampton County, said she has found that financing a historic property can be as tricky as pricing.

In July, she listed a home in Catasauqua that was originally a church. Because the property was difficult to appraise -- it has one bedroom, one bath and two kitchens -- lenders were requiring a down payment of at least 20 percent, she said. The property, listed for $79,900, has generated a lot of interest, she said, "but many buyers in this price range don't have the 20 percent to put down."

She has advertised the property in the Village Voice because she thinks it may appeal to artists because of its space.

As with any home, the Realtors agree, selling a historic property is a matter of waiting for the right buyer.

Pat and Randy Rice are such buyers. They have lived in a succession of older homes for nearly a dozen years. Their first was a twin built in the early 1900s in the Edgeboro section of Bethlehem. Then they bought and restored an old farmhouse on Hecktown Road in Lower Nazareth Township. About four years ago, they bought a six-bedroom, three-bath Victorian in Nazareth.

Pat Rice said that many days, such as when the roof leaked or the windows needed replacing, she wished they had bought a more modern home. Still, she said, "it's much more interesting living in a home from the turn of the century."

They can talk with their children about who was president when their home was built and what the children who lived there might have worn. Perhaps, their home being a valuable history lesson is why, she said, "all in all, I still prefer having an older home."

5 PHOTOS by CHUCK ZOVKO, The Morning Call
CAPTION: Standing outside `The Grand Dame of Siegersville' are (from left) Loren Keim, Theresa Keim and Judy Mazzeo, all of Keim Realty, Allentown.

CAPTION: An old closet is in the second-floor bedroom of `The Grand Dame.'

CAPTION: A light illuminates hall of the Orefield home.

CAPTION: A window on the wall of the third-floor attic shows tall trees outside the home.

CAPTION: Pennsylvania Dutch stenciling is on the kitchen wall of the home.