Five years ago, a Philadelphia interior designer, Sue Goldstein, closed her Manayunk shop and, with her husband, Martin Rubel, a psychiatrist, sold land on Long Beach Island and bought a home along the canal in New Hope. The home has since doubled in value. Home buyers soon divest themselves of the naive notion that they can buy property below the asking price. In New Hope, the asking price is only a base from which to start escalating. And those with the foresight to rehab shabby properties see their investment soon pay off.
New homes appreciate rapidly, too.
Buyers of venerable property within the borough cherish its history as part of a 1710 William Penn land grant, and an important site for mills and forges. Soon, ferries provided direct travel to New York, bringing the growth of trade and the opening of taverns. A covered wooden bridge was built across the Delaware in 1814, and within decades the canal from Easton to Bristol carried 100 boats daily through New Hope loaded with coal, lime, pig iron, wood, and baled hay. Later, the artists came, and then the theater people, lending an eclectic charm to streets that are a montage of colonial-era workers' homes, fieldstone farm houses, and Victorian mansions. But Magill said some businesses that are more quaint than kitsch have moved back into town, while coffee houses, restaurants and some stores are open in the evening.