The sales market in Philly – especially when it comes to luxury homes/condos – has certainly taken a step back over the course of this year. With high interest rates and a settling of the post-COVID world, the rapid surge of sales tied to these tandem phenomena has cooled over the last several quarters. And even though the rapidly expanding Northbank community and its modern rowhomes designed by ISA wouldn’t necessarily fall into this category, we saw a recent zoning document that is most certainly a sign o’ the times. Let’s take a gander at the huge plans for this project that we checked on back in the spring.

Now that we’ve satisfied your Prince/rendering appetites, onto the news! When doing our typical perusal of public records, we saw a recent zoning permit at an address that caught our attention: 2024 Northbank Place. Unsurprisingly, this rowhome sits smack in the middle of this huge single-family project brought to us by the partnership of Toll Brothers, The Concordia Group, and D3 Development. And while the approach here is fee simple ownership for those looking for a permanent home by the water, it seems as if Eazzy Global Realty out of New York is looking at a different approach.

As for those plans, it’s still a bit up in the air. The newly issued zoning permit will allow for AirBnB-type short-term rentals, but there is also a rental listing for a $7,250 monthly lease for this three-bedroom property – certainly a pretty penny to live in this area no matter what your budget looks like.

So, is this truly a sign of what’s to come or is this just an opportunistic out-of-state investor (perhaps needed a 1031 exchange investment) looking to cash-in on this growing neighborhood? Perhaps a bit of both, as it is a daily occurrence that we see zoning permits issued allowing for short-term rentals. We are optimistic in the long run that home sales in the area will remain steady, but we’re likely to see some creative approaches to property optimization until the lending environment eases up a bit. However, with additional funding just provided for Graffiti Pier Park just to the north, we would bet that more and more folks find themselves as new homeowners here soon enough. It sure looks like a beautiful spot to play in the sunshine.