Delaware Beach Areas?

[jgman]

I am retiring in one week and plan to start looking for potential retirement locations. I an currently in NoVa outside of DC. Was interested in the Bethany Beach/Rehobeth/Lewes areas. Anyone have any thoughts on these areas?

 

[Dash man]

Delaware beaches are nice. They get very crowded in the summer season, but are quiet most of the year. No sales tax in Delaware and property taxes are reasonable, but income taxes are where they get you.
Health care would be my major concern. The best hospital is in northern Delaware, and Kent County has a decent hospital, but good health care is lacking in the south. Some folks go over to Salisbury, Md. It’s been a while for me, but according to my BIL I don’t think it’s changed much.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Very crowded in the prime beach months and very quiet in the not-prime beach months. Lots and lots of folks like to visit from Philly and DC which makes for a traffic nightmare during the busy season.

 

[jgman]

Thanks....not worried about the crowds as that is just a few months out of the year. The low taxes and beach living is what interests me. Im 56 and good health, but sounds like doctors may be an issue. I'm focusing on Lewes and Ocean View/Bethany. Looks like Lewes may have more restaurants. Plan to visit next month. It also looks like there are quite a few new housing developments going up.

 

[Montecfo]

jgman,

As another Nova resident retiree, I will be very curious to see where you land.

Our recent beach trips have been to NJ, which unfortunately is not someplace you want to retire if interested in low taxes.

 

[grasshopper]

My old roomie's family had a beachfront house in Ocean View/Bethany. We mostly went in the fall, and you had to drive everywhere.

Rehoboth is really nice a lot of great restaurants, neat old homes, and friendly to all and you can walk everywhere.. When we visit back east we stay in Rehoboth.

 

[donheff]

Thanks....not worried about the crowds as that is just a few months out of the year. The low taxes and beach living is what interests me. Im 56 and good health, but sounds like doctors may be an issue. I'm focusing on Lewes and Ocean View/Bethany. Looks like Lewes may have more restaurants. Plan to visit next month. It also looks like there are quite a few new housing developments going up.

I have friends who live on the bay west of Bethany and other friends who have a house one back from the beach in Dewey, which we rent for a week or two every summer. I wouldn't focus on restaurants - good ones are scattered around with plenty to be had in Bethany or Lewes, and even more in Rehobeth. All of them are an easy drive, especially in the off season.

 

[jazz4cash]

Delaware....Small Wonder

 

[jgman]

Thanks for the replies. Did some research and looks like lots of new housing communities under construction. Spoke to a realtor and lots of New Yorkers moving there as everyone is working virtual.

 

[gotlost33]

Overdevelopment and infrastructure are becoming issues in some (most?) areas. My FIL is a bit further south, inland of Fenwick Island, just above the MD line, and there has been very little control on growth. The main road from inland out to the beaches gets bogged down for several miles with traffic in the summer season.

His community has been complaining recently about increased accidents, people cutting through developments to avoid traffic and not respecting speed limits/stop signs. Pretty much the standard issues that most coastal communities are dealing with these days.

 

[Amethyst]

Cape Henlopen State Park near Lewes has some of the best beaches I've ever seen up north. Pretty park, too.

Thanks....not worried about the crowds as that is just a few months out of the year. The low taxes and beach living is what interests me. Im 56 and good health, but sounds like doctors may be an issue. I'm focusing on Lewes and Ocean View/Bethany. Looks like Lewes may have more restaurants. Plan to visit next month. It also looks like there are quite a few new housing developments going up.

 

[jgman]

Im going down in a couple weeks to check out the area. I think im going to focus on Lewes. Hoping to find a place where I can walk to the downtown and beach areas. Also want to get a feel for the vibe....hopefully being near the beach it will be a laid back relaxed atmosphere.

 

[MalteseFalcn]

My So DE real estate shopping experience

Hello, new member on the site here. Spent the last 6 months actively scouting land and new construction in Southeastern DE for our retirement and/or forever home, so thought I'd chime in with my own $0.02.

Don't need to parrot what was already said, but visiting through both the summer and the fall, yep I can confirm crowded before Labor Day, and much quieter after. Although it was surprisingly not-nightmarish over July 4th weekend. However, I'm comparing that to the hellscape that is New Jersey's shore points during the summer lol.

We toured at least one of just about every major homebuilder's model homes/developments (NV, Schell, Horton, etcetcetc), in addition to a few custom builders. The prices are way way up, even from the real estate "frenzy" during the peak of the pandemic market over the last year+. I think lots of these builders are recovering from losses incurred during Spring '21 when the cost of materials went through the roof [on projects already price-locked under contracts from the previous fall]. Also, demand appears to remain very strong with inventory still playing catching up.

Lots of land speculation, I've seen decent land parcels go under contract before we could even get down there to see them, and then pop right up on Zillow within a week at a 200% markup. Many of them are sitting at those speculative prices, growing stale in the autumn market.

I think we have settled on Foxlane Homes, btw. They're more of 'boutique' builder, with some very nice developments established in Pennsylvania. Their website for their two upcoming Delaware communities is pending an immediate update any day now with plans/renderings/info etc, right now you can register on it to receive asap info once it's published online.

They're priced around Schell Bros and the nicer NV homes developments, but IMO they have a personal touch and appear more willing to work with individual buyers because they're a smaller operation, not cookie-cutter mass production like the big boys. That's why we believe we're moving forward with them.

I hope this was helpful, if I can lend any other info from our recent 9-10 weekend trips "scouting" real estate along the DE shore points, I'd be happy to share.

 

[jgman]

An update to this thread. Have been down to the Lewes/Rehobeth areas the last two weekends house searching. Where did all the traffic come from. It was so crowded, I couldn't make a left turn on Rt1 Friday afternoon. Did view some nice new housing developments with all the builders offering generous incentives. I'm thinking of maybe looking further south in Bethany/Ocean View areas. Hopefully not as much traffic.

 

[Dash man]

An update to this thread. Have been down to the Lewes/Rehobeth areas the last two weekends house searching. Where did all the traffic come from. It was so crowded, I couldn't make a left turn on Rt1 Friday afternoon. Did view some nice new housing developments with all the builders offering generous incentives. I'm thinking of maybe looking further south in Bethany/Ocean View areas. Hopefully not as much traffic.

It’s crazy down there now compared to when I lived in Delaware in the mid nineties. My sister-in-law and her husband recently moved into new construction in Pokemoke City, Maryland, just outside of Salisbury. About 30 minutes from nice beaches.

 

[target2019]

I worked with someone who had a home built further inland. I'm thinking a tributary of Indian River or something like that.

 

[jgman]

I worked with someone who had a home built further inland. I'm thinking a tributary of Indian River or something like that.

I plan to check out that area around Oceanview/Bethany next month. I like being close to the water but the house up north in Lewes can be built with a walk-out basement. The basement can be finished with a bedroom with full bath for guests and inlaws, extra storage, exercise equipment etc. Ultimately I'm probably going to have to decide between a more spacious suburban house with a basement vs a smaller house with no basement close to the water.

 

[target2019]

All along the Atlantic coast hurricanes and flooding will affect you some day, and hopefully not in a catastrophic way. I'm satisfied living 50 miles away from the ocean, 55 m above sea level.

In NJ new shore construction, the entie ground floor is an unfinished block-wall garage. There are vents along the walls to let the flooding water escape.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

An update to this thread. Have been down to the Lewes/Rehobeth areas the last two weekends house searching. Where did all the traffic come from. It was so crowded, I couldn't make a left turn on Rt1 Friday afternoon. Did view some nice new housing developments with all the builders offering generous incentives. I'm thinking of maybe looking further south in Bethany/Ocean View areas. Hopefully not as much traffic.

Where did the traffic come from? DC, Philly, Jersey. Just like it did when I lived there 1999-2005. You think it's bad now? Imaging what it was like on Route 1 from Philly *before* the finished the toll road. MISERY!!!!!

 

[5Miler]

This takes me back a bit as I was stationed at Dover, AFB from Dec 1972 through March of 1978 when I transferred to Germany. I had a roommate who shared a house with me in Milford until I got married in 1975. We worked the graveyard shift on base so we could spend every day in the summer at Rehoboth Beach and often would camp at the primitive military area at Lewes Beach. Roommate had a gas guzzling K5 Chevy Blazer so we could sleep in the back on the beach sometimes if we got there real early. I have to laugh as we complained about the summer traffic to Rehoboth each day which is surely just a fraction of what it is these days. Everything is relative I suppose.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

We rented a place from the owner in Sea Colony in Bethany Beach. It was much quieter, even "downtown" Bethany Beach, the boardwalk area, was pretty quiet in comparison. I'm sure there are plenty of listings on VRBO and AirBnB. And we drove into OC once, but it wasn't worth it. We also stayed at the Bethany Beach Ocean Suites Residence Inn by Marriott, right on the boardwalk, with an ocean view balcony, and we really liked it, although that was a few years ago now.