Unusual turnover on Elfreth’s Alley

It doesn’t happen often, but now you have mutiple chances to buy a house on the oldest, continuously-inhabited residential street in America. 

For the first time in recent memory realtor Mike McCann says three of the roughly two dozen homes on Elfreth’s Alley are on the market at the same time.

McCann says the properties are perfectly historic on the outside because they cannot be modified without historic commission approval. 

“You can do whatever you like inside so much of these like the ones that are for sale have a combination of restored features, the pine floors, the mantles the moldings, doors and stuff like that but they also the updated kitchen baths closets, central air and things of that nature,” he said. 

McCann says the properties range from $650,000 to $850,000 and don’t have one thing many people expect in an upscale Philadelphia home — parking. Plus you’re living in a bit of a fishbowl.

“You will see many tours on the street, throughout the day practically every day, tourists out there with their cameras in groups and stuff like that,” he said. “They are usually pretty quiet, it’s not a rowdy crowd.” 

McCann says he sold two homes on the historic block last year.