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DOWNE TOWNSHIP — Fortescue is for sale.

Or at least, a lot of it is.

Nearly every other house along the waterfront of this small, isolated Delaware Bayshore community sports a “for sale” sign.

Homeowners and real estate agents here share the same story.

“The economy has something to do with it,” said Fairfield Township Realtor Karen Love Millul, who has 13 homes listed for sale in Fortescue. “Most of those are second homes.”

Like the beach communities in Cape May County, Fortescue has apparently not escaped the bad economy and the dip in real estate values. Home sale prices in Cumberland County have dipped in general, and Fortescue has seen some of its values flag as well.

Joe and Gladys Esposito are among the relatively small proportion of people who live in Fortescue year-round, but even they own two homes. Both are in Fortescue, and both are for sale. They say taxes are too high for a retired couple like them to get by on a fixed income, especially after a recent revaluation resulted in their property taxes for their bayside home rising from about $4,000 to $7,500. Also, the house they live in is a little too big for them, Joe Esposito said. Now, they’re considering selling at least one of the homes for a move to Florida.

“You can’t live in New Jersey and pay that sort of money,” Joe Esposito said. “You can’t stay here in New Jersey on a fixed income. I can go to Florida, and taxes are one-third.”

Fortescue sits within Downe Township, which has a municipal tax as low as it can possibly be: There is none. This rural township of fewer than 2,000 is able to afford a local government largely on the basis of state payments in lieu of taxes to cover the approximately 70 percent of Downe land that is tax-exempt and preserved from development. However, Downe’s property owners pay school, county and state taxes like everyone else.

That’s made excess land seem a little more excessive than usual for some.

David and Chahine Marvi own about 1,000 acres in the township, including waterfront property in Fortescue, but they don’t live or regularly vacation there. As a result, that undeveloped bayside land along New Jersey Avenue seemed like excess baggage.

“Since we don’t have plans to build on it, and the economy being like it is, we decided to sell,” Chahine Marvi said. “We could use the money.”

Downe Township Mayor Renee Blizzard said the bad economy and high taxes from other entities is precisely why township officials have tried to keep municipal taxes nonexistent. She hadn’t heard much about the large number of properties for sale in Fortescue, but she wasn’t necessarily surprised by it.

“It’s probably the same thing you’re finding down there in the other (Cape May County) shore communities, with people selling second homes in a bad economy,” Blizzard said.

Love Millul said some homes are selling. She recently closed on four sales. Having lived in Fortescue herself from 1984 through 2000, she developed an appreciation for this small fishing town, which touts itself as the “weakfish capital of the world.”

She said some of the people selling are simply older families who have encountered various life changes, and some homes are inheritances that people just chose to sell instead of maintain.

How much effect the home sales will have on the community isn’t too clear. After all, with many of the selling homeowners living elsewhere for their primary residence, there won’t be the same upheaval of neighbors moving in and out as would happen for year-round residents. Billy Stasen, a year-round Fortescue resident, said he hadn’t noticed so many homes were for sale, and he walks up and down New Jersey Avenue on a regular basis.

“Maybe the people are thinking they’ll make a lot of money on it,” Stasen said with a shrug and a laugh.

Contact Daniel Walsh:

856-649-2074

DWalsh@pressofac.com

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