Appraisal Service Area — Reading

City of Reading · city historic district

Centre Park lies inside the City of Reading, south of Charles Evans Cemetery between Centre Avenue and North Fifth Street. It was built up mostly after 1874, with three-story Queen Anne and Victorian Romanesque rows on the main streets, smaller houses on the narrow 'half' streets, and brick Gothic Revival twins. It is one of the city's five historic districts, where exterior changes need a city certificate of appropriateness. An appraisal in Centre Park records surviving original glass, roofs and porches.

City of Reading · city historic district along South Sixth Street

The Prince Historic District, a city historic district since 1982, follows South Sixth Street, first called Prince Street, from Cherry Street south to Canal Street and about a block to each side. Close to three-quarters of its buildings went up between 1850 and 1890, and homes stand among churches, factories and shops. The Reading Hardware Company complex at Willow, South Sixth and Canal Streets is on the National Register. An appraisal in the Prince district compares a house with rows of the same age and width nearby.

City of Reading · city historic district around City Park

Penn's Common is the park many call City Park, at the head of Penn Street, and the name of the city historic district around it, one of five in Reading. A landmarks task force the city named in 1976 ran its pilot study there and found much of the building stock in Federal and Victorian styles, with fine brick, wood, glass and iron work. Bethel A.M.E. Church at 119 North 10th Street is on the National Register. An appraisal near Penn's Common compares dense 19th-century blocks with each other.

City of Reading · National Register district

The Queen Anne Historic District in the City of Reading, roughly bounded by Robeson Street, North Third Street, the railroad tracks and Clinton Street, was listed on the National Register on November 12, 2004. It counts 2,405 contributing buildings, mostly brick rows and twins built from about 1880 to 1925. It is a federal listing, not one of the city's five local districts. An appraisal in the Queen Anne blocks compares houses of similar width, condition and updating.

Borough of West Reading · across the Schuylkill River

West Reading is a separate borough across the Schuylkill River from downtown Reading. The Suburban Berks West Joint Comprehensive Plan reports that most of its housing units are duplexes and, from Census figures for 2011 to 2015, that 58.6 percent were built in 1939 or earlier, with little or no new housing since the 1980s. Its schools belong to the Wyomissing Area School District. Nearly every West Reading sale an appraiser can compare is an older house, so condition and updating carry the weight.

Borough of Wyomissing · next to Reading

Wyomissing is a borough next to Reading, formed, like West Reading, from Spring Township. Henry Janssen and Ferdinand Thun, founders of the Wyomissing Industries, laid it out with boulevards and preserved creek valleys, and Wyomissing Hills merged into it after a 2001 referendum. The county-hosted plan for the area says its housing went up across many decades, with a rise in the 1980s. An appraisal in Wyomissing first sorts the early planned streets from later subdivisions.

Borough of Mount Penn · east of the city

Mount Penn is a borough on Reading's eastern edge that shares its name with the mountain overlooking the city. Its center runs along Perkiomen Avenue and 23rd Street, with one- and two-family homes, apartments and shops. The joint plan it shares with Lower Alsace Township describes farms divided into housing from 1887 to 1929, in Spanish, Colonial Revival and Craftsman styles. The two make up the Antietam School District. An appraisal in Mount Penn matches a house's age and style with nearby sales.

Borough of Shillington · Governor Mifflin region, southwest of the city

Shillington is a borough of its own southwest of the city, in the Governor Mifflin region with Kenhorst, Mohnton, Cumru and Brecknock. That region's joint plan counts 289 acres of Shillington in its high-density residential category, which mixes detached houses, twins, townhouses and apartments. The John Updike Childhood Home at 117 Philadelphia Avenue is on the National Register. An appraisal in Shillington looks first for sales inside the borough itself.

Cumru Township · Governor Mifflin region, south of the city

Cumru Township, south of the city, is a township rather than a borough. Its denser neighborhoods, Pennwyn, Colonial Hills, Mifflin Park and Montrose Manor, grew where central sewer service was available; Flying Hills was built around a golf course starting in the 1960s and mixes housing types with a neighborhood commercial center. Older villages such as Grill, Gouglersville and Angelica remain. An appraisal in Cumru keeps a village house, a Flying Hills home and a newer subdivision house in separate groups of comparable sales.