Longport homes in 2009 sold for an average price of $510 per square foot, one of the highest rates in the state. Some, like this one on Beach Terrace, have a feature seldom found in other locations: two full kitchens. Thursday, April, 1, 2010 ( Press of Atlantic City / Danny Drake)

By KEVIN POST, Press of A.C. Business Editor | Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Nothing concentrates value in a house like being located in an oceanfront community, preferably one appealing to second-home owners and with a degree of exclusivity.

Houses are not much bigger in Stone Harbor, Longport, Harvey Cedars and other barrier island towns, but they sure are worth a lot more for their size.

Stone Harbor, for example, had the second-highest median price per square foot — $669 — for New Jersey homes sold last year. The median size of those houses was 1,546 square feet.

That’s significantly smaller than the typical Upper Township house sold last year, which was 1,796 square feet That shows how much easier it is to build large when you’ve got lots of land.

But the price per square foot in the township was just $161.

It has long been said that real estate is all about location. A short walk to the beach is great. Looking out big windows on the ocean or bay is even better.

As a result, the top 25 municipalities for price-per-square foot last year are pretty much a catalog of desirable shore locations — nine in Ocean County, five in Cape May County and one in Atlantic County: Longport.

Jeffrey R. Hesley, the tax assessor in Longport and Avalon, said home owners in those towns aren’t shocked by the high valuations of their properties.

“They’re pretty much keen buyers and very astute owners. They keep up with the market and what buys and sells, and what’s in their house,” he said.

Fifteen years of assessing the two communities — and 30 years in the business overall — have made Hesley familiar with what makes up the priciest properties.

“The real high-end, oceanfront stuff is going to have bumped-up things, so the floors will be marble instead of tiles, the counters will be stone instead of Corian,” he said.

Such things are not just difficult to value, he said, but also don’t count in determining a property’s basis for taxation.

“The quote-unquote ‘amazing stuff’ isn’t stuff you’d assess. The extravagant carpet, draperies, furniture, those kinds of add-ons really aren’t assessable,” Hesley said.

But, if they’re included in the home when it sells, they can increase the price. Or sometimes not.

“You might have a really expensive pink and purple carpet you put in the living room, but if I was looking to buy and

didn’t like it, then it didn’t really add value,” he said.

What does add value, besides location, are the five baths and six bedrooms the big barrier island houses often have, he said.

Nancy Stein has been looking inside island homes for about 25 years as owner of Girl Friends maid service in Longport, where the price per square foot was $510 last year.

The first thing you’d notice about Longport houses, she said, is that more of them have elevators than other affluent communities — partly because more of them are three stories.

That’s not the most distinctive Longport home feature, though.

“One significant difference is that many of them have two full-sized kitchens. That’s something that’s not unusual in a Longport house, whereas it’s unusual any other place,” Stein said.

Full redundant food preparation facilities may seem a bit much, but not when you consider the typical use of many Longport homes.

“They’re vacation homes that host a lot of entertaining, albeit only on the weekends,” she said. “For three months, only on weekends, a home that size with two kitchens, it may seem kind of strange, but they can be filled with large families and lots of people.”

Another feature Stein sees in Longport but not other areas is newly constructed places that have double bedrooms with adjoining baths “that are almost like a suite for the children and grandchildren.”

And, of course, the interiors are professionally designed and decorated, and pretty much everything is top of the line, she said.

Such characteristics of island houses push the average price per square foot significantly higher in Cape May and southern Ocean counties — which have substantial vacation and second-home communities — than elsewhere in southern New Jersey.

 Municipalities in Cape May County averaged $308 per square foot for properties sold last year. In southern Ocean County, the average was $309 per square foot.

The average in Atlantic County was barely more than half that, at $168, and in Cumberland County just $102.