Three neighboring boroughs along the airport corridor, three different resale processes. Norwood inspects for $125 against a checklist that reaches the kitchen fire extinguisher. Prospect Park matches the fee and adds a sewer lateral inspection, a third-party electrical certification, and parking enforcement. Sharon Hill charges $150 and needs only five days. The fee is the small number; the checklist is the sale.
The three-borough picture
Norwood and Prospect Park share Interboro schools and the Wilmington-Newark Line; Sharon Hill sits in Southeast Delco with its own trolley to 69th Street. All three trade in twins, rows, and compact singles that first-time buyers and investors compete for, and all three put a borough inspector between the agreement of sale and the settlement table.
Norwood: the long checklist
Norwood’s inspection costs $125 and wants the request thirty days before settlement. The checklist is unusually concrete: smoke detectors in every bedroom, handrails on four steps or more, a dry basement, a sump pump kept off the sanitary sewer, four-inch house numbers legible from the street center, and a kitchen fire extinguisher of at least two and a half pounds. Real estate, sewer, and trash certifications ride along.
Prospect Park: lateral, electrical, parking
- The lateral is in scope. Prospect Park’s resale process includes a sewer lateral inspection, so scope the pipe at listing rather than discovering it in week four.
- Electrical certification is third-party. An electrical underwriter registered with the borough must certify the system at sale; the borough keeps the list, and scheduling early avoids the bottleneck.
- Parking is enforced. Since 2016, some sections require two six-by-nine parking spaces at the rear of each dwelling. If your block is affected, that conversation belongs at pricing, not at reinspection, because a second visit costs the full $125 again.
The Pennsylvania money
All three boroughs sit at the standard 2% total realty transfer tax, customarily split, so the seller’s half on a $250,000 sale is $2,500. Pennsylvania withholds nothing at settlement, and the federal exclusion, $250,000 single and $500,000 married, covers most owner-occupants here entirely. The home-sale tax guide and the cost-to-sell guide carry the detail.
Getting started
The three-borough order: a free valuation, the checklist walked in listing week, the inspection requested on the borough’s clock, thirty days in Norwood and Prospect Park, five in Sharon Hill, and the certifications ordered alongside. Nearby, the Glenolden guide and the Ridley Park guide cover the neighboring boroughs, and the Delaware County downsizing guide maps where sellers here land next.