House report
8636 Germantown Ave
1,594 sqft · CMX1 · built 1915
Owner-occupied · assessed $391K · sold 2×. On the 8600 block of Germantown Ave.
Reading this house's deeds, permits and assessments…
What to do with this
The record, translated into moves — what a buyer, the owner, and a landlord would each want to check next under Philadelphia's actual rules.
If you’re buying
Federal law requires a lead-paint disclosure at sale for any pre-1978 home. If it will be rented, Philadelphia also requires a lead-safe or lead-free certificate before a rental license can issue.
The most recent recorded deed moved for nominal consideration. That is where tangled-title problems live — budget a real title search. (Occupants untangling an inherited deed can get help from the city's Tangled Title Fund.)
If you own it
This home reads owner-occupied but shows no Homestead Exemption, which removes $100,000 from the taxable assessment (worth up to $1,399/yr). Applying through the City is free and takes minutes.
L&I appeals must be filed within 30 days — just 6 days if a property is designated UNSAFE or IMMINENTLY DANGEROUS. Left unresolved, the city can do the work itself, bill the owner (routinely $50,000+ on a rowhouse), lien the property, and add court fines of $300+/day.
Derived from this house's public records and the city's rules as of 2026 (abatement ordinance, Homestead, rental licensing, lead certification, L&I process, excavation protections). Informational only — not legal, tax, or investment advice.
The investment read
How this house has moved and where it's pointed: the city's assessed value (not a listing price) over 12 years, charted against its block; appreciation is that history's pace, and the 5-year figure simply extends it. Yield estimates rent-vs-price from area rents. Ask the analyst below to dig into any number.
Value vs. the block, over time — sales, permits & L&I events marked on the line
Bought for $25K in 2003. Owner pulled a plumbing permit in 2018.
- 2003 $25KSold
- 2006 $300KSold
- 2007 PlumbingPermitSuppressionPermit
- 2008 9 L&I violationsL&I
- 2011 L&I violationL&IAppeal heldZoningAppeal deniedZoning
- 2018 L&I violationL&IPlumbingPermit
- 2026 4 L&I violationsL&I
Flags: 3 open L&I violations · 2 zoning/board appeals on record. Informational only — not investment advice or a consumer report (FCRA).
The house, on paper
The city assessor's field record — the physical spec sheet behind the assessed number.
OPA field-assessment attributes. Condition and grade are the assessor's codes, not an inspection.
Run the numbers
What owning 8636 Germantown Ave takes, at your price and your rate. Taxes are this house's actual bill from the city record; rent starts at the area median. Assessed value is not an asking price — set the price slider to the real one.
Estimates for orientation, not advice. Assumes a 30-year fixed loan, $1,400/yr insurance, 1% of price/yr maintenance; taxes from this parcel's record.
Next door: 8634 Germantown Ave · 8638 Germantown Ave
Where this comes from
- Assessment, spec sheet & owner — OPA Property Assessments, Office of Property Assessment
- Sales & deed history — Realty Transfer Tax records, Recorder of Deeds
- Permits, violations & inspections — L&I Property History · Atlas
- Back taxes & liens — Real Estate Tax Balances, Dept. of Revenue
- Zoning appeals — L&I & Zoning Board appeals
- Neighborhood income & rents — US Census ACS 5-year estimates
- Historical mortgage rates — Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, annual averages
- Imagery — Street photo © Google · Aerial © Esri, Maxar
City datasets are fetched live from OpenDataPhilly (phl.carto.com) and cached briefly. Dossiers re-pull automatically — on view once they're a few weeks old, plus a nightly rolling sweep — and citywide benchmarks recompute weekly; the masthead date is when this page's records were last pulled. AI-written passages are generated from these records only and rejected if they state a number the record doesn't hold.
First time here?
This is 8636 Germantown Ave,
on paper.
Built 1915. Every deed, permit, L&I visit, tax bill and sale for this house — plus its whole block.
No signup, no teaser
The whole record is free.
Who owns what, what they paid, what they built, what they owe. Scroll and it's all here — the paid part is not the data.
Three taps, you're oriented
What to catch on the way down.
On the way down: the story of the house, its paper trail drawn on the value chart, and run-the-numbers, a calculator seeded with this house's actual tax bill.
Official city record ↗ · L&I history ↗ · See the whole block · Download this record (JSON)