Which municipality, and there are two of them
Willow Grove is a census-designated place. No council, no mayor, no millage, no government of its own. It lies in two townships, Upper Moreland and Abington, and therefore two school districts of the same names. The line between them is essentially Moreland Road. The place is 3.6 square miles, 13,730 people, all under one ZIP, 19090.
Upper Moreland is a first-class township, organized in 1930, 26,116 people across 7.97 square miles and three ZIPs. And the former naval air station carrying the Willow Grove name is in Horsham Township.
So an address here answers almost nothing. The deed answers it.
The tax bill that follows
Assessments are 1996 base-year values, and the Common Level Ratio factor for documents accepted between July 2026 and June 2027 is 3.36 — so assessed value is roughly the market price divided by 3.36.
On the county’s 2026 table: Upper Moreland is 7.521 municipal plus 41.200 school plus 5.952 county and community college, for 54.673. Abington is 6.172 plus 39.8992 plus 5.952, for 52.0232. That is 2.6498 mills between the two halves of one town, about $358 a year on a $135,000 assessment.
Read that gap with a caution. Abington School District’s adopted 2026–27 budget carries the school rate in two pieces: a 39.8992 base plus a 1.3738-mill referendum levy funding the middle school project. The county page lists only the base, so Abington’s real total is nearer 53.4 mills, which brings the two sides much closer together. Ask the title company which figure the certification uses.
A worked example, and an estimate. The July 2026 median sold price for the Willow Grove area was $450,000 on 49 sales, 19 days on market. Its publisher labels that only “Willow Grove, PA” and never says whether it means the census place or the 19090 ZIP, so read it as the area. Divide by 3.36 and you get about $133,900 assessed; at 54.673 mills that is roughly $7,321 a year, plus the $215 township trash charge on the Upper Moreland tax bill. The same house on the Abington side works out near $6,967 before Abington’s own charges.
Upper Moreland School District went from 39.5138 mills to 41.200 for 2026–27, a 4.27% rise and the highest school millage on this side of the county. Transfer tax is 2.000% at every Montgomery County address and does not move between the townships. Water is Aqua Pennsylvania; sewer is the Upper Moreland-Hatboro Joint Sewer Authority, at $7.91 per 1,000 gallons on bills issued from 1 July 2026, with a $39.55 quarterly minimum.
The houses
The Census counts 5,854 units, median year built 1958. The 1950s alone account for 28.8% of them. Add the 15.9% built before 1940 and the 11.4% from the 1940s and 27.3% of everything here predates 1950. In total 88.4% predates 1980, only 4.3% is 2000 or newer, and the Census counts no units built in 2020 or later.
By type: 58.7% single-family detached, 6.9% attached twins and rows. Two-to-four-unit structures total 825, or 14.1% — converted twins and duplexes. Buildings of 50 or more units hold 700 homes, 12.0% of the stock, mostly along the 611 corridor. Tenure is 64.3% owner-occupied.
The station sits at 215 Davisville Road, fare zone 3, and the 7:13, 7:36, 8:13 and 8:36 run 47 to 49 minutes to Suburban Station. It is also not accessible, and SEPTA lists the rebuild design as on hold with no date published.
What a lender will ask about here
Two things, and the first comes straight off the age table. A house from 1955 is financed with a 2026 appraisal, and that appraisal decides more here than the rate sheet does. Pre-1978 means lead-paint disclosure, and the pre-1950 quarter of the stock brings older wiring and the buried-oil-tank era with it. The 14.1% in two-to-four-unit structures go on a different appraisal form from a single-family house, with their own loan-to-value and reserve treatment. And the 12% in large buildings along 611 land in condo project review, where approved-project status decides whether a program is available at all. All of it is faster to sort out if the lender hears it on the first call.
The second is water, and it needs care because the honest answer here differs from the one next door. The former naval air station in Horsham has been on the Superfund National Priorities List since 1995, and PFAS from firefighting foam is why it is still in the news. Between September 2014 and April 2017, EPA sampled over 600 private wells in the area for the Navy and the Air National Guard; over 460 have since been connected to municipal water at Navy expense, 120 of those for exceeding three times the federal limits. The limits stand today: EPA’s rule effective 25 June 2024 sets 4 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS, 10 ppt for PFHxS, PFNA and HFPO-DA, and a hazard index of 1 for mixtures. Two EPA proposals from May 2026 would rescind some limits and allow a 2031 compliance date on request; neither is final.
Here is the local distinction. Willow Grove and Upper Moreland buy public water from Aqua Pennsylvania, outside the Horsham authority’s territory, so Horsham’s non-detect record does not travel to this side of the line. Ask Aqua for its current consumer confidence report. If the property is on a private well, it becomes a real underwriting and appraisal question, and the answer may already exist for that parcel — whether it was sampled, what came back, whether it was connected or treated. Pennsylvania’s seller disclosure at 49 Pa. Code § 35.335a asks the water source, the date of the last test and the result, plus tanks and hazardous substances. It asks what the seller knows, and nothing in Pennsylvania law requires a well to be tested before sale.
Next town over
Horsham is over the township line, where the water utility changes and the school district with it. Ambler is west of that, with a mailing-address problem of its own.
What to do next
Call with the address and, if the listing shows it, the parcel number — that is what settles which township and which district you are buying into. A licensed Pennsylvania mortgage lender calls you back, usually the same working day and by the end of the next working day at the outside. Prefer to write? Send it along and it reaches the same place. In Willow Grove the address is a post office, and the line running through it decides everything that costs money.
