Moving to Philadelphia. Needs advice about buying a new house.?

We will move to Philly in August. Mu husband will start a new job in Downtown area. We want to buy a house. I have been searching neighborhoods. I found that Elkins Park is not bad at all and we can find nice houses in our price range. Also it is close to downtown. However, my husband thinks that it may be better to buy a newly constructed house because the city is old and so all the houses close to the city. He doesn't want to deal with problems that usually comes with old houses (roof etc.). I could find some newly constructed houses but they are all in New Jersey and 25-30 miles far from my husband's work. Which one do you think is better; buying a new house in Jersey or buying an old one in Elkins Park (Philadelphia)? Are the houses close to city really problematic because they are too old? How is life in Jersey where all these newly constructed houses located. They seem a bit dispersed in the sense that houses are far from groceries, shopping malls, restaurants, etc. Thanks for help.