The Philly House Hunt: Part 1
As with most fairy-tales and happy endings, our story had a sad beginning back in December 2018. Bear with me. We were happily living in midtown Atlanta in our first renovation which we thought was going to be our home for at least the next 10-15 years. Thanksgiving was celebrated with my brother and his family, and our second child Henry made his entrance to the world a couple of weeks early on Black Friday (my water actually broke on Thanksgiving Day). I was on maternity leave from a stressful but challenging start-up job, Stu was on paternity leave from his software job, and his parents had flown down from Philadelphia as soon as Henry had arrived. And then a week later, I had a call from my uncle to say my father had been rushed to the hospital due to breathlessness, the diagnosis was septicemia and the prognosis didn’t look good. Within two hours (or what felt like two seconds), my uncle called back to say he was gone. My father was only 70, the healthiest he had ever been playing sports regularly (as he had his whole life), and I had just video-chatted with him a few days prior to introduce him to his grandson. My world fell apart in one fell swoop. The next month saw me get on a transatlantic plane with my 2 week old son, requiring special permission from docs to clear me due to my still very raw c-section, and say goodbye to my father on my grandmother’s 98th birthday. The following month, when I was due to go back to work, I had some serious business ethics disagreements with the CEO at my start-up job, and I decided not to return which crushed me further. Add to that, Henry was the most demanding baby who didn’t sleep more than 45 minutes and struggled with eating, a complete game-changer compared to his now 2 year-old sister who was a textbook baby. I was hitting rock bottom on all fronts and was struggling to find my life direction again.
I can’t say I completely found my direction, but in order to not make this little post an epic novel, I had a pretty solitary train-of-thought for most of those few months. We had great friends in Atlanta, but even the best of friends can’t substitute for good family. And family couldn’t be 750+ miles away anymore. The fact that I wasn’t there for my dad in his final days, where I would have forced him to go to the hospital many days earlier (which might have saved him), still weighs heavily on me now. And I couldn’t have that for Stu or our children in the long run being so far away from his parents/their grandparents. We had always thought we would move to Philadelphia, where his parents lived, once the kids were in high school or college, but that plan was rapidly sped up by 10 years. Stu’s parents are just about the best in-laws a girl could ever ask for, and I couldn’t bear the idea of him having to deal with anything like this. Life was just too short. Our friends would stay in touch and visit. Our house was amazing, but it was just a house after all. My job had fallen through. And Stu has worked remotely for a long time. There was nothing concrete tying us to Atlanta. And we believe everything happens for a reason. So, we had to move.
Cue the next few months, it was a frenzy figuring out the logistics of moving two kids into completely new daycares on the other end of the country, while staging and selling a house (whole other post to come about that), and then moving the 777 miles up to Philadelphia with said kids, and our dog & cat. Complete and utter mayhem. The good news, we sold our house in 24 hours after listing in May. By late June, we had said our teary goodbyes to friends and the house, and taken up residence at Stu’s parents in the outer suburbs of Philly. We were officially on the house hunt again.
This would be the 3rd time we had house hunted…. our first house was a developer new-build in North Carolina, the second our Urban Farmhouse renovation in Atlanta, and then this. So we’re not seasoned experts, but between us, we’ve lived in over 40 different homes, across 2 continents, 5 countries and 4 states. We absolutely loved doing the renovation in Atlanta, but finding those gems in the rough is sometimes a lengthy process. And our practical sides were screaming at us - hey guys, you have two little kids now, plus everything you had before when the renovation took it’s toll in terms of decision fatigue and stress —- maybe, you should look for something that’s a bit more move-in-ready, eh?? Yeah, clearly we didn’t listen to ourselves.
The hunt spanned about 4 counties and 90 miles to begin with. We knew we wanted to be within 30 minutes drive of Stu’s parents, that we wanted somewhere with a community of people / neighbors / township that was inclusive, diverse and welcoming, that the kids could play on the street and we could still go out and get good Mexican/Thai/Chinese/insert all the ethnic foods / cocktails / breweries. We had two MLS lists to scour through every night - our fixer upper list (lower budget, but needed serious work), and our move-in ready (higher budget, but no room for improvement). Within about 5 weeks, we had looked at over 250 homes online and about 30 in person. And we weren’t feeling it. We trust our gut a lot, and nothing felt right including our first realtor. As luck would have it, I randomly drove past a home that looked nice and I called the agent on the sign. She said she wouldn’t show it to us to avoid a dual-agent situation, but she had a great team member she would put us in touch with. And we met Meghan. SO AWESOME. We immediately clicked with this random lady who showed us a house outside of her usual remit. And the rest was just flowed. Here’s my mini-mid-post-lesson: find a realtor who gets you. It’s like dating. It won’t happen on the first try. Make sure you click, as it makes all the difference.
In mid-July, we found THE PERFECT HOUSE. It was 100% move-in ready. It was just like our Atlanta house but with allllllll the upgrades - an exercise gym and office in the basement, two play areas for the kids, a backyard just waiting for a pool, a huge kitchen, custom closets in every room, you name it. It was everything we would have done to a “builder-grade” house and it was all brand new and at a ridiculously good price. The current occupants even had the same furniture as us in multiple rooms and the same design aesthetic down to the wallpapers…. I would have chosen the same ones and they already had a beautiful Phillip Jeffries navy blue grasscloth in the dining room. It was AMAZING!! And we were the first ones to see it (because Meghan is awesome…). All we had to do was put in the offer, and move in to start living. But we didn’t. What the hell is wrong with us? It just lacked that je ne sais quoi - but we could only define it as the lack of community and a sub-par location. It was very near a hugely busy main road, the school district wasn’t as good, and our instincts were saying no. So we walked away…because OUR perfect house was still waiting. Crazy eh?
Our hunt continued, and two weeks later, we toured an 1850 stone farmhouse that was pretty dilapidated and in need of a major overhaul on the mainline outside Philly (a very nice area). The asking price was pretty high and we quickly decided it would be a money pit like no other, despite being a great location and plot. But then we found out while we were there, that the carriage house and an acre of land adjacent were being sold as a separate lot, for a bargain price. The grown children of the recently deceased owner wanted to sell both together, but had just listed this lot separately in the hopes of selling both faster. Our eyes immediately went star-shaped. We could knock down the carriage house (basically a glorified garage in bad shape) and build our own custom house for half the cost of what other houses in the area sold for, the plot was level, and the school district was nothing shy of phenomenal. It was too good of an opportunity to miss. So we pulled the trigger - we went to the bank that afternoon to discuss land loans which was very new to us, and within a few days we had our offer letter sent. To say we were freaking out is an epic understatement… we always wanted to build our own custom home, but thought it was a retirement plan, not a now plan. We started researching builders in the area, construction loans, etc. This isn’t something you take on lightly! And then we waited. And didn’t hear anything. And waited. And our offer expired. And waited some more, to hear from the sellers. Our internal alarm bells started ringing. Something about all of this wasn’t right. The sellers finally got back to us to say they wanted to accept our offer over all of the developers, but there was still information missing from their end. And then the loan situation started getting very complicated very quickly. It was all too much. Building a custom house takes a lot of forethought, and for two people who like to think about things for years before we do them, this was all too rushed even for the money we could make on it. So we knew it wasn’t the right time, fate had handed us the signs we needed, and walked away again… because OUR perfect situation was still out there.
But on that cliffhanger, I’m going to leave you for now and come back another day to write part two of our tale when our search narrowed, Meghan introduced us to some amazing new areas, and we finally closed on our fairy-tale home. So stay tuned, and I’ll be back with part two later this weekend. ;)
Love & Cuddles,
Lex