Bienvenido to your new home | Real Estate Newsletter

Navigating the Philadelphia region’s housing market is hard enough. But what if you don’t speak English?

Philadelphians who were born outside the United States drove the city’s population growth for a decade. So local real estate offices have been offering more languages to grow their client base.

In our lead story, I talked with some local agents who speak more than one language about their experiences working with buyers and sellers. This story might be what finally gets me back on Duolingo. The app’s cartoon owl is very disappointed in me for dropping my language lessons.

Read on for that story, find out which housing-related milestone Millennials have reached, peek at a home renovation in Swarthmore, and discover why Boscov’s thinks department stores are the future.🔑

📮 Boscov’s shoppers can be pretty passionate. Do you or does someone you know have strong feelings about the department store? For a chance to be featured in my newsletter, email me your story.

If you see this 🔑 in today's newsletter, that means we're highlighting our exclusive journalism. You need to be a subscriber to read these stories.

— Michaelle Bond

La casa. La maison. Das Haus. Ilé.

No matter how you say “house,” a real estate agent wants to sell you one.

Across the 10 offices of one local real estate brokerage, agents can communicate in 33 languages other than English, including American Sign Language, Portuguese, and Urdu. And it’s a celebration when they add more languages.

It’s also a reflection of the diversity of the region’s residents, and it’s good for business, the firm’s owner says.

One Philadelphia agent who came to the U.S. from Colombia as a teen just opened a second real estate office in North Philadelphia, and he’s recruiting employees. Having a warm and helpful personality is a must. Speaking more than one language is a plus.

I talked to agents who speak Mandarin, Czech, Arabic, and Spanish for this story about serving non-English speakers in real estate deals.

Philly’s Thanksgiving parade will always be the Boscov’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in my mind. (Sorry, Dunkin’ Donuts.)

When I watched as a kid, Pennsylvania-based Boscov’s was the parade’s sponsor, having taken over from Gimbels. Boscov’s ended its sponsorship in 2008 when it filed for bankruptcy.

But now, while other retailers are closing locations, the country’s largest family owned and operated department store chain plans to open its 50th store this fall.

The beloved 109-year-old business has a throwback image that it’s balancing with the need to evolve.

Read on to find out what’s next for Boscov’s and how young people on TikTok made one specific item fly off shelves.🔑

Despite the hurdles in our way (home prices and the economy aren’t what they used to be), we Millennials have reached a milestone as a generation.

Nationwide, Millennials have become a majority homeowner generation, with 52% of people in this age range owning, according to a report by the nationwide apartment search website RentCafe.

That percentage is slightly higher in the Philly region.

The average Millennial bought their first home at age 34, later than their parents and grandparents. One reason is home affordability. Differences in lifestyle choices also play a role.

In the Philadelphia metro area, the number of renters in this age group dropped by 10% in the last five years, but Millennials still make up the largest chunk of the region’s renter population.

Some interesting findings for the Philly metro area:

56%: Percentage of Millennials who own homes

73%: Percentage of GenXers who own

79%: Percentage of Baby Boomers who own

77%: Increase in Millennial home ownership between 2017 and 2022

3%: Increase in GenX home ownership between 2017 and 2022

8%: Drop in Baby Boomer home ownership between 2017 and 2022

Read more about Millennials’ plunge into home ownership in the report RentCafe published Wednesday.

Perri Evanson traded her Old City condo for a ranch house in Swarthmore. She’s cut down on her commute, moved closer to her dad, and comforted her Jack Russell bull terrier, who was scared of city noise.

She’s now living in her home’s basement as she adds a bedroom suite in the former attic and turns the rancher into a two-story house with two bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Evanson, a Realtor, has learned up close what it means to live in a home as you’re renovating it and has a new appreciation for challenges her clients face. She warns anyone new to the process to be prepared for three things:

1️⃣ “It will take longer than you think.”

2️⃣ “It will cost more.”

3️⃣ “And it will be more trouble.”

Take a peek into this renovation project and find out what Evanson had to do to get a 550-pound cast iron tub into her bathroom.

Nearly all of the 11 Democratic candidates fighting to be Philly’s next mayor have been asked whether they support the proposal to build a Sixers arena at 11th and Market. Most haven’t given a simple answer.

At a mayoral forum last week, only one candidate unequivocally said yes to supporting the arena.

Question: Who was it? This story has the answer.

Which famous person’s home are these women standing in front of? And where in Philadelphia is this?

📮 If you think you know, email me back. You and your memories of this spot might be featured in the newsletter.

We could all use a little silliness in our lives, so this week, I’ll leave you with the results of a pretty ridiculous study from Hovia, a wallpaper company based in England. It used information from Zillow to figure out how much homes in your favorite animated show would cost in real life.

The Simpsons’ home: $458,730

Fred and Wilma’s home on The Flintstones: $300,000

The Griffins’ home on Family Guy: $357,958

The Hills’ home on King of the Hill: $382,781

The Reads’ home on Arthur: $141,863

Confuse and charm your friends by bringing this up in conversation. And enjoy the rest of your week.