The buyers: Valerie Rossi, 40, healthcare consultant

The house: a 2,056-square-foot home in Cherry Hill with four bedrooms and three baths, built in 1957.

The price: listed for $435,000; purchased for $445,000

The agent: Jen Gabel, OCF Realty

The ask: In early 2024, Valerie Rossi found herself at a crossroads. Her Jersey City condo, which she bought in 2020 with a favorable 2.7% mortgage rate, had become a financial burden as property taxes soared to nearly $10,000. There was drama with her homeowners association (HOA) and her mom had recently become ill. It was enough to prompt Rossi to move to Philadelphia, where property taxes were lower, and her family was nearby.

She rented in the city for a year while she weighed whether to move to the suburbs. “I didn’t really want to be in a rowhouse with no backyard for my dog,” Rossi said. In the fall of 2025, she started her search across the Delaware River in her hometown of Cherry Hill.

She wanted a house with character, outdoor space for her Chihuahua, Luna, and a garage. “A basement was a bonus,” she said. An HOA was a deal-breaker.

The search: Once Rossi got serious, the search became a part-time job. “I spent my life on Zillow,” she said. She and her agent looked at more than 30 houses over roughly three months, usually spending both days each weekend touring homes. Rossi made five offers. None stuck.

Her first offer was outbid by an all-cash buyer. The second one, she withdrew after discovering the house came with a $30,000 solar panel loan she’d have to take on. The third place was a recently renovated home, but it lacked a dishwasher, which ultimately was a deal-breaker. A fourth seller wanted her to agree to an information-only inspection. “I would have to be OK with things not being OK,” said Rossi. Then there was a house in Collingswood that she loved, only to learn after making an offer that she would need flood insurance.

By December, Rossi was cooked. She told her agent she needed to take a break and prepared to re-sign her lease.

“I just did not want to jump into something … that wasn’t going to work for me,” Rossi explained.

Then, less than a week after she paused her search, a house she‘d considered before came back on the market. A friend had sent it to her months earlier, but it had gone under contract almost immediately. “I was like, ‘Why does that look familiar?’” Rossi said. She went to see it the very next evening.

Even in the dark, she could tell it was the one.

The appeal: The house was near shopping, PATCO, and I-295. It’s only 20 minutes from Philly, which Rossi says made the leap to the suburbs less daunting.

Rossi also liked that the house wasn’t huge, but it gave her room to grow. It had a fenced yard for Luna, and a garage. It had been well maintained, even if it needed cosmetic updates.

“The biggest thing I love is actually the fireplace,” Rossi said.

The brick fireplace, with its brown mantel, gave the room exactly the kind of warmth and character she had been looking for. “It’s very cozy,” Rossi said.

The deal: The house was listed for $435,000. Rossi offered $445,000 with a 30-day close. She bid over the asking price because the house seemed popular.

“The night I came to see it, it was dark, but there was somebody right after me waiting outside,” she said.

The sellers didn’t accept right away. Instead, they held an open house the following weekend and asked for best and final offers that Monday. Rossi did not raise her price. She looked at another place in a nearby town, but her heart was set on the Cherry Hill house.

“I really hoped I would get it,” Rossi said.

And she did. After the open house, the sellers accepted her offer. “They just wanted to make me sweat for a minute,” Rossi said.

The money: Rossi put 10% down — $44,500. The money came from the sale of her Jersey City condo, which she bought for $430,000 and sold for $489,000 four years later. She parked the proceeds in a high-yield savings account for the year and a half that she rented in Philly. The money from the condo sale also covered her closing costs, which Rossi said were “close to $15,000.”

The move: Rossi closed Jan. 9, and moved in on Jan. 24, just before the big snowstorm. Pineapple Movers handled the job in the bitter cold.

“It was negative degrees out when they were moving me,” she said. Still, the move itself was smooth. “They were in and out in three hours.“

The painful part came the next day when she saw her new double driveway blanketed in 10 inches of snow. “I was like, ‘Oh boy, what am I gonna do with this?” Rossi said. She ended up shoveling most of it herself, while a neighbor with a snowblower plowed her sidewalk.

Any reservations? Rossi knew from the start that she wanted to make changes to the house, but she regrets how quickly she tried to tackle them.

“I should’ve sat for a little bit longer and prioritized things,” she said, “instead of rushing to do everything at once.”

She also wishes she had gotten the work done before she moved in. Living in the house while the contractors were there was “very stressful,” she said. “There was dust everywhere and stuff everywhere. I felt like I was cleaning all the time.”

Life after close: The upside of all that work right away, though, is that Rossi’s house already feels like hers. The contractors painted several rooms, including the family room, entryway, kitchen, and bathrooms. They also added recessed lighting in the family room, updated the entry light fixtures, replaced old switches, and swapped in matte black hardware, which Rossi loves. “Everything is coming together,” she said.

Up next is the backyard, but she isn’t in a rush. “I don’t need to be making 20,000 lists,” she said, laughing. “I need to take a step back.”