Two educators bought in East Mount Airy with $9,600 from a redlining settlement | How I Bought This House
A teacher and a school counselor qualified for the savings because they purchased a home in an eligible census tract.
The buyers: Carly Cawley, 31, elementary school counselor at Kirkbride School, and Emmett Cawley, 30, high school English teacher at Girard College
The house: A 1,252-square-foot rowhouse in East Mount Airy with three bedrooms and two baths built in 1925
The price: Listed for $324,999; purchased for $320,000
The agent: Alison Simon, KW Empower
The ask: When the ceiling on their West Philly apartment caved in and mold started to spread in fall 2023, the Cawleys decided to see if they could buy their own place. Emmett enjoyed home repair, but it didn’t make sense to pour energy into a property even his landlord didn’t care about.
He and Carly sought a house with outdoor space, at least another half-bathroom, and a finished basement where he could play the drums. They were also ready to try a different, less dense neighborhood.
“I know this sounds cheesy, but I really missed seeing the stars,” Carly said.
The search: They narrowed their search to Mount Airy, Germantown, and Manayunk, all relatively green parts of the city accessible by Regional Rail.
Their real estate agent said they had everything they needed to buy a house — but not to win a bidding war. She advised them which houses to pursue, avoiding those that were too competitive.
Initially the couple looked at houses that were cheaper upfront but would have required a lot of work because Emmett was eager to take on a project. The very top of their budget was $400,000.
The appeal: The Cawleys fell in love with a spacious three-bedroom in West Oak Lane with original parquet floors.
They put in an offer, but the inspection revealed that someone had recently poured gallons of paint down the utility sink, clogging the sewer line. When the owners refused to fix the issue, the Cawleys pulled their offer.
“We were feeling a little bit discouraged,” Carly said.
Then their agent urged them to visit three houses on an East Mount Airy block that met much of their criteria. The first was falling apart, and the second had been badly flipped. In a Goldilocks turn, the third felt just right.
The kitchen had already been redone, with brand new appliances. The house had central air and was within walking distance to the shops and restaurants on Germantown Avenue. It got lots of sunlight. And there was a finished basement with a full bathroom.
The deal: The inspection found only small problems. The porch railing needed to be fixed and railings needed to be installed on the basement stairs. The locks weren’t up to code, and there were some small cracks in the retaining wall. The Cawleys opted to fix the locks and other small items themselves.
The money: After COVID, the Cawleys had less than a month’s rent left in their savings account because Emmett had been laid off and Carly was in graduate school. They had slowly built the money back over three years, aiming to buy a house one day. When they settled on the East Mount Airy home, they put $10,000 into escrow.
They secured a $16,000 loan through the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. They also received $9,600 from their lender, Prosperity Home Mortgage. That money was the result of a redlining settlement Trident Mortgage Co., formerly one of the city’s top lenders, reached with the Department of Justice in 2022, after federal officials said lenders had actively avoided providing loans in Black and Latino neighborhoods between 2015 and 2019. Trident no longer offers loans, so the money is made available through Prosperity.
The settlement is meant to reach Philadelphia’s communities of color and neighborhoods that were harmed by racist lending practices; the Cawleys qualified because they purchased in an eligible census tract.
The down payment for their house was $16,000, and the closing costs were $12,663.
With a 6.6% mortgage rate, the Cawleys now pay $2,433 per month.
The move: The closing date kept getting pushed back, so the Cawleys moved out of their West Philly apartment before they were able to move into their new house. For a week, all their possessions sat in a U-Haul parked outside of Emmett’s parents’ house in Mount Airy.
When they finally closed on the last day of July 2024, their agent asked how they planned to celebrate.
“We’re going to go move in,” Carly recalled saying. “Everything we own is in a van right now. We gotta go.”
Life after close: Because the house didn’t need major work, Emmett was able to take on fun DIY projects. He built bookshelves in the living room and garden beds out front. He knocked down a wall in the basement to let in more light and assembled his drums.
“Childhood Emmett is really pretty stoked about the basement set up right now,” he said.
The couple set up a nursery for their first child, born in April, and are currently drawing up plans to build a back deck.
They love that the block is full of other teachers, who wind down on their porches after school.
There are still a few pain points. There is not much outdoor space, though the house is within walking distance to three parks. The city is responsible for maintaining the shared back alley, where there are cracked walls and overgrown bushes. Carly still dreams of an en suite bathroom in the primary bedroom — and maybe she’ll find a house that has that one day.
“The house we bought may not be the dream home I pictured myself in forever,” Carly said, “but our house is my dream home for this current version of us.”
Did you recently buy a home in the Philadelphia area or South Jersey? Share the story of how you did it. Email Inquirer real estate reporters at properties@inquirer.com.
How I Bought This House
