A home-buying help story inspired by a reader | Real Estate Newsletter

In this newsletter last month, I asked for your tips for first-time home buyers. One new homeowner told me how much help she’d gotten from her labor union.

That led to one of my latest stories about how local unions are helping members buy homes.

Keep scrolling for that story and to find out why single-family home builders locally and nationally are optimistic about 2024, learn the most illuminating and infuriating takeaways from The Inquirer’s yearlong investigation into home construction oversight in Philly, and peek inside an expanded stone farmhouse in Bucks County.

📮 Let’s take a poll: If you had a choice between a house made of stone and one made with bricks, which would you pick? (We’ll skip straw and stick options.) For a chance to be featured in my newsletter, email me.

— Michaelle Bond

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Last year was a big one for unions in our region. You may remember some of the many workplace strikes. And we now have a bunch of new unions.

To sell members on the value of a union card, local organizations are doing more than pushing for higher wages and defending workers at risk of being fired. Many are offering benefits that touch on members’ lives outside of work.

That includes helping with the biggest purchase of most members’ lives: their homes. Assistance is especially helpful now, since home prices keep rising and wages aren’t keeping up.

Shout out to newsletter reader Latisha Thompson for telling me how she got help through the American Federation of Government Employees. With elevated mortgage interest rates and high home prices this fall, Thompson told me, “I was honestly looking for just any route of relief.”

Keep reading to see how local unions are helping members buy homes.

The pandemic wasn’t an easy time to be a home builder. Even after Pennsylvania let construction restart, building materials got more expensive and harder to get. And then mortgage interest rates shot up in 2022.

Some potential home buyers couldn’t afford to buy anymore, but builders still saw demand for new homes. Several builders in the Philly area told me that 2023 was a good year for them. And they’re excited about 2024.

A builder in Gloucester County said he expects activity to double this year compared to last year.

Nationally, builders’ confidence in the new single-family home market rose in January. And builders here in the northeastern region of the country are most confident.

Builders still face long-term challenges, such as shortages of both workers and land on which to build. But the pep in builders’ step is mostly thanks to lower mortgage interest rates.

Jim Martin is a contractor. And it’s a good thing he is.

The farmhouse that he and his wife, Connie, bought a few decades ago was built in 1753 and had good bones and stone that was in good shape. But it needed lots of work. As Jim said, “there was nothing working.”

They had to dig into 18 inches of stone between additions to update electrical systems. They needed to replace the boiler. And they had to remove the shingled roof and a colony of bats living on the third floor.

They’ve built an addition, enclosed the original front porch, and added a deck.

“It’s been a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and bandaged thumbs,” Connie said.

They even turned the house around, making what used to be the back into the front.

Keep reading to see how the Martins turned a square box into a 3,600-square-foot home.

A news organization run by college students is turning a house in University City into its new high-tech home. Its fundraising affiliate paid $1.7 million for the six-bedroom rowhouse — the last house standing on a block now filled with high-rise apartment towers.

Question: Which famous person once lived in the home as a student?

A) John Legend

B) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

C) Warren Buffett

D) Elon Musk

This story has the answer.

Do you know the Center City location this photo shows?

📮 If you think you do, email me back.

Shout out to Lars W., Tim G., Eileen O.B., and Sean K., who knew that last week’s photo showed the Chief Tamanend statue at Front and Market Streets. You can read my colleague Frank Kummer’s story on a proposal to move the statue.

Eileen told me she lives in an apartment nearby and often sees people sleeping at the statue’s base.

Last week, I asked for your opinions on whether residential lawns are worth the upkeep.

Regina S. in West Deptford told me:

“I think that lawns are great for playing on. Lawns keep dirt down and out of the house, and there is a certain beauty to the uniformity of a neighborhood with lawns. However, lawn care should change. Chemical weed and feed should be outlawed as they are in some countries. Native grasses, bushes and plants should be available, inexpensive and used. They are easier to care for, grow well in this area, and feed the local birds and other animals. We went native about 10 years ago, so far so good!”

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It’s 2024 and you don’t live in the middle of nowhere. So why can your cell phone reception still be so spotty?

My colleague Erin McCarthy talked to a local homeowner who owns an IT company and struggles to get cell service in and around his home. Another couple keeps their landline, because they can’t trust their cell phones to work at home. Erin gets into why “dead zones” still exist.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

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