After walking away during an inspection, she rebounded with a two-bedroom in Newbold | How I Bought This House

The buyers: Emily Miles, 34, lawyer

The house: A 784-square-foot rowhouse in Newbold with two bedrooms and one bath, built in 1920.

The price: Listed and purchased for $249,000

The agent: Alison Fegel, Philly Home Girls

The ask: The only good thing about Emily Miles’ old apartment was the price. Miles was making a “nonprofit lawyer salary” and trying to save money. But “it was terrible,” Miles said. Disgusting even. And by November 2024, she’d had enough.

Owning a home felt aspirational, if vague. “It was always something I wanted to do,” she said. “But I didn’t know when I’d be able to do it.”

It didn’t seem like the right time. Miles had student loans. She was bartending in the evenings to make ends meet. Nevertheless, she decided to check out the market and searched for an agent with grant experience. She kept her house wish list short: three bedrooms, outdoor space, and central heat and air.

The search: Miles had no sense of budget until her lender preapproved her for about $310,000. From there, her agent began sending her listings across the city, including large homes far from the neighborhoods Miles associated with Philadelphia.

“They were still in Philadelphia County, but not really Philly as you think of it,” Miles said. West Philadelphia, where she was living, was not affordable. Other neighborhoods lacked reliable transportation.

Between late November and January, Miles saw 30 to 40 homes. “They were a lot of flips, and I didn’t want that,” she said.

Eventually, Miles found a place and made an offer. But during the inspection, they discovered damage to the front door that indicated someone had kicked it in, and Miles decided to walk away. She was out $1,500. “My pride was hurt a little bit,” she said.

Miles took a brief break, then started attending open houses on her own. That’s how she found the one, a little less than a month after she backed out of the first house.

The appeal: The house Miles ultimately bought — a two-bedroom, one-bath, 780-square-foot rowhouse in South Philadelphia — checked none of her original boxes. “The big LOL about the whole thing is that I ended up with something I didn’t want at all,” she said. It had radiator heat. No air-conditioning. Less space than she planned. The house had been a rental for more than a decade. Carpet covered original features. Paint concealed years of wear. “It was a real landlord special,” Miles said. But when she stepped inside, something clicked. “I walked in, and I could see it,” she said. “It’s full of character.”

The deal: Miles stumbled into the house she would buy while walking to a bar with her boyfriend on a Friday night. The listing price was $249,900. She offered the asking price the following morning.

The seller took days to respond but eventually accepted her offer after no one else made a bid.

When the inspection revealed issues, Miles asked for $5,000 to $7,000 in credits. The seller countered with zero. “He redlined all my stuff,” she said. “So I re-redlined all of his stuff.” The back-and-forth ended with $2,000 in seller’s credit. “Which is better than zero,” Miles said. “I’m pretty proud of that.”

The money: Miles had about $20,000 saved from her time before law school, when she worked as a human resources manager in New York City. She had an additional $10,000 from the Philly First Home program, $2,000 from the seller’s credit, and $1,000 from her Realtor’s Building Equity program.

Her lender approved her to put down only 3%, so she made a $7,500 good-faith deposit and brought $1,500 to closing. Miles’ credit score and salary qualified her for a 5.75% interest rate at a time when average rates hovered closer to 7%.

Her monthly mortgage payment is about $1,800 and includes $120 for private mortgage insurance, which she must pay until she reaches 20%. She recently applied for a homestead exemption, which reduces the taxable portion of your house by $100,000 if you use it as your primary residence, and expects her monthly payment to drop closer to $1,700 as a result.

The move: Miles closed on March 19 and moved on April 29. She broke her lease without penalty. “I had been complaining about it being a bad apartment for months,” she said, “so I think they were just happy to be rid of me.”

Miles had to get rid of a lot of her stuff because her new house was so much smaller than her apartment. “I downsized quite significantly,” she said. She also discarded stuff that wouldn’t fit through the house’s small, 30-inch doorway, like her couch. “Luckily, I had some foresight and got rid of it before I moved it over,” she said.

Any reservations? Miles wishes she knew that refinished floors can take weeks to fully cure. She had to sleep on the living room floor while she waited for the fumes to fully dissipate upstairs. “It was just my cats and me on the ground for about a month,” she said. Still, she doesn’t have any regrets. “Live and learn,” she said.

Life after close: Miles used the money her parents had saved for her wedding to make a few cosmetic updates. She fixed the back patio, refurbished the upstairs floors, and replaced light fixtures and faucets so that the house felt less like a rental. She put in a new boiler, too. And filled the house with vintage furniture she thrifted locally. “Stuff that fits the vibe of the house,” she said.