Philly has potential model for veterans housing | Real Estate Newsletter

An apartment complex in the Frankford section of Philadelphia has a specific mission: support veterans while they support one another.

Veterans Village offers both homes that people can afford and a sense of community among its residents. The developer hopes it can become part of a national model for veterans housing.

Keep reading for that story and to meet a Philly developer who wants more families living in the city, take a quiz to test your knowledge of home buying and selling trends, and peek into a Bucks County home that the owners remodeled to look old.

📮 In today’s home tour, a couple split up rooms to decorate in their specific tastes. Have you done something similar? How’d it go? For a chance to be featured in my newsletter, email me.

— Michaelle Bond

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Vanessa Morbeck, a 32-year-old Army veteran, rents an apartment in Veterans Village and likes living in a community where residents have a common bond.

“As a veteran, there are places and situations and experiences that only we can understand because we’ve lived through it,” she said.

The apartment complex has given her stability as she deals with post-traumatic stress disorder and lives as a survivor of military sexual trauma, domestic violence, childhood abuse, and suicide.

And it’s a place where she’s renewing and strengthening her relationship with her 8-year-old daughter.

Another veteran who moved in last July offers support and welcome to his fellow residents. Of the communities’ 47 apartments, 31 are occupied.

Learn more about why the developer hopes the complex will be one of many Veterans Villages across the country.

We’ve all heard the traditional narrative: Most people with money leave cities for the suburbs when they start having children.

That thinking has translated into urban apartment buildings with smaller floor plans to cater more to households without kids.

We’ve written about Philadelphia’s lack of family-sized apartments.

A 37-year-old Philly-based developer who lives in Center City with his family of five says building more family-oriented apartments will keep more people in the city. And he says there’s a way for developers to do that while making money.

In this Q&A with my colleague Jake Blumgart, developer Bobby Fijan also shares why developers focus on studios and one-bedroom apartments and why offering more family-sized apartments matters.

Do you think you have a pretty good idea of what’s going on in the real estate market? Wanna check current stats before you get into another fight with a family member who hasn’t bought or sold a home in decades?

Test how much you know about buying and selling habits with a quiz that a colleague and I put together. (And then send it to that relative.)

Every year, the National Association of Realtors comes out with a report about who’s buying and selling homes and how they’re going about it. The national data give some insight into trends, consumer behavior, and what the industry can expect from the market.

And buyers and sellers can see how their experiences measure up with the typical buyer and seller nationally.

What was the typical down payment for a first-time buyer? How long did the typical seller live in their home before selling? Take the quiz to see how much you know about today’s buyers and sellers.

The “big white box” in a cul-de-sac in Bucks County was nothing like the three Victorian homes that Leon Liss had owned before. It fit his family’s needs, but it didn’t fit his style.

“So we decided to make a new house look old,” he said.

For the last 13 years, Liss has been adding old-world character to the family’s five-bedroom, 4,200-square-foot home.

He had the walls in the front living room painted to look like green-striped wallpaper. The room has a large French Gothic armoire, stained glass lamps, and a marble table.

Liss keeps his collection of antique glass and pottery in the dining room, which is painted red. Also in the room sits a squat piece of furniture that looks as if it would come to life in the Bucks County remake of Beauty and the Beast.

The ceiling of a sitting area upstairs is covered with decorative faux-tin tiles. A Spanish cabinet from the early 1900s hides a TV.

Liss knows the home is “perhaps not everyone’s taste,” but he and his wife made it distinctly theirs.

Peek inside and see how the couple, lovers of French culture, brought Paris to their basement.

A property in Chadds Ford that was once owned by the township’s founding family and was the home of artist N.C. Wyeth is up for sale. The seller hopes the buyer will preserve the house, which is on a 15-acre site where six to 12 single-family homes are allowed to be built.

Question: What book did Wyeth illustrate while living in this house?

A) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

B) Treasure Island

C) The Secret Garden

D) Peter Pan

This story has the answer.

Do you know the location this photo shows?

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

Last week, I asked for your best guess at the price of a three-bedroom, 2½-bathroom house on a large lot in Philly’s Port Richmond neighborhood that’s pending sale. Answer: The home is going for $300,000. That’s down from the home’s listing price of $315,000.

Shout out to Andrew H. who came the closest with his guess of $360,000.

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I’m crossing my fingers that Tuesday morning’s freak snowfall isn’t a sign of what we have coming to us this winter. Enjoy the rest of your week.

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