The perfect 2023 wedding gift? A home. | Real Estate Newsletter
And Philly owes homeowners ‘millions.’
Forget the toaster. More couples are using their wedding registries to ask for help paying for a house.
I’ve been to a bunch of weddings over the last few years (the latest is this Saturday), and those couples have had gift registries for things like pots and pans, towels, and kitchen tools.
Of course it’s not new for some wedding guests to give cash gifts. But as home ownership becomes less affordable, more couples are creating specific “home funds” on their registries, so family and friends can direct their gifts toward down payments on new homes.
Keep scrolling for that story and to see why the city owes lots of money to former homeowners, learn the result of a 20-year NIMBY battle in South Jersey, peek into a downsized Bucks apartment filled with artwork and heirlooms, and see where Pennsylvanians are moving.
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Both home prices and mortgage interest rates are way up, and it’s gotten harder for buyers to afford homes. That’s especially true for first-time buyers.
According to The Knot wedding website, one in five couples in Pennsylvania and New Jersey who use the platform are creating “home funds” on their registries, so friends and family can help pay the up-front costs of buying a home.
Over the last few years, The Knot has seen “explosive growth in how home funds are being utilized and perceived,” the platform’s deputy editor said.
I talked to three local couples with 2023 weddings who created home funds. One just closed on their first house this week thanks to the generosity of family and friends.
Keep reading for the couples’ stories in the context of the broader first-time home buying landscape.
When homeowners lose their home because of an unpaid mortgage and/or past-due taxes, the property can be sold through a sheriff’s sale. The former property owner is supposed to get whatever money is left once the bills get paid.
Pennsylvania law says sheriffs should return that money to people within 40 days of a sale. But the reality is that it can take Philadelphians years to recover funds from the city Sheriff’s Office.
My colleague William Bender writes that this problem goes back decades in Philly. He also tells the stories of people such as Phyllis West, who lost her North Philly home a few years ago after severe depression left her unable to pay her bills. She finally got the $23,111 she was owed last month — four years after her house was sold.
And that was only because she and her lawyer fought the city in court.
West’s lawyer knows of hundreds of cases of former homeowners not getting paid, and he says the city owes millions of dollars.
The latest news to pay attention to
After a 20-year NIMBY battle, Haddonfield is building its first-ever affordable townhouses for families.
Montgomery County has asked Norristown to delay demolition of a long-vacant but architecturally significant prison.
A food hall, a high-end restaurant, and a Brooklyn deli are coming to a Philly neighborhood that in the last five years has had 6,000 new homes permitted.
A developer’s plans for 245 apartments in North Philly are getting a chilly reception.
How Philly’s top commercial landlord is handling an office market that holds “a blend of danger and opportunity.”
This South Jersey architect became a green building pioneer, and new exhibits celebrate his work.
Another parking lot in this Philly neighborhood is set to become apartments.
House of the week: For $524,900 in Lansdowne, a six-bedroom Queen Anne Victorian home.
Before I read this story, I had never heard of the word griege. As you might be able to put together, it refers to a color in the gray-to-beige range. And now you can charm and/or annoy your friends and family by pulling it out all the time, because it’s everywhere.
It’s the color of the freshly painted walls of Kati Sowiak’s apartment in Newtown.
Sowiak had to downsize from a 3,353-square-foot, six-bedroom Victorian home where she and her husband lived with their children to a 975-square-foot apartment after the kids grew up and she and her husband divorced.
She’s managed to keep a lot of meaningful belongings with her.
Photos of zebras she took during an African safari sponsored by the Philadelphia Zoo hang in the studio loft. Between two windows hangs a portrait of Sowiak’s mother from when she was a model in Budapest, Hungary. Her family fled the country in the 1950s.
A portrait of Sowiak’s aunt, who was a baroness in Romania, hangs over Sowiak’s gold-and-red living room couch, which made the move from the Victorian house.
Peek into Sowiak’s apartment, where she found space for more artwork and heirlooms.
🧠 Trivia time
New Census Bureau data show that the number of Pennsylvanians moving to a certain state has grown steadily since 2010. But the number of residents in that state who relocate to Pennsylvania has stayed mostly flat.
Question: Which state are Pennsylvanians flocking to?
A) Delaware
B) New Jersey
C) Florida
D) Texas
This story has the answer.
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Here’s a fun fact for you: Real estate is the most popular investment in the United States. That’s according to a survey of 2,300 Americans commissioned by the trading platform FOREX.com.
Real estate outranks cryptocurrency, and it ranked as a top investment choice in 44 states. In the other six, residents are all about gold.
Enjoy the rest of your week.
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