I’ve been keeping a secret under wraps for roughly a month—and I’m excited to finally share the details.

We took a big leap of faith and bought a new home in Phoenix, Arizona.

Last year my husband and I started to look seriously into this endeavor and there were challenges along the way. A home located on 1/3 of an acre enticed us to consider giving up our lower mortgage rate in favor of more space. The backyard was exactly what we were craving after being in such close quarters with neighbors for decades. The listing photos were good: the house was spacious, the yard enough of a clean slate for our own vision, and sufficient parking. Once inside, we saw the house was a bit grimy and the homeowners crammed every nook and cranny with their stuff so we could not see if the house itself was in good shape and just needed a thorough cleaning. We gave up on our dream backyard and instead considered putting an offer on a less desirable lot for a home with a beautiful kitchen for home chefs like us in a nearby neighborhood that was move-in ready. After consulting with our lender, I realized the pay cut I took when switching federal jobs put us in a difficult position to swing that mortgage payment. Our realtor, Jessica Smith, from Retro Real Estate took our disappointment in stride and we discussed getting back in touch once a promotion came through. Luckily, it was only a matter of months to move up in my career and then we resumed our search with her. I was drawn to how she did not rush us to make a purchase and instead wanted to ensure we found a home that fit us, knowing it was important that we’d be happy with our purchasing decision.

For the time I was waiting on a promotion, we continued to keep an eye on home listings around the $395,000 to $550,000 price range. There were other listings under this price point that I liked except for the fact the homes only had a single bathroom. We’d go back and forth on single family homes versus townhomes/condos. The latter often had community features we liked, but the big drawback to many came in the form of either single stall garages without driveways for other vehicles or high HOA fees. I felt we could tolerate a two-bedroom house or townhome, as my original goal was to downsize on square footage. The feature we did not want to compromise on was total number of bathrooms. We’ve enjoyed having two bathrooms in our residences since approximately 2007 and it’s not something we wanted to give up. For our home search, the original search parameter included Chandler, Tempe, and Phoenix. I saved 44 listings with each home’s best feature as my inspiration for comparison purposes. Sometimes, it was a wraparound front porch that caught my eye and made me think of my favorite tv home (Lorelai Gilmore’s house in “Gilmore Girls”, other times it was a swimming pool in the backyard (perfect for our hot summers), a vintage style fireplace for cozy fall and winter nights spent indoors, and one home even had clerestory windows, which are among my favorite architectural details.

What We Saw Versus What We Bought

As a bit of background, my husband and I first came across Retro Real Estate through Instagram. What started as fun looking at several older properties through their social media made it easier to later decide we wanted to work with this agency. The agency’s focus on explaining different eras of home building and the communities the homes were in helped put me at ease over leaving Gilbert, Arizona. We settled into Gilbert in 2015 and for many years, I never imagined I’d live anywhere else. I first fell in love with the community based on the Agritopia neighborhood and flocked as well to the Riparian Preserve for family walks. In downtown Gilbert, I found some of the best cakes at Romero’s Euro Cafe. For a short part of my career, I also worked at ASU’s Polytechnic campus a short drive away in Mesa and loved watching quail wander around the desert-centric campus and being surprised by a roadrunner on an occasional basis.

As our careers shifted over the years, it became apparent to grow professionally we’d see our best career roles in Phoenix and yet, we still stayed in Gilbert and endured a longer commute to stay put. We bought our first home (just under 1,300 square feet) in 2016 and later upgraded on home square footage and lot size in 2020. Our career journeys plus four years being stuck in our pandemic home helped push along my itch to move. To help ensure we did not constrict our home search too much, we kept the criteria a bit basic. We wanted a 3 bedroom, 2 plus bathroom, and some covered parking. Our 2020 house was in a neighborhood with a community pool, but we did not feel it was a requirement to have a community pool again (or a pool on the property itself). I think it was a great choice especially considering the fact we only used the community pool twice last year. Something that we hoped to find was a gated community, but we were flexible on that criterion, too. From here, we saw maybe a total of 6 houses in May.

One of the best things we did during our search with Jessica was to was to narrow down where we wanted to live in the valley. That was probably more important than the actual interior of the home, which could be fixed with time and effort. The new place needed to hit where we wanted to live, work, and dine out. We ultimately decided we wanted more privacy and quiet, so Tempe was out. I used to also work at ASU’s Tempe campus and being close to Arizona State University would likely mean at some point we’d have college student neighbors and/or be bothered by the extra vehicular and pedestrian traffic close to the campus itself and Mill Avenue. The homes I liked most in Chandler did not reduce our commute to a point where it would be worth taking on a higher mortgage, so I looked further into Ahwatukee and then I had a good laugh because all the homes I liked most were in 55+ communities. (I’m only 40, so it’s a few more years before I can live in any of those neighborhoods.) Phoenix spans a pretty good distance from the north along E. Carefree Highway to the 202 at the south, and I loved how different the neighborhoods were compared to Gilbert. I can drive by rather rural or low density neighborhoods all the way through modern tightly packed apartment complexes and see historic homes when I have to commute. There are some mountain views in the upper and southern parts of Phoenix, too. Now that we’re also on the other side of the valley, we’ve opened up a slew of new restaurants to frequent. Ahead of our move, we enjoyed dinner at Hana Japanese Eatery in Phoenix and Mimi Forno Italiano in Laveen Village. After being drained by the two-day move, we opted for some ultimate comfort food, trying out fried chicken, fried okra, and a bucket of fries from Harold’s Chicken Shack in Phoenix.

The homes we looked at varied between one built in the 1950’s all the way through a 2023 property and our realtor took the time to point out pros and cons of each property, so we weren’t looking at places through rose-colored glasses. It was good to have someone unbiased in the property search, because I can get anxious about losing out on a property to someone else and ignore things that would later bother me as an occupant of the home. Not only can a realtor point out those things, but they have knowledge about larger picture issues. For those not aware, there was a substantial real estate lawsuit settled recently and although it has been common practice for sellers to pay both the seller’s agent commission and buyer’s agent commission, mid-July 2024 is the turning point to where that’s no longer part of the advertising process. My husband and I were already aware of it from the news and hadn’t thought it would impact our search that much, but Jessica was upfront about it when we were looking at the pool property and had to let us know the sellers didn’t want to pay the buyer’s agent commission.

In our case, we were using a Veterans Affairs (VA) backed home loan. Not all sellers are keen on VA loans. For years, the VA did not allow veterans to pay the buyer’s agent commission. Starting August 10^th, they will allow veteran buyers to do so that way they are competitive with other buyers and not unduly harmed by market changes. There wasn’t much issue for us leaving that pool property as a standby to see if that would sway the owners to change their position; it was a nice looking house inside, but we knew there was a good chance another suitable property would come up. I am also grateful there were more home opportunities this year around compared to how many sellers in our price range were willing to accept a VA-backed loan in 2016. I can only recall about 4 listings that indicated they accepted VA loans and we toured all of them. The pool of options available to us in 2024 gave us more freedom to be more particular although we keep our criteria to a minimum. Jessica also recommended seeing no more than 5 properties at a time because they can blur together and it was the kind of advice we needed to hear. Slowing down our approach allowed us to walk through the properties with a critical eye to try and imagine ourselves living there. Other than that pool house, no other sellers seemed intent on paying only the seller’s agent fee and due to that, we just focused on what homes did or did not have that suited us.

We knew from experience to disregard a home owner’s design choices and personal photos; seeing past these issues, we focused on the home’s layout, how community parking would impact having guests over, and how the homes’ conditions could reduce our risk of being a drain on our finances compared to other fixer upper properties. Removing some properties from our list of options was a bit harder for me than my husband as friends shared a Moon Valley property with great bones that was woefully outdated. Every room would have been a project and the was the added risk the plumbing or HVAC needed addressing, too, making it not worth the risk. We missed out on being super close to these guys, but our friendship has survived a longer drive and I thanked them for trying to help us in our search.

From the ones we toured, it was easier to discover right away what wouldn’t work. A 1,400 square foot home sounded ok due to the oversized yard until we saw the outdoor space lacked any privacy based on two story homes surrounding it and the kitchen was apartment-sized. The 1950’s home, the smallest we considered, had the most interesting updates inside, but the home across the street was an eyesore we did not want to look at and we had concerns regarding whether the single carport was built to code. The newest home ticked a lot of our needs although street parking was tight. We also weren’t comfortable with the the door to the backyard space being right next to the master bedroom and the master closet was too small to fit both our wardrobes. Ultimately, we lucked out and found our dream home in the neighborhood which had the 1/3 acre property we saw last year. The new home was not only in better shape than its counterpart, it also boasted a better view and had some landscaping in the form of citrus trees.

Selling Amid Market Changes

Because our early leg of home searching with Retro Real Estate was so positive, even with our purchasing delay, we decided to also work with the agency on listing our Gilbert property. John O’Hagan took on this role for us and there was never a 100% handoff. We became a team: my husband, myself, Jessica, John, and later, the listing photographer, William. Our symbiotic relationship developed organically. Hosting Jessica and John over to our Gilbert house to discuss the state of the property, we we went over selling expectations from their perspective and ours, how decluttering helps during the selling process, and detouring our conversation a bit towards our shared love of dogs felt as natural as talking to a few close friends about our moving journey. To help ensure the Gilbert house looked its best, we were coached to pare down our personal possessions. Taking down other personal photos at John’s recommendation was a small inconvenience and after receiving a list of comparable houses, we packed up more things to ready the house for its listing photos. By the time I met with William, there was a very little I needed to do so he could photograph the home in a timely manner. The amount of work for everyone in a short window of time required everyone doing their part, and I couldn’t be happier with the professionalism shown by this team. We were always informed promptly of changes or delays and never felt it was awkward to ask questions as part of advocating for ourselves against prospective buyers’ wants and needs.

To give you an idea of how short a window we all worked within, after completed the other steps mentioned above over a few weeks’ time, we first signed our listing documents on June 7^th and listed the house June 14^th. Along the way to drafting the MLS profile, Jessica and I kept in touch to ensure the right boxes were checked off (type of flooring, updates, etc.). The suggested home price came from comparable homes (comps) both within and a short distance away from the neighborhood we were in. Our property appreciated well over the past four years although I did learn—we all do learn the hard way, don’t we?!—that our selected upgrades did not garner the same return as I might have expected compared to other homes that retained builder finishes. (More on that in a minute.) Finding the right team to work through the process was more important this time compared to being a first-time buyer and not having as much at stake financially. Our first home cost us $172,000. For the years we lived there, our updates only came from basic selections available through Home Depot and IKEA. I think at most we paid about $2,000 for indoor storage updates and sold the home with the fridge and the eat-in kitchen’s island dining table with storage shelves. We paid roughly $5,000 to professionally paint the two-story exterior after getting a nasty gram from the HOA about the worn paint, otherwise we would have waited longer to paint. We sold that home for $240,000 and used proceeds to make a few of the updates to what became our pandemic residence. With the 2024 listing, we wanted a timely sale and made that a goal from the very beginning. It wasn’t our intent to sell our home for top dollar, although that would have been nice. We did not want to float two mortgages. The home was listed on a Friday, we got an offer that evening, worked through some counter offers with a final price accepted on Sunday. Retro Real Estate was key to our success. My husband and I lack the experience to successfully pull off a “For Sale By Owner” listing and likely we would have overpriced the home, delaying a sale. While the home sale is not yet finalized, it will sell before we have two mortgage payments due. Goal (almost) accomplished.

Our Journey with Home Updates

Originally, we wanted to put some of the first home’s proceeds towards a trip to Hawaii and instead found ourselves doing one home update after another. The pandemic hitting in March of 2020 delayed our travel goal and we soon found ourselves, like other Americans, dumping more money into our home to make it a comfortable place to live and work. The only project we initially expected to do right away was clean the home’s carpet. When we moved in, it had an awful smell. What we assumed was a litter box odor when we visited during an open house turned out to be carpet ruined by pet urine. The thousand dollars or so we spent cleaning the carpet barely did a thing. The 2020 estimate to remove the damaged floors, cut into the baseboards to install hardwoods, the French oak flooring, and labor tallied approximately $17,000, covering the upstairs flooring and the staircase. Because the update did not translate into a higher asking price than our comps, I try to remind myself the updates, like this one, were for us to enjoy—and we did enjoy them. This one translates to about $11.64 of enjoyment. Our 2020 backyard estimate was $5,510 to add a metal privacy screen, extend pavers on the patio and out through our back gate to the alley, and remove the plant material and rocks to install pea gravel. We spent more than this amount as roughly a year and a half later to remove the pea gravel—it got everywhere when the dogs played—and professional install pet grade artificial turf. Given the later update, the minimum amount we paid per day to enjoy the backyard update was $3.77. Hawaii kept getting put on the back burner as the pandemic lingered and Hawaii was hit or miss as far as being opened to tourists. We made time for other travel adventures, but we found ourselves with other unexpected home projects on our plates, too.

There were two big updates that did not come out of the first home proceeds, the dishwasher and the hot water heater, plus other smaller projects to undo the bad decision by the first owners to put artificial turf in the garage and add more storage and make the home further pet friendly. Both appliances failed over time; I am not sure why the dishwasher broke since it wasn’t too old and the water softener made our water heater more susceptible to issues. I covered the dishwasher replacement through paid out annual leave and sick leave after leaving Social Security Administration. The brand we went with cost $3,000, including labor. The water heater was $2,700 with labor, including a lifetime service plan that we transferred to our new home.  Those two replacements were only done last year so our cost to enjoy was about $15.61 per day. The custom dog door was around $900, and we spent maybe $1,000 for upper garage storage racks. Both of those were installed in 2020 allowing us to enjoy those for $1.30 a day. The garage on the other hand was a design choice due to the old owners’ home-based fitness business and it was ugly and gross smelling when the artificial turf got wet. The garage project costs us more in manpower to remove the artificial turf than did renting a floor scraper from Home Depot (about $115) and I am glad we held off on new epoxy floors after seeing the other improvement projects did not bump up our listing price in a measurable way. Instead, these options contributed to a faster sell, which is still important to learn from. Knowing what I know now and having seen that we bought a house every four years and could see ourselves in that boat again down the road, I will be more cautious about what projects we take on with the new home.

I would like to spend our upcoming home proceeds a little more towards other goals, like retirement and travel, but there are additional expenses for the new home to consider. We’ve already purchased new weather stripping, have priced out landscaping maintenance, and scheduled for a replacement side garage door. The latter has suffered years of water damage and has severe rot, but we negotiated a seller concession that reduced the asking price of the home to cover the replacement cost as best as possible. We opted for a higher quality steel door since Arizona has monsoon rains to contend with on a yearly basis. The fridge and washing machine negotiated with the home sale also do not work well although these issues did not show up on the home inspection. We are waiting on our replacement items to come in this week and even with these unexpected challenges, I would still encourage any prospective homeowners to not forgo a home inspection. If are you worried about your home offer looking less appealing compared to others, I would recommend shortening your inspection period. Ours was ten days for the home we bought, but the people who placed an offer on the home we’re selling presented us with a seven-day window.

I want to say I found my dream kitchen. There is space for how we cook, space to bake, and host people.

Taking inspiration from designer Vern Yip’s idea that our homes should feel like vacation spaces we get to enjoy daily, I feel this home is the whole package inside and out. Now it’s just a matter of time to use what we’ve been gifted through our hard work to make this home purchase the place of our dreams. It has the footprint for how we entertain, mature trees that bring color and interest to our outdoor haven, and is located in the type of quiet neighborhood we never thought of when we we thought of ‘Phoenix’ years ago. Even with our current triple digit temperatures, I am taking every chance to enjoy our backyard views and morning and evening walks to soak in the beauty of our new community. I have some further off dreams of adding professionally framed photos honoring my time serving in Iraq and other touches to celebrate my love of Islamic architecture, the beautiful colors I’ve seen from documentaries on Morocco, and my childhood love of Egypt, which I still hope to visit some day.

And maybe, just maybe, next year will be the year we finally make those Hawaii dreams come true, too. If you’ve got some recommendations on where to go, I’d love to hear them.

~Cheryl