Cheryl Smith and her family have \u201calways been very much Philly people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born and raised in South Philadelphia, Ms. Smith, 55, who works in the university architect\u2019s office at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent nearly all of her adult life on the city\u2019s north side. Over the years, she and her daughter, Dakota Foster, 30, who works in marketing, cycled through several apartments together, including a two-bedroom they shared for more than a decade in Mount Airy, a leafy Northwest Philadelphia neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Ms. Smith\u2019s mother, Barbara Smith, 73, who is retired, rented her own apartment nearby.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were always close, so we could see each other often even when we lived separately,\u201d Cheryl Smith said.<\/p>\n
Last fall, as they approached the end of their lease in Mount Airy, Cheryl and Dakota started thinking about a new apartment. Dakota joked that all three women could move in together \u2014 but it stuck.<\/p>\n
Cheryl said that as her mother aged, she felt \u201ca sense of responsibility\u201d to look out for her. \u201cAnd, economically, times aren\u2019t great either, so pooling resources made sense,\u201d she said. \u201cIt seemed like a really logical next step.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barbara Smith\u2019s lease was also set to expire, so the timing was right. If they could work out a financial arrangement, they\u2019d be able to buy their first family home. Hence, the plan: Cheryl would buy a new house in her name, handling the mortgage, taxes and insurance. She qualified for Pennsylvania\u2019s Keystone Forgivable in Ten Years Loan Program, which could cover the down payment. Barbara would pay for all the food and gas for the car. And Dakota would pay the electricity and water bills.<\/p>\n
With that settled, they figured they could spend up to about $400,000.<\/p>\n
Next, they needed to reconcile occasional divergent interests. \u201cShe was living by herself, so she was happy for the company,\u201d Cheryl said of her mother. \u201cWe were living together, so we were always like, \u2018OK, give me my alone time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Dakota, \u201cWe\u2019re all only-children, so we\u2019re very independent.\u201d<\/p>\n
That made space essential: A finished basement, a front porch and separate bathrooms for each of them were non-negotiable. A backyard would be nice, too. And they needed to be close to public transit. The family decided to stay in Philadelphia\u2019s northwest, zeroing in on neighboring Germantown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s diverse, it\u2019s quiet and I feel like there\u2019s more of a sense of community up here,\u201d Cheryl said.<\/p>\n
Their agent, Charlene Houston of Keller Williams Real Estate, said the family\u2019s somewhat narrow criteria helped speed up their search. \u201cThey were all on the same page,\u201d Ms. Houston said. \u201cMother, daughter, grandmother, you could tell they had all spoken\u201d about their priorities.<\/p>\n
Find out what happened next by answering these two questions:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cheryl Smith and her family have \u201calways been very much Philly people.\u201d Born and raised in South Philadelphia,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,5574,28220],"class_list":["post-244687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-pa","tag-real-estate-and-housing-residential"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}