Perry & Tristan secure 1923 bungalow in 6 offer bidding war!

These purists care deeply for community – as dual educators they made conscious decision navigating ownership in South Minneapolis following a departure from a difficult region for educator affordability. Seattle was an exciting jaunt for them, however as covid set in they decided it was time to make the pilgrimage back to Minnesota. Perry grew up just south of Lake Harriet, and was fond for her childhood seasonality and getting back to family.

The boomerang buyers came early and often to the Midwest during the shutdown, as climate fluctuations and the work-from-home turbocharged the housing values pressed already expensive cities to the stratosphere.

Perry & Tristan conquered the Buying in Rare Form mentality of securing the best architecture possible in your budget.  They gave a ton of credit for the success of their outcome to the financial coaching from Paris, with Georgi assistant them in understanding the shelves of upside when it comes to price points.  

Perry’s advice for relocation buyers:  “if you can, travel to Minneapolis & take a day to literally drive/bike/walk down every block in your neighborhood of focus. We spent a full day just wandering the entire east side of South Minneapolis. It gave us a sense of place so when we did buy a house sight unseen, we at least knew what it felt like to spend time in the area.”

Closing day arrived & it was the first time they got to enter their newly acquired craftsman era bungalow. They packed a picnic, and soaked in the house for hours, beginning with art directing the color scheme and what outdone maintenance they planned to tackle immediately. The as-is surprise from 1923 was the badly corroded galvanized water lines to the upper bath: P & T enlisted the help of dad, who was pumped to replumb the shower supply lines.  

The owner of record attitude is already taking shape at 1923: detailed shaker cabinets scrubbed clean, grounded outlets installed, various lights replaced, painting of entire interior and replumbing the bath, Perry & Tristan really get the emotional experience of preservation we try to convey at RFP:

“Tristan and I have talked a lot in the past week about how good it feels to have a house that we really care about and want to invest time into improving and maintaining. That’s what drew us to Rare Form in the first place and why we tell everyone about it. Having a beautiful old house that needs a little love makes you feel more connected to the neighborhood and history of the place and it makes you want to preserve that connection. This is the first house we’ve owned, but I just don’t see how you could feel attached to something that isn’t as interesting and unique as an old house.”

Thoughts & purveyors recap from Tristan & Perry:

What to expect:
We really didn’t know what went into buying a house at all as first time homebuyers so went into the process pretty blind. In our first phone call with Georgi, I remember talking about different styles and essentially just saying “yes, we’re interested!” to every single one. Probably not so helpful for Georgi, but we really didn’t know yet! We had the added difficulty of buying from Seattle, meaning we did everything over phone calls and FaceTime tours. At the end of our first phone call Georgi said something like “when we know each other better and you trust me”, and Tristan and I truly looked at each other and were like, “I already trust Georgi! Are we supposed to need more time? Why?!”

Moral of the story:
Working with Georgi and Rare Form gave us so much confidence in a completely unknown process, even though we were doing it long distance. 

Best idea we had:
If you are in Minneapolis take a day and literally drive/bike/walk down every block you can!! We spent a full day just wandering the entire east side of Minneapolis. It gave us a sense of place so when we did buy a house sight unseen, we at least knew what it felt like to spend time in the area. 

Biggest learning experiences:
All.of.the.financial.stuff. 
There is SO MUCH that goes into buying a house and when you’re brand new to it you don’t even know what questions you’re supposed to be asking. Especially with moving and both of us changing jobs, we had to be careful about timing our search and closing dates so that if we found a house we loved we actually could put an offer in. It ended up working out (with a LOT of help and coaching from Paris & Georgi) but that process was definitely where we felt most in over our heads. Ask questions when you think of them and know that 100% of first time homebuyers are also so lost.

Post-closing:
Our closing day was also the first time we had seen the house in person. Scary! Exciting! We set the closing time early because we knew we’d want to just go and sit in the house a while and feel it out afterwards. After closing, bring a picnic, sit in an empty living room, and just take in your new house. We spent the time mostly talking about how crazy it was we own a house and what paint colors and projects we wanted to tackle first. 

We knew roughly what we wanted to do before we got in the house, but with a 98 year old house you never saw in person, there are also surprises. Mostly small things like tea pot contact paper on all the cupboards (honestly kinda cute, but so sticky) and closets that are just a tad spooky. But also bigger surprises like the bath/shower just barely dribbling out any water. Thankfully my dad got excited about the bath project and ended up doing a full rebuild of the shower plumbing. Things got messy, we called a lot of people for advice, and hopefully we don’t have to go into the crawl space again any time soon. Even though we didn’t know the shower specifically was going to be an issue, we felt really prepared for projects and the inevitable surprises because Georgi was so clear during our search process about the realities of owning an old house. It’s only been a week and a half and we’ve redone plumbing, painted every room but 2, learned how to install light fixtures and three prong outlets, scrubbed the sticky cabinets clean, and built new shelves for our spooky closets. It’s been awesome. Really.