This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Christina Sciblo, a 36-year-old content creator based in Atlantic County, New Jersey, who bought the home she previously rented with her partner and four children and immediately started renovations. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
We moved to New Jersey right as the pandemic began, in March 2020. We are both originally from this area, but we were in Pittsburgh for my partner’s job and were looking to come back to New Jersey.
My dad found this house — he knew my landlord because his girlfriend also was renting from him.
It’s 1,100 square feet, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms. I thought it was built in 1921, but it turns out it was actually built before then, so somewhere in the 1910s.
We had never rented a house, so it was appealing. Also, the rent was very cheap. We only paid $1,200 a month.
At the time we were a family of five; we had three kids. We found out that our kids would go to the same school that they had previously went to before we moved to Pittsburgh, so it was the perfect situation.
My dad FaceTimed us to show us the house. We did not get to see the house in person, but we knew it was old. We knew that it had ugly blue carpet, but we were OK with that because we just wanted to get back to New Jersey.
I knew that it needed a lot of work, but I saw the potential. It just felt like home.
I got a good deal on the house because it needed a lot of work
We had talked with our landlord very early on about whether he would ever sell the house, so it was always on the table.
The roof was a really big issue when we were renting. We had a big storm and shingles just flew off. You could find shingles all throughout our yard. My bedroom, specifically, got so many leaks after that.
I got tired of not being able to do what I wanted to do to a house because I was renting it. So I couldn’t wait to buy this house so that I could fix it how I wanted to.
[Ed note: Sciblo’s former landlord confirmed that the roof needed to be replaced, and said he offered the home to Sciblo “as-is.”]
In 2022, we started to get serious about buying the home, and he gave us a price of $125,000, which was very cheap even for the time, because he knew that it needed work. But, for us, it just wasn’t a good time.
In 2024, we needed more space, and we had to figure out, are we going to try to buy this house and make it ours and make it bigger, or are we going to move somewhere else?
We figured first, let’s try to see if we can make this work because we already know that he’s probably going to give us a deal.
After we got the inspection and some quotes, he wasn’t ready to give us a price — he wanted us to name a price. We kept going back and forth. Then, in January of 2025, he came over because there was a squirrel issue happening in our attic.
I asked if he ever figured out a price to sell, and he said $100,000. I was like, “Oh, really?”
I got a lawyer and we got the ball rolling after that. It took a few months, but in May of 2025, we made it official.
We fixed the roof within the first month of owning the home
The roof and the porch were the first two things that we tackled in renovations.
We got the roof done like two weeks after we purchased the home because I had already been getting quotes before the house was officially ours.
It looked so much better; I was relieved. I was so happy that it was finally done and that I got to pick what it looked like and who I hired to do it.
We had to make a few other changes, too. When we were cleaning out the basement, we took down a lot of the insulation and there was a big hole in the base by our washer and dryer — you could tell that there were mice coming in and I had no idea.
We had a humongous tree right next to our house, and I was worried about its branches falling in storms, so we finally got rid of that.
We plan on making this house work for us — that’s the mentality we had going into it. We plan on adding a 14-foot addition with another bedroom, another bathroom, and a bigger kitchen.
Homeownership was definitely always a goal for me. It had seemed unattainable with the prices of homes, so this house was really our only chance.
There’s no part of me that regrets buying instead of staying a renter. I’m very happy with my choice.
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