Technically, they weren’t even looking. Ted and Nicole Wheeler had moved into their Omaha home with their family ten years earlier and had no intention of leaving.

They had found that home fast, by necessity, after accepting an offer on their previous home. With a 30-day timeline looming, they focused their search within the tree-lined historic neighborhood defined by four-acre Central Park, which came with a highly rated school district, too.

“We’d always wanted to live in this neighborhood,” Ted says. The home they found was just their style and offered enough space for them and their two young girls. “It fit the metric, and we felt good there.”

Considering a New Chapter

Among the many things they appreciated were the pleasant walks waiting out their front door. During an amble last spring, Ted spied a “For Sale” sign amid the century-old homes on one of his favorite quiet streets, not two blocks from the park. “It was a kind of stately brick house, three stories; and from the curb, it just looked like that vision of what makes a nice old house,” Ted says.

He told Nicole about it, and they got to thinking. It’d been a decade since their hurried move, so they’d built up some equity. They both made more money now, too. Plus, the street they lived on was loud and busy.

And they had to admit, things did feel a little cramped. “It made sense when we had toddlers and we needed to be really close to them, but now we have teenagers who don’t really want to be that close to us,” Ted laughs.

It didn’t help that ever since the pandemic hit, both adults primarily worked from home. Nicole, a product manager, needed their shared office space for her many meetings, while Ted, a novelist and English professor, tended to shift between the dining room and couch.

Ted kept finding himself on that quiet street, the “For Sale” sign still in place. It seemed like, well. A sign.

Room to Grow

The Wheelers decided to reach out to Cathy Hirsch, a Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate agent they were already acquainted with. They made it clear: They were not looking to buy. They were simply interested in checking out a certain nearby house. “We just wanted to see what it was like inside,” Ted says. “But once we did, it escalated.”

They looked around, imagining how life might unfold within all that decadent space, and the reality of a potential move took firm root. Room for multiple cooks in the kitchen, and plenty of space to entertain. His and hers offices. A bathroom for each family member. A basement hangout for the kids. That quiet street out front, plus the park waiting down the street. And all still in their favorite neighborhood, less than a mile from their current home.

Out of due diligence, they asked Hirsch to show them a few more homes, both of which only confirmed their gut instincts. A week after first stepping foot in the stately three-story brick house, they wrote up their offer, just under the asking price, and it was accepted.

Selling the Starter Home

While they’d accidentally found their dream home, the Wheelers had yet to sell the beloved one they already owned—the reverse situation as the time before.

Hirsch had connected the Wheelers to her recommended mortgage broker, who suggested a bridge loan; a short-term loan meant only to bridge the time gap in this very situation. This allowed them to move out of their existing home before listing it, which removed the stress of stashing things and scrambling to leave home during showings, and allowed Hirsch to stage it, too.

In the end, it was a short bridge. The home had an offer within hours of listing, multiple within the first few days, and a winning bid within a week.

Even with that anomaly, the loan process felt smooth. “Having done it a few times, we knew what to expect and what we needed to provide,” Ted says. “And being at this stage of life where we’re a little more secure in our jobs and have equity, things just felt a lot easier.”

They did have to give up their former home’s ultra-low mortgage rate, though that’s not something the Wheelers dwell on. “As an investment, we’re paying a little bit more, so maybe that’s less. But the human side of it is that we get to live in the house that we wanted,” Ted says. “It felt pretty lucky to be able to do that.”

And so they settled in by early summer, not three months after Ted first spied the “For Sale” sign. He calls it a “recalibration,” the physical and experiential upgrade they didn’t know they needed, within a neighborhood they already loved. Ted deeply appreciates working from his third-floor office, where he opens the windows and looks out onto the quiet street. “I just kind of pinch myself sometimes,” he says. “It’s the kind of house that I always dreamed of living in someday.”