Frank Ferritto moved back home with his parents after graduating from the Ohio State University. The financial adviser, who grew up in Mayfield Heights and Gates Mills, spent four years saving up money to buy his first home. After searching for about a year, Ferritto’s father and uncle found a plot of land in Mayfield Heights where they built a three-bedroom colonial. Today, the 26-year-old lives in a quiet neighborhood not far from his boyhood home with his girlfriend, Danielle Kavaras, and their golden retriever, Wilson.
My dad was, I guess you can say, a traditional Italian dad. He didn’t want me to get an apartment and pay rent because that was a waste of money.
I was ready to move out. Most of my friends were living downtown or in Lakewood.
The process of buying a house was overwhelming. Just so much went into it beyond the mortgage process. The time it took looking for the house and the time once the house was purchased.
It’s all been absolutely worth it so far.
My dad and my uncle are builders. They do three to five houses a year depending on how busy they get. They happened to stumble upon this lot. A lady had lived there and the house went into foreclosure.
The city knocked it down and the bank ended up just selling the lot as is. It’s pretty rare on some of those side streets in Mayfield Heights to find a lot at an affordable price. It just kind of worked out.
Mayfield Heights is just kind of the perfect little city. It’s affordable, taxes aren’t too high — you have everything you need there.
I lived there about six months on my own, and Danielle moved in, in the fall.
It feels like we are kind of growing up together.
Cutting the grass is therapeutic for me. But at the same time, when you get home on a Thursday from a busy week and the grass is high, it’s like the last thing you want to do.
My next big purchase is a grill. My plan is to put in a patio at some point within the next couple months, a grill and a patio.
Have some patience when looking for a house, and know that it will all work out in the end. You’re not going to get it all. But when it’s all said and done, and the dust settles, it will be exactly what you want and all worth it.
