Buying the Famous JettSet Farmhouse -Part 1

By: Becky Cummings

Who knew buying a Tik-Tok famous house was a thing?

As a 40-year old woman, I feel confident in the Facebook arena, I finally am getting the hang of Instagram, but when it came to Tik-Tok, I didn’t bother – that’s for the younger kids, or so I thought. Recently, I had to get on there because I discovered the house I was buying was famous on there. The owner, Noell Jett, known online as JettSetfarmhouse built up a following of over 3.5 million people, who have grown to adore her as they followed her journey from the ground up (which happens to be the title of her new book coming out 2022).

Now I did know of Noell and her farmhouse journey, you see I actually found her account on Instagram back in Fall of 2018 before I moved to St. Augustine. We owned a farmhouse in CT and I loved it so much I actually was looking for something similar in Florida. I couldn’t find much so I reached out to Noell to ask for advice.

“Hello. Saw your lovely home and noticed it was in the same area we are looking to move. I can’t seem to find any farm homes like this. Can you share what builder you are working with?” I messaged. I wasn’t sure if she’d even respond, sine at the time she had about 100k followers. To my surprise, she graciously answered my questions and shared with me that she and her husband built their farmhouse themselves and they were hard to come by in the area.

Over the next few months, we did pick a coastal style home in a gated community. It had much potential, but the bright blue walls and bachelor pad lighting had to go. I again reached to Noell and told her we found a house, joking that we should meet up and she could help me decorate it! She again was super kind and said, “Absolutely! I just think that would be fun.”

Time went on and we tried our best to make our coastal home feel cozy and ours. After investing in an interior decorator and adding our own touches the house was gorgeous, but it still didn’t feel like home. My southern vision of me sipping lemonade on the front porch while the kids ran around the neighborhood wasn’t happening. We didn’t really know our neighbors, as most were retired and spent time indoors, and there were no kids for my kids to play with on the street. Every playdate had to be arranged.

My husband brought up the idea of moving, but we had invested so much energy into their home. We build a huge pool, patio, screened it in, painted the whole interior of the home, new backsplash, built-ins. I put the thought on the back burner and popped onto realtor sites every few days to see what came on the market.

Within a few days I had found a beautiful country home with a large wrap around porch that sat across from the St. John’s River. We decided to have a look. It had so much charm, but only 3 bedrooms and on a busy road. Not to mention it was worth a few hundred thousand more than our home. I didn’t want to pay money for a house with less bedrooms. So we passed and kept looking.

About a year later not much had changed with our feeling for the house. We still felt restless. The only change was the market in Florida was hot and our property value was going up significantly more and more each month. We decided to see a few more houses with land, especially now that we had a bigger budget to play with! One day we even packed the car and drove 3 hours across the state of Florida to see a farmhouse with 10 acres, which turned out to be a dream property in the middle of nowhere. Back home we went. After we looked at a few more houses in St. Augustine with land, which is hard to find, my realtor said I should consider buying land and building because what I was looking for probably didn’t exist.

After feeling discouraged we decided we would just find a way to love our yard and embrace our neighborhood. That week we signed the kids up for soccer at the local park and made a plan to invite a family over every week. I promised I would stop obsessing over Realtor.com and keeping us in a state of unknown, which was very stressful. But I couldn’t help myself, by Friday of that week I was back on browsing through the newest listings and up popped an adorable white farm house, 10 minutes from our house on 4 acres. They had an open house the next day and I wanted to go, but my husband was done. He told me to go on my own.

The next morning I was there and it seemed like a great fit for us! The price was low for the area so I called my hubby and begged him to drive over. He found it in his heart to come and check it out. To his surprise, it worked! It checked our boxes and would just need some renovation in the kitchen and bathrooms. We made an offer the next day, along with 12 other people! To make our stick out we offered hundreds of thousands over asking! In this market all cash is king and we knew the seller would need to wait on the sale of our house so we had to sweeten the deal to have a chance. We felt pretty confident that they would take our offer since it was way over ask.

The next day we got a call that the sellers went with an all cash offer and although our offer was high, the seller didn’t want to wait for us to sell our home. We were defeated. Back to square one. We were done. The thought ran through my head that the lady with the JettSett house would have to sell her farm for me to move at this point. Clearly, a divine thought planting a seed for what was about to come.

You see when we think our plans are big, God is always thinking bigger. The next day, to torture myself again, I felt called to open realtor.com and take a peek. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the kitchen counter island I had recognized in tons of Instagram photos. As I scrolled through I thought it must be some sort of mistake. How could the JettSett lady actually want to sell this gorgeous home she spent years working on to perfection. I sent her a quick message that basically asked her what in the world was she thinking! She replied that her husband loved the process and wanted to do it again.

Still in shock, I texted my realtor and told her the quick version of my obsession with the house. She just laughed and said she knew the owner. She was the one that set her up with her husband and she was in her wedding. Now I have seen divine intervention before, but this was just so obvious and amazing.

Now to tell my husband we had to see this house…