All of a sudden, much of the country seems to have turned into Arizona, with a hot, dry summer coming on the heels of a remarkably mild winter. Here are five ways that months of odd weather have affected—and will continue to …
Real Estate & Homes
Mark Zuckerberg Has a Lower Mortgage Rate than You
Savvy homeowners know that a penny here and a penny there adds up. That’s apparently the case for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who — despite a reported net worth in excess of $14 billion — just refinanced the mortgage on …
Selling Your Dream for Cash: The Unfortunate Mainstreaming of the Reverse Mortgage
A new report shows that the reverse mortgage remains a confusing product, but that it has gone mainstream nonetheless and represents an unnerving erosion of homeowners’ financial safety net.
The Return of the McMansion?
When the real estate market imploded and ushered in the Great Recession, one of the biggest casualties was the size of our homes. For years, we’d been building increasingly large homes because, well, we could — and because we …
Housing: Even the Eeyore Index Shows Price Gains
Freshly released numbers from a housing index shows rising home prices in America’s biggest cities. That’s a good sign for all of America.
Let’s Hope You’re Not Taking Real-Life Money Lessons from ‘Reality’ Shows
Guess what? Reality shows aren’t that real. This news shouldn’t come as a shock. Yet it is still surprising—and worrisome—to hear about the latest scandal involving the home-buying show “House Hunters.” Each of the program’s …
How to Buy a House
It’s Not Your Imagination: Rent Prices Really Have Been Rising
Thanks to cheap home prices and mortgage rates at historic lows, it’s easy to argue that now is the ideal time to buy a home. But many would-be buyers are worried the market hasn’t yet reached bottom, and years of plunging home …
The Unexpected Effects of Walmart Coming to Town
Homeowners, local chambers of commerce, and town planners alike all have some assumptions about Walmart. It’s often assumed that when a new Walmart opens in town, it’ll kill small businesses and may even hurt the local real …
Housing Market Better Than It Looks
Home prices rose 0.1% on a seasonally adjusted basis in March, according to new numbers from the S&P/Case-Shiller index. But four cities showed worse results in March than they had in February, with Atlanta notably down 0.4% over …
Forget the Money Pit: The New World of Smarter, Cost-Conscious, Value-Oriented Home Renovations
The mid-’00s was not only a heyday for real estate speculation and house flipping—it was also prime time for luxurious, over-the-top home renovations. Perfectly functional rooms were gutted for dramatic makeovers, and the …
Home Sales Jump as Number of Foreclosures Drops
April housing numbers released by the National Association of Realtors were, wait for it … good. Spring is traditionally a busy season for home sales, but the real estate market has been in such a slump for the past couple of …
