Selling a home is often the largest financial transaction a person will make, but that doesn’t mean homeowners want to devote a lot of time to it. More than half—58%—of homeowners who recently sold a home say they spent less than three hours researching the method and professional they chose to sell their home, according to a new survey of 1,000 homeowners conducted by SOLD.com.A separate survey from the National Association of REALTORS® s
Monday is Earth Day, and your clients can do their part to protect the environment and save on utility bills. Going green can also make a difference at resale: 69 percent of real estate professionals say promoting energy efficiency in listings is “very” or “somewhat valuable” in a home sale, according to the latest REALTORS® & Sustainability Report.Ply Gem, an exterior building product firm, outlines the following six-step
Lenders have been much less likely to approve same-sex couples for a mortgage than heterosexual couples, according to a new study released by Iowa State University’s Ivy College of Business. Researchers analyzed national mortgage data from 1990 to 2015 and found the approval rate for same-sex couples was 3 to 8 percent lower.Researchers also factored in details about applicants’ work history and creditworthiness to see if the denial rates sti
Online shopping has surged in popularity, but don’t count brick-and-mortar stores out. Consumers still want to shop, in-person.Nearly 80 percent of consumers say they visited a store as much as or more than they did two years ago, according to a new consumer survey results conducted by ICSC, a global resource for the retail real estate industry.“We are social beings and consumers have always valued the community experience that brick-and-mort
This week’s fire at Paris’ Cathedral of Notre Dame is bringing a realization that historic buildings may be prone to such tragedies. The fire spread through the wooden attic, bringing down its 300-foot spire and engulfing two-thirds of the roof, and occurred over just an hour.Building the cathedral attic required the wood of more than 1,300 trees. Attics tend to be dry spaces and, when dust and debris accumulate, they can be even more flammab
As sea levels rise, architects are brainstorming ways to make homes more resilient to flooding. A floating unit is being singled out as a living solution for coastal areas.Oceanix, a nonprofit that designs and builds floating cities, and the MIT Center for Ocean Engineering are showing off a futuristic concept of a floating city. The floating communities can expand, contract, and combine to form cities in prefabricated hexagonal islands of 4
Many homeowners may be one leaky or burst pipe away from a financial crisis.Nearly 20 percent of homeowners admit they have no money put aside for an emergency home repair, according to a survey of more than 1,400 homeowners by HomeServe USA. Yet more than half of the respondents say they’ve had a home repair emergency in the last 12 months.“Part of that can be attributed to the fact that the median age of a home is about 40 years, so th
April 11 marks National Pet Day, and it’s time to find a pet to appreciate, if not your own.After all, pets have a big say in real estate. Eighty-one percent of Americans say animal-related considerations play a role when deciding on their next living situation, according to a 2017 report from the National Association of REALTORS®. Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed said they would not give up their animal because of housing restr
Austin, Texas, once again topped U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Places to Live in the USA” list for 2019. The Texas capital has topped the list for the past three years.Austin, known as the “Live Music Capital of the World,” scored highest on desirability for its music venues and local bands, as well as its food scene and accessibility to outdoor activities (it boasts more than 250 parks). It also has become a major tech hub
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) -- a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration -- was designed to capture images of a black hole.Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.This breakthrough was announced in a series of
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