You hear these terms thrown around all the time: Second home, investment property, vacation home, rental property. But is there any real difference among them? And does it even matter what you call it? As it turns out, there are some very big differences between second homes and investment properties, especially if you are financing it. “Both […]
Author Archives: Christopher Shea
Lessons From Listing Photos: Why This Modest Home Sold in 5 Days and Grew In Value
It doesn’t matter how perfect your home is—if your listing photos don’t stand out, potential buyers won’t come by to take a look. In our series “Lessons From Listing Photos,” we dissect the smart updates sellers have made to their homes, and how their listing pictures highlight the home’s best assets. All over the country, housing markets […]
Bring on New Beginnings With These 5 Beautifully Bold Bedroom Design Trends
A new year is the perfect time for new beginnings, especially when it comes to your home decor. And what better space to refresh than the room where you start each new day? To provide you with inspiration for your decor endeavors, we turned to Instagram (as we do every week) and we scrolled through […]
What Is New-House Smell? A Reality Check on the Risks, and How To Get Rid of It
While most of us are familiar with new-car smell—that distinct scent of a brand-new automobile—home buyers might have caught a whiff of another scent entirely during their home-shopping spree: new-house smell. What exactly is new-house smell? Also known as new-construction smell, it’s essentially a combination of smells given off by the many materials that go […]
Experts Predict What The Housing Market Will Be Like In 2021
The housing market has been on fire this year with record-low mortgage rates and a sudden wave of relocations made possible by remote work. Meanwhile, home prices have pushed new boundaries as buyer demand continues to surge. As we near the end of 2020, here’s a look at the expectations of real estate experts for […]
Avoid These 5 Mistakes When Buying a Home Sight Unseen
Buying a home sight unseen might seem like a massive gamble: plunking down hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of dollars on a property you’ve never set foot in, your fingers crossed it looks just like the photos and doesn’t have major issues! So how lucky do you feel, anyway? But during the pandemic—when stay-at-home restrictions made […]
How the COVID-19 Pandemic Has Forever Changed the Process of Selling a House
In normal circumstances, selling a house involves interacting with a lot of people. In-person house tours, roundtable closings, and handshakes are all standard formalities. But in a world rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic, safety and social distancing are a must, and real estate professionals and sellers have had to adapt to a new way of doing […]
10 Kids Room Wall Decor Ideas That Adults Won’t Hate
Decorating kids bedroom walls is a tough challenge—that is, if you don’t want them to outgrow that fire engine mural or “Frozen” decals anytime soon. Isn’t there anything out there more original that both parents and kids will enjoy for years to come? Of course there is. “Kids, by nature, are creative and imaginative, so […]
7 Tips for Settling Into Your New Space This Holiday Season
If moving into a new home wasn’t already a perfect excuse to develop new traditions, settling in during the holiday season is an even perfect-er one. And with the 2020 holiday season shaping up to be, let’s just say, different than any other in recent memory, now is the time to embrace the unknown and […]
Still Not Organized? Here’s Why—and What To Try in 2021
Ever resolve to organize your closet or junk drawer, only to see your efforts devolve into a (slightly different) cluttered mess? Maybe it’s because you tried a method that doesn’t fit your personality. It turns out, people have different approaches to organizing—how to do it, and what they want to get out of it. A […]