The Latest: Oct 2017

Most of us have complicated relationships with the places where we live. Unless you have unlimited amounts of money, there’s probably something about your home that you don’t like. Maybe you don’t like the place where you live much at all, and are stuck there because of circumstances or budget.

You may have heard about guarantors during your apartment hunt, but if you’re not familiar with what they actually do—or how you can still find one if you don’t know anyone personally who can be a guarantor (or even land an apartment you love without one!)—we’ve got you covered. Here’s everything you need to know about getting a guarantor. A guarantor is someone who signs your lease with you to guarantee payment in case you can’t pay for some reason.

Honestly, the closest we want to come to living in a real-life scary house is having a haunted mansion-inspired bathroom. For that reason, we’ll gladly leave this supposedly spooked out Staten Island manse listing to a less skittish bidder. Just in time for Halloween, this nightmare-inducing abode known as the Kreischer Mansion is up for sale for $2 million, plus $1,233 in monthly taxes (additional costs include: nerves of steel and an affinity for ghosts who may or may not be friendly).

If you hope to own a home some day, you may be under the impression that you need to save up for a 20 percent down payment—but the truth is, that’s just a myth. According to data from Better, an online mortgage platform, only 17 percent of homebuyers actually put between 15 and 25 percent down — and more than a quarter (27 percent) of them put down between 5 and 10 percent.

Just in time to give you the heebie-jeebies before Halloween, a recent survey from Insight Pest Solutions found some… well, surprising information about how far people will go for free rent. Apparently, nearly a third of respondents said that they would be willing to live in a house full of spiders in exchange for a year of free rent or mortgage payments.

Creating a comfortable residence when you have limited space requires sacrifice, ingenuity – and in the case of this train caboose tiny home known as “Side Trak”– an engine to haul it to your desired living location, along with a railroad track that can support its weighty frame. Currently on the market for $51,500, this uniquely converted home is not as spacious or pricey as this $2.

Serena Williams is having the best year ever: after winning both singles and doubles at Wimbledon in 2016, the tennis star announced that she and soon-to-be husband — Reddit and Hipmunk founder Alexis Ohanian — were about to welcome their first child together. And now that baby is here, Williams’ bachelorette pad in Bel Air’s “poshly rustic” Stone Canyon is on the market for $11.995 million.

This old house on the Upper West Side has been restored to some of its original glory, thanks to OG home renovation show host Bob Vila and his son Chris — who are now selling one of the brownstone’s five condos for $2.5 million. Built in 1909 by John C. Umberfield and designed by architect George Walgrove, the historic townhouse at 21 West 75th Street inspired many episodes of the This Old House show.

Tucked into the San Gabriel Valley about 22 miles from Los Angeles, this seemingly castle-like mansion has some quirky and eccentric secrets in store for a buyer with enough whim and the wealth to appreciate them. Dubbed “Castle in the Sky” by its builder, the mansion (sitting atop four-plus acres) is a “private Disneyland to entertain family and friends” — complete with a pirate-themed splash pad that was featured on HGTV’s Extreme Pools in 2014.