The Latest: Mar 2019

One half of the actress-turned-fashion mogul twin duo Mary-Kate Olsen and her husband Olivier Sarkozy are looking to offload a pair of Manhattan townhouses. Located at 123 E. 10th St., and 125 E. 10th St., the posh residences recently hit the market for $7.69 million and $8.3 million, respectively. The former space is 4,200 square feet, five stories tall and has an eat-in kitchen along with a total of five bedrooms, one of which is a master suite that encompasses an entire level.

You step out of your car at an open house and walk into what looks like your dream home. It’s perfectly picturesque from the outside, but as soon as you get through the doorway, you see it—there’s a giant “Live Laugh Love” decal stuck onto the living room wall. For legions of prospective homeowners, real estate agents tell us that word art tends to be at the top of the cringe-inducing decor list—and, point blank, word art makes it hard to sell a home.

I’ve got big dreams to own a Craftsman home one day, with a backyard big enough for a barbecue grill, an inflatable pool, and a big dog. But the median asking price for houses in Los Angeles is a hefty $694,200 and there are no signs of an impending cool down. So is that backyard looking more like a balcony and a shared courtyard with neighbors? Is that house realistically… a condo? A condo (short for condominium) is basically an apartment that you own.

A few years ago my husband was abruptly laid off. As a freelance writer, I can live anywhere, so when he wasn’t having any initial luck, he expanded his job search from our hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, to the whole country. And some interesting opportunities came up, including one in the Pacific Northwest. We talked about it pretty seriously–how cool would it be to fly off to Bangkok in 16 hours, instead of the literal days it takes to get there from Kentucky?

When my partner, Devin, got hired on as the on-site manager at our 33-unit apartment building in Seattle, he received a quick demo of the clunky, crash-prone software used to track rent payments, a key to the maintenance closet, a pamphlet from the 1960s explaining how to program the building’s callbox, and a pat on the back from ownership.

So you’ve decided to rent out your pad to earn some extra cash. Depending on where you live, you can stand to make a hefty profit by making your home available for rental through services like Airbnb and VRBO. Before you dive in, though, it’s crucial that you come prepared. There’s more to being a successful host on these popular vacation rental sites than meets the eye, and if you want your property to stand out, presentation is key.

Establishing credit poses a tricky Catch-22: You need credit to get credit. This can prove to be quite a conundrum if you’re trying to rent an apartment, buy a home, or, heck, simply need car insurance but don’t qualify because of a thin credit file.

Whether you’re a serious buyer or daydreaming to pass the time at work, a common part of buying a home is trying to predict your monthly mortgage payments. Is it going to end up being cheaper than your rent? Are you going to need to downsize a bit? You probably want a ballpark number before you call your mortgage lender and hire a real estate agent, so you plug the numbers into an online mortgage payment calculator.

There is no shortage of things to see and do in the nine states that make up the Southeast (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia). I’ve loved living here for most of my life, and even decided to move back after a grand three-year adventure living in Alaska.