Hey, lovebirds: If you’re newly 
married,you may be thinking of buying a nest together. Indeed, 35% of married Americans purchased their first home together within two years of tying the knot, according to a study by Coldwell Banker. Yet while we hear plenty about the home-buying challenges faced by unmarried couples, that doesn’t mean that marriage makes this process a walk in the park.
“A lot of factors come into play,” says Brandy Wright, a certified financial planner at Cambridge Wealth Counsel in Atlanta. So before you start swooning over Craftsman bungalows or granite countertops where you envision your bright new future, be sure to sit down and ask each other these crucial questions first.
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brand-new home, you’ve got a ton of options. Sales of new homes surged to an eight-year high in 2015, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau, and single-family production is estimated to reach 840,000 units in 2016, an 18 percent increase over 2015, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).
a room give you the jitters? Networking functions can turn even successful professionals into tongue-tied teens. Some people have such a visceral reaction that they actually feel physically dirty, a University of Toronto study found.
you probably have two or three vehicles in your driveway: one for yourself, one for a spouse, maybe one for a teen. Indeed, 57% of U.S. families own two or more cars, KPMG found. Between gas, maintenance, fees, and insurance, the average cost to owners was $4,375 per vehicle in 2015, AAA found—even while fuel prices plunged. That’s money that you could be using for family trips or retirement planning. (The cash you’ll get by selling won’t hurt either.)
a risky move. Let’s face it: We all have a skeleton or two in our virtual closet, and you’re basically giving your manager a front row seat. But studies show that adding your boss to your friends list can actually work in your favor—if you do it the right way, of course.
in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond? Check out my series for Money.com’s 2016 career guide, starting with 
9 to 5,
since most families want to move when the kids are out of school. Yet it actually pays to list in the winter, when buyers tend to have more urgency: A study by online brokerage Redfin found that average sellers net more above asking price during the months of December, January, February, and March than they do from June through November, even in cold-weather cities like Boston and Chicago. And homes listed in winter sold faster than those posted in spring.
Daniel Bortz 