Writer, editor, dog lover
If you’re buying a home right now, you might find the competition is stiff: More than 60 percent of homes faced a bidding war, a recent Redfin report found, thanks to low mortgage rates and scarce inventory.
Your offer will need to rise to the top. But how? We asked some real estate pros how to make an offer that will win a bidding war.
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Wendy Wright of Washington, D.C., was ready to take her real estate license exam last March—just as the term “novel coronavirus” was becoming part of the national conversation. After a 20-year career in IT project management, she had recently lost her job at a nonprofit because of funding cuts. Real estate offered an enticing new career path.
But the onset of the pandemic one year ago forced real estate testing centers in her area to close temporarily, requiring Wright to wait two months before she could sit for the test. Instead of just biding her time, Wright joined Katie Wethman’s real estate team at Keller Williams in Washington and began shadowing agents on socially distanced appointments with buyers and sellers. When Wright passed the exam and received her real estate license in June, she was able to hit the ground running at a time when the pandemic was turning many business practices upside down. The result: She closed 10 sales in six months.
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Grant House died at the age of 25, but his legacy lives on through a foundation in Lafayette, Ind., for children and young adults with special needs that would not exist without his mother, Tamara.
Losing Grant, who was born with mental and physical disabilities from a brain tumor in utero, motivated House to turn her son’s vision of helping children with special needs into a reality.
When Grant died in December 2015, his friends and family donated nearly $40,000 in his memory. The House family—Tamara, her husband Jay, and Grant’s four siblings gave the money to Wabash Center, a local nonprofit that provides supportive services for individuals with special needs.
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock—or a pile of clothes from the eighties—you’ve noticed decluttering gospel is everywhere. You can thank (or blame) home organizing superstar and best-selling author Marie Kondo, whose Netflix reality show, “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo,” preaches that people can improve their lives by getting rid of all the things they own that don’t “spark joy.”
Naturally, some folks find the decluttering craze annoying, but real estate practitioners know the value of reducing clutter, especially when selling a house. “A lot of home buyers simply can’t see through a cluttered home,” says Nancy Newquist-Nolan, SRES, with Coldwell Banker in Santa Barbara, Calif., who specializes in helping people downsize. “They just can’t visualize themselves living in a seller’s house if it’s a total mess.”
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No matter how many episodes of “House Hunters” or “Love It or List It” you’ve watched, buying a home inevitably comes with surprises. Though a sharp real estate agent will help you navigate these hidden challenges, before you start shopping for a house, you should take account of some important things that you probably haven’t considered.
Curious what you might be missing? Here are five questions you’d never think to ask yourself but totally should before buying a home.
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Trying to buy a home with bad credit is hard. 
But what about trying to buy a home with no credit at all?
There’s a name for these people: “credit invisibles.” It means they don’t have a credit report or score on file with the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion), usually because they don’t have a traditional credit trail such as a credit card or college loan. Far from being anomalies lurking on the fringes of society, credit invisibles are shockingly common.
According to a recent report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, roughly 45 million Americans are characterized as credit invisible. Meanwhile, 19.4 million are known by another equally ominous label: “credit unscorable.” That means they have some credit history, but not enough to generate a score. For example, they might have had credit cards or loans at one point but then stopped, usually due to financial difficulties.
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Selling your home, as we all know, 
is a process: months of hard work alongside your listing agent to primp your place, market the property, and reel in a buyer. So by the time the big day arrives to close the deal and hand over the keys, you’re probably so ready to be done—which is all the more reason to tread carefully during this final step of the process.
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A home with a gorgeous yard isn’t 
just easy on the eyes: Well-landscaped homes also sell for 5.5% to 12.7% more, according to research at Virginia Tech. Only problem is, professional landscaping costs an average of $3,219, according to HomeAdvisor.com. But pros aren’t the only way to go. Here’s proof: seven cheap landscaping ideas that provide all the lush greenery you need without your gushing greenbacks.
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After months of house hunting, 
you’ve finally found your dream home and the seller has accepted your bid. But there’s one problem—the seller isn’t ready to move out.
In such a case, a seller might want to go ahead and close on the home in order to have enough money to buy a new home. But in the interim, the seller needs a place to live. Linda Sanderfoot, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker in Neenah, Wisconsin says that if you decide to let the seller stay, a rent-back agreement can protect you.
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If you’re approaching retirement, you may be thinking about selling your home. But unless you need to move—such as for health issues—should you? While the main questions on your mind might be how close you live to your grandkids or a golf course, it’s essential to weigh what makes sensefinancially first.
Because let’s get real: Whether you dig the notion of baking away your golden years somewhere sunny or remaining in the family home to host Thanksgiving dinner every year, neither option will make much sense if you can’t afford it. Right?
So to help you get a handle on the pros and cons of aging in place versus making a new start for this next chapter of your life, ask yourself six questions.
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Daniel Bortz 