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Buyers Are Increasingly Signing Backup Contracts on Homes That Already Have an Accepted Offer on the Table, and Agents Say the Once Rare Move Is Now Standard Advice
Once considered a niche move for the occasional determined buyer, signing a backup contract on a home that already has an accepted offer has become common enough that agents now […]
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Homeowners Who Sold to Instant Cash Buyer Companies Say the Convenience Came With Hidden Fees That Secretly Devoured Far More of Their Profit Than They Ever Imagined
Selling to an instant cash-buyer company like Opendoor or Offerpad promises something traditional listings cannot: a guaranteed sale, often within days, with no showings, no staging, and no waiting for […]
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Buyers and Sellers Are Increasingly Hiring Their Own Rival Inspectors for the Exact Same House and Somehow Walking Away With Two Wildly Contradictory Reports
Home inspections were designed to give buyers and sellers a shared, objective picture of a property’s condition. Increasingly, they are doing the opposite: buyers and sellers are hiring their own […]
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Nearly Half of First Time Homebuyers Are Now Quietly Leaning on Money From Their Parents Just to Cover a Down Payment, and the Share Keeps Climbing Every Year
The bank of mom and dad has quietly become one of the most important lenders in the American housing market. A growing share of first-time buyers say they could not […]
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Homebuyers Are Taking So Long to Decide That Homes Are Sitting on the Market Longer Than They Have in Six Years, and Redfin Says Buyers Have Gotten Almost Impossible to Please
Homes are sitting on the market longer, and the buyers looking at them are taking their time in a way that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. The […]
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Homeowners Keep Furiously Battling Automated Home Valuation Tools Over Numbers That Are Wildly, Sometimes Laughably off From What Appraisers Actually Find Walking Through That Exact Same House
Automated home value estimates have become the first number most homeowners see when they wonder what their house is worth — and increasingly, the number they argue with. Tools like […]
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Sellers Are Increasingly Ditching the Open Market Entirely by Secretly Shopping Their Homes to a Handful of Insiders First, and Critics Say It Locks Everyday Buyers Out Completely
A growing share of home sellers are never actually putting their house on the open market. Instead, agents are shopping listings privately to a handful of pre-qualified buyers first — […]
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New York Landlord Illegally Changed the Locks on Grieving Tenants Right After Their Parents Died, and the State’s Attorney General Says the Pattern Was No Accident
A management company that controlled more than 40 buildings and 3,000 units across Brooklyn and the Bronx has been caught illegally locking tenants out of their own apartments — and […]
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Renters Chasing the Dream of Ownership Through Rent to Own Contracts Keep Losing Every Single Dollar They Sank in the Moment Fine Print Lets Landlords Walk Away Scot Free
Rent-to-own contracts are pitched as a side door into homeownership for people who cannot yet qualify for a traditional mortgage: pay rent for a set period, with a portion credited […]
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Buyers Who Walk Away From Signed Contracts at the Last Minute Are Increasingly Fighting in Court Just to Get Their Earnest Money Deposit Back, and It Is Not Always Recoverable
Backing out of a signed home purchase contract sounds simple enough — until the earnest money comes into play. Buyers who walk away from a deal after the contract is […]