Shopping for a home means weighing wants and needs, and making careful compromises to squeeze as many of those must-haves and wish-list items into your budget as possible. But many buyers focus on typical home features while overlooking one potentially important detail. Nine out of 10 home buyers would like a laundry room, for example, while 82 percent want hardwood floors. Most buyers are looking for a three-bedroom house with two bathrooms, a new kitchen, and an open floor plan.

When my wife and I were looking to get pre-approved for a mortgage, we started at the most obvious spot: Bank of America, the longtime home of our checking and savings accounts. Turns out, that may not have been a smart idea. For starters, we were surprised to discover that their rates and terms were pretty unattractive, especially for first-time buyers like us. We were already scrounging for cash, and the bank was pretty inflexible about the down payment amount.

More than half (57%) of new homeowners believe they could remodel an entire room without any help from a professional. Millennials are even more confident in their DIY abilities, with 64% ready to tackle a remodeling project on their own. That’s according to a Home Depot survey of 1,000 new homeowners, age 25 and up, who had purchased a home in the past year.

Nearly 3 of 4 house hunters call it "essential."

As if selling your home wasn’t stressful enough already — from the emotional freefall of saying goodbye to the place you live, to the logistical nightmare of packing up and moving all of your worldly belongings — it costs a hell of a lot of money to do it, too. The costs associated with selling a median-priced U.S. home total about $13,357, according to a report by Zillow and Thumbtack.

Like Honeycomb cereal, America’s big, yeah yeah yeah. (It’s not small, no no no.) But a new survey shows that maybe we’re finally ready to embrace smaller living — or at least the idea of it. More than half of Americans (53%) polled by the National Association of Home Builders said they were at least willing to consider living in a tiny home, defined as less than 600 square feet.

There’s a reason for that tired saying about real estate: It’s all about “location, location, location.” The quality of a neighborhood was a top concern for 60% of recent homebuyers, according to a 2017 report by the National Association of Realtors. And real estate website Trulia found that 85% of its users who plan to buy a home in the next year and a half said that the neighborhood was equally or more important than the house itself.

Mortgage marketplace Lending Tree recently ranked its best cities for first-time homebuyers, and the results are, well… let’s just say it’s great news if you’d like to live in Little Rock, Ark., which Lending Tree found to be the most hospitable U.S. city to first-time home buyers. Birmingham, Ala., Grand Rapids, Mich., Youngstown, Ohio, and Winston, N.C. rounded out the top five.

For the first time, Airbnb hosts can now count their home-sharing earnings as additional income when refinancing their mortgage at three national lenders: Citizens Bank, Better Mortgage, and Quicken Loans (the company behind that Rocket Mortgage app you see each Super Bowl). That may sound trivial, but like Ron Burgundy, it’s kind of a big deal. Refinancing a mortgage isn’t exactly easy; it’s almost as tedious as taking one out in the first place.

Want to have a one-bedroom apartment all to yourself? Living alone invariably costs more than splitting the rent and utilities. But the price of escaping a roommate’s obnoxious habits or stray toenail clippings is a lot lower in some places than others — like Bloomington, Ind., for example. Most single Americans prefer to live alone, if they can afford to.

The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has surged past 4.28% this week to its highest point in years, according to CNBC. That’s bad news for home buyers, because even a small rate increase can be enough to push an already difficult-to-afford house completely out of reach. After starting the year around 4.0%, average rates have been steadily creeping higher, with some lenders quoting best rates of 4.5% this week.

If you’ve ever written a monthly check to Sallie Mae, the findings of a new study on student loan debt and millennial homeownership shouldn’t surprise you: College graduates with loan debt have a harder time saving up for a down payment than those who graduate debt-free. That’s according to a study released Thursday by rental website Apartment List.

A shutdown of the federal government — which will occur if Congress can’t approve at least a temporary funding bill today, an increasingly likely scenario — could throw a monkey wrench into many corners of our economy. And if you’re getting ready to close on a house, look out, because one of those wrenches might be headed your way.

If buying your first home is among your New Year’s resolutions for 2018, you might be viewing the current real estate landscape with equal parts hopeful wonder and anxious dread. As a first-time buyer, you can expect plenty of company at open houses and a lot of headwinds in your search. Experts predict 2018 will be another seller’s market, with demand far outpacing the available inventory of homes for sale. But that doesn’t mean you have to sit on the sidelines.

It’s that time of year when we reflect on the last 12 months, look dreamily out the coffee shop window, and think… “To hell with you, 2017! You were the [bleeping] worst. Let’s hope 2018 isn’t such a slimy armpit stain of a year.” Ahem, er… right. It was a tough year for homebuyers, and lots of other people, too. Is there any relief in store? It looks that way.

Las Vegas will be the hottest housing market in America next year, according to Realtor.com — and not just because the average high temperature is 100 degrees or more from June through August. Realtor.com analyzed data on home sales, prices, and new construction, as well as local economic factors, population trends, unemployment, and median incomes to determine its top 10 housing markets for 2018. Not a single metro area in the Northeast, Great Lakes, or Pacific Northwest made the cut.

Did you know that most studies of average rents pull their data from apartment listings? That can provide a pretty accurate snapshot of the prices a newcomer can expect to encounter on their apartment search—but it’s not always reflective of real-life rental situations. Asking rents generally skew higher, since there are plenty of listings for brand-new luxury units, but you’re not likely to find a rent-controlled apartment or a word-of-mouth hand-me-down deal listed online.

Last month was the fifth anniversary of Superstorm Sandy’s deadly, destructive rampage through New York and New Jersey, which killed 157 people and left $50 billion in damage in its wake. Unfortunately, New York City is still unprepared for an increasingly likely flood disaster, and it’s among the U.S. cities most at risk from rising sea levels in the coming decades. A new analysis by Zillow found that nearly 2 million U.S.

Buying a home can be crazy expensive, and for most first-time buyers, the hardest part is saving up a sizable down payment. You’ve no doubt heard that the traditional down payment should be 20% of the purchase price — any less, and you’ll likely have to pay private mortgage insurance (PMI) or get stuck with a higher long-term interest rate. And who’s got 20% of, say, $300,000 just kicking around in their bank account? However, that 20% figure isn’t set in stone.

In some expensive cities, it can feel like every dollar you earn goes straight toward housing. It turns out, it may not be your imagination. A new data visualization by HowMuch.net shows how many hours the average household in 98 U.S. cities would need to work each month just to afford the median mortgage payment in their city.

A new study by Apartment List shows a stark and concerning racial divide in the homeownership rate.

In 2008, the U.S. housing market was already cratering as the Great Recession took hold. To try and stop the bleeding, Congress passed a series of first-time homebuyer tax credits, each more generous than the last. First came a $7,500 tax rebate, to be repaid over 15 years with no interest. By early 2009, it had grown to $8,000, and required no payback whatsoever. And for most of 2010, even some repeat home buyers were eligible for a tax credit worth up to $6,500.

If you’ve been living in a major city the past few years, you’ve probably seen your rent go up — and up, and up — and thought about buying a home to escape the rent hikes. Problem is, you’ve likely watched helplessly as the prices of nearby condos and houses climbed out of your reach even faster. If you’re feeling priced out in the city you call home, should you consider moving to make your dream of homeownership come true?

Unless you have a fairy godmother or a cool half million sitting around, you’re probably going to need a mortgage if you want to buy a home. Here’s how to qualify for and choose a mortgage, and what to expect throughout the process. Let’s face it: You can go to as many open houses as you want, but you’re not going to be able to buy one without a mortgage. So get the ball rolling early and get pre-approved before you even start house hunting.

You know want to buy a home — you’re just not sure where to begin. And no wonder: Buying your first home can be a long, intimidating process, full of gross stuff like math, legal documents, and cutthroat competition. But have no fear: First-time buyers just like you do it all the time, and we’ll walk you through the process. First, you’ve got to make sure you’re emotionally and financially ready to buy a home.

If you’ve had enough of your roommate eating your leftover take-out, your absentee landlord hiking the rent year after year even though the heat barely works, or your mom asking what time you — a full-grown adult the last time you checked — will be home, you might be dreaming about buying your own place, and doing it sooner rather than later. But how do you know if you’re ready to buy a home, and whether it’s a good idea? There are various rent vs.

Ok, so maybe millennials aren’t settling in cities en masse like we thought they were. However, they’re still changing the housing market in small but important ways. We know today’s young adults are getting married much later in life than past generations, for instance, and they’re buying homes later, too.

Love ’em or hate ’em, it appears American suburbs are here to stay. But they might look very different 50 or even ten years from now. That’s according to Alan M. Berger, professor of landscape architecture and urban design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who explained his vision for more sustainable suburban development in the New York Times this past weekend.

The sharing economy promises the freedom to earn extra money on your own time and terms. Just how much money varies, but one platform makes its users far more cash than any other. San Francisco-based loan provider Earnest analyzed income on tens of thousands of loan applications to measure the impact of sharing economy work. They found that the average Uber driver makes $364 a month, while the average Lyft driver pulls in $377.

In Bizarro America — where everyday life is fairly similar, except the road signs are in kilometers, Thanksgiving is celebrated in October, and the elected leader looks more like a movie star than a reality TV host — today is Victoria Day. I’m speaking, of course, about Canada, where Queen Victoria’s May 24th birthday has been celebrated since 1845.

From million-dollar condos to $8 beers, the bright lights of the big city don’t come cheap. In fact, living in New York City costs a family with young children $71,237 more per year than life in the surrounding suburbs. That’s according to a joint study by Zillow and Care.com that compared the costs of housing, property taxes, and childcare in major cities to their outlying suburbs.

In a study released this week, U.S. News & World Report ranked all 50 U.S. states across seven different categories to find out which ones are performing best for the citizens who live there. How does your state measure up? Mmmm… subjective rankings. If U.S. News & World Report is best known for one thing, it’s not news or world reports — it’s ranking stuff.

For many people, bigger is still better—especially when it comes to their homes. Sure, that motorized monstrosity known as the Hummer is no longer in production, and McMansions have fallen out of favor in recent years as tiny homes tickle our imaginations. But according to a new survey, in much of America, size still matters—and big isn’t big enough.