Final Offer is a web-based offer submission and management solution offering listing marketing, home search and showing coordination.
Busy CRE professionals see real benefits of a big brand
In order to run a productive business, commercial brokers have to carve out time for tasks like marketing, networking, and continuing education. So, why make growing a business more complicated than it has to be?
How does 4 + 4 = FREE?
Fathom Realty’s 100% commission plan, with no monthly fees and an annual cap at 12 transactions, generates the income to take your business to the next level so you can close more homes.
Reach more leads in less time? This CEO says ‘Yes.’
As the CEO of Localize, Granot saw a troubling trend. Agents and brokers are spending thousands of dollars on leads, but they only convert 0.5% to 1% of them. What happens to the rest of them?
Refocus your lead generation by mastering repeat and referrals
Elm Street Academy is ready to give you a deep understanding of how to nurture your existing relationships so you can generate more repeat and referral business.
How agents can take part in the real estate-as-entertainment trend
A trend has emerged in luxury real estate: Long before prospective buyers purchase properties, they consume high-end home and lifestyle content as entertainment — and leading agents are leaning in.
The market has shifted: 3 reasons you need a listing concierge now
Tune into this session to see 3 reasons why you need a listing concierge now and how you can get every listing market-ready quickly and with $0 due until closing.
How to Make a Small Room Look Bigger With a Paint Job
Most people crave spacious homes. But, sadly, the reality is often quite different. The good news: If your bedroom or office feels cramped, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to start knocking down walls or building additions to create a more open, airy ambiance. We have some answers!
Making a small room look bigger
A room’s size, after all, is as much a matter of perception as it is the nitty-gritty square footage. One easy way to create the illusion of space is to carefully choose the paint you slap on those walls.
Read on to learn what colors make a room look bigger, and get to it!
White
Designers love covering a tiny room in white paint, which promises to make even the smallest spaces feel a bit more grand. Because white reflects light, the room will feel brighter and more open. Plus, white walls give homeowners unlimited freedom to decorate (or even pick a fun, bright accent wall).
What Is a Planned Community? A Place With Perks, From Zip Lines to Velodromes
A planned community is a housing development where the homes, roads, stores and other features are carefully designed and orchestrated to make living there as convenient and enjoyable as can be.
For instance: Shopping centers may be deliberately situated within walking distance of planned community homes, which are typically attached—condos, townhouses, apartments—to make travel by foot manageable. Trees and flowers are planted alongside most streets, along with hiking/biking trails. High-speed commuter rails whisk workers to nearby urban centers for their 9-to-5 jobs. There may even be village-wide Wi-Fi, to boot.
Contrast this with the ad hoc way communities are usually built: In many cases, a developer just plunks down row housing on a parcel of land nowhere near commercial districts, which means you’ll have to always grab your car keys for a carton of milk. Sometimes, luck or some modicum of forethought helps these neighborhoods turn out OK, but planned communities, by contrast, put plenty of, well, actual planning into that whole process.
History of planned communities
The first planned community in the United States—Riverside, just outside Chicago—was built in 1869 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who designed New York City’s Central Park. Riverside, with its curved streets, ample greenery, and homes set at least 30 feet from the road, remains a beautiful and affluent community today, with a population of approximately 8,800. Large portions have even been designated National Historic Landmarks.
How Long Does It Take to Refinance a Mortgage?
Refinancing should take anywhere from 30 to 45 days on average, although that can stretch to 60 days if you hit any snags along the way. In other words: Don’t expect a refinance to happen overnight!
Although the refinancing process can take awhile, it’s definitely worth considering if you want to take advantage of a lower interest rate or withdraw some cash from your home equity (check a refinance calculator to see if refinancing makes sense for you).
Here’s why the process takes so long, plus some things you can do to speed things up.
Why refinance a mortgage?
The reason refinancing takes anywhere from 30 to 45 days is that it involves a series of procedures. Although it will be a little faster than getting your initial mortgage, it still has many of the same time-consuming steps.
What Is a Kitchenette? A Space-Saving Alternative to a Chef’s Kitchen
A cigarette is a small cigar and a towelette is a small towel, so what about a kitchenette? The English language has a tendency to not stick to hard and fast grammar rules, but in this situation, the rule stands. A kitchenette is, essentially, a smaller version of a kitchen.
But don’t be quick to count out kitchenettes based on their diminutive size! The benefits of these space-saving amenities far outweigh the disadvantages—so much so that people have started putting them in their homes in addition to their chef’s kitchens.
Traditionally you may think of kitchenettes as the solution for spaces that cannot accommodate (or do not need) a full-size kitchen—such as dorm rooms, extended-stay hotels, or even rooms in your home that you’re renting out. But these days, kitchenettes are veering more into the mainstream, says Samantha Hancock, a real estate professional with Re/Max Advantage Plus in Minneapolis–St. Paul.
Small size, big efficiency
In most living situations where square footage is limited, a kitchenette is the ideal cooking setup. It takes up only a small section of a wall and provides you with the basic necessities of a kitchen.
Get Rolling: How to Build a Bocce Court in Your Backyard
When the weather heats up and you want to spend all your time outside, a rousing game of bocce is one of the coolest lawn games you can incorporate into the design of your yard. Also known as Italian lawn bowling, bocce dates back centuries—and it’s a breeze to learn how to play. Plus, throwing a bocce ball requires only one hand, leaving the other free for a seasonal cocktail.
Building a bocce court
If your summer calendar is an endless loop of backyard barbecues and festive get-togethers (Memorial Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July, to name a few), a bocce court will provide hours of fun for adults and kids. Here’s how to build one.
1. Measure the area for the court
Use a string to outline your court.DIY Network/YouTube
He Says His Landlord Is Harassing Him to Leave a $450-a-Month Apartment
A 77-year-old man has lived in the same building for years. He says in a lawsuit that a neighbor and his landlord are jointly using dubious tactics to push him out.
Homes That Sold for Around $450,000
Recent residential sales in New York City and the region.
Tantrums and Meltdowns. When Children Tag Along on the House Hunt.
Parents took their children to open houses during the pandemic when they had no other options. They still do, because some say it is an experience to be shared.
Are Solar Panels a Good Investment?
It depends, so do your research first.
What Is a Luxury Home, and What Makes It So Special?
If you’ve ever looked over real estate listings and came across an ad for a “luxury home,” you might have thought, “Wow, this one must be special!” But what exactly defines a luxury home, anyway? Is it determined by price, location, square footage, or some magic combination of all of the above?
Well, for starters, “luxury” isn’t strictly about how much cash you blow on the purchase. It’s much more subjective, and a moving target based on what a particular area’s high-end buyers have come to expect.
“It isn’t simply a price per square foot metric,” says The Agency’s Daniel Stevenson, who specializes in selling luxury listings. “Many times luxury is simply in the eye of the very covetous neighbor.”
While it’s hard to pin down an exact definition that encapsulates this air of affluence, luxury homes do tend to have certain features in common. So whether you’re looking to buy a posh place or wondering if you can describe your current digs in such opulent terms, here are some general qualities you can expect to find in a luxury home.
The $2.2M ‘Dialogue House’ in Phoenix Speaks to Its Serene Surroundings
A desert-modern domicile known as the “Dialogue House” has talked its way onto the market. The buzzy abode is asking for $2,195,000.
“Perched on an elevated hillside, this is one of the higher houses, so it has particularly great views,” says Scott Jarson of az architecture, listing agent for this modern mansion in Phoenix. Located at the base of Echo Mountain, the home features giant walls of glass with spectacular views of the surrounding mountain preserve.
The home was built in 2001 and designed by Wendell Burnette Architects, known for the luxury Utah resort Amangiri. It has three bedrooms and three baths.
“In the design sphere, it’s well-known,” Jarson says.
What Is a California Room? A Hot Trend Across the Country
A California room is an outdoor space that boasts indoor amenities—similar to a porch but more posh. California rooms are an increasingly popular feature in homes today, particularly in warmer climates. So if you spot this term while perusing real estate listings, it’s helpful to know what it is—and whether it’s right for you.
What to know about a California room
Technically a California room isn’t a room at all. Builders tend to define rooms as structures with four walls. Instead Melissa Hazlett, vice president of marketing and sales for Baldwin & Sons, a homebuilding company based in Newport Beach, CA, likes to call a California room “one part porch and one part room.”
Although California rooms are technically classified as outdoor spaces—and thus aren’t factored into a home’s square footage—they do have protection from the elements. For instance, California rooms have a roof to keep out rain and sun. Yet unlike sunrooms or solariums, which are enclosed on all sides with windows, California rooms are open to the outdoors on one or more sides.
Also setting a California room apart from the sunroom is the fact that these “rooms” don’t have to be attached to a house, says Kathryn Bishop, a Realtor® with Keller Williams Realty in Studio City, CA. The California room can be built freestanding in the backyard, with electric lighting added for evening use and often a fireplace to add a touch of ambiance.
Need for Speed: 393-Acre Property in Fayetteville, AR, Comes With a 1.2-Mile Racetrack
It’s the perfect place for anyone who ever wanted to see how fast their car could go but didn’t want to risk a ticket.
A sprawling compound on the outskirts of Fayetteville, AR, comes with a 1.2-mile racetrack in the backyard.
“It’s for racing real cars. It runs right by the house, so you can do events and watch the race from down below or the top deck,” says listing agent Daniel Short, with True North Realty Group.
The 7,764-square-foot mansion, 30,000 square feet of metal outbuildings, and 393 acres are listed for $6.7 million. But the list price may change as there is a sale pending for some of the flood plain land for watershed conservation.
