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Painting brick, for the most part, is entirely doable—and can give your old fireplace or brick house an easy face-lift. But you’ll want to plan carefully and do your research first. Painting brick isn’t like painting any old surface.

First up, you should know that not all brick should be painted.

Rick Watson, director of product development at Sherwin-Williams, recommends against painting brand-new, porous brick. Instead he advises opting for at least a year to pass so the brick can weather. This will also allow for leaching, a process in which alkali (mortar) and efflorescence (the white powder you sometimes spot on brick) have time to leach out of the brick before painting.

And while you can paint the outside of a fireplace, it is typically not recommended that you paint the brick inside a masonry fireplace, he says, as there is no guarantee the finish will withstand contact with open flames from a fire.

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Buying a house while simultaneously selling your current home is always a treacherous tight wire to traverse—but in today’s high-priced, high-interest-rate housing market, it’s both a blessing and a curse.

The good news for home sellers is that over the past year, demand for homes has driven prices through the roof, pushing home equity to record levels. Homeowners are essentially sitting on a pile of cash, which would definitely come in handy if they start shopping for a new home.

Yet any homebuyer out there today will also face steep mortgage interest rates, which have more than doubled over the past year to the 7% range. This has raised the cost of housing by around 70% compared with a year earlier, according to a recent analysis by Realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale.

Most sellers who move would need to get a new mortgage, at a higher rate. It’s no wonder, then, that many are deciding to stay put.

David Parnes and James Harris of Million Dollar Listing LA share their secrets for success in helping investors in the shifting market. It will take thoughtful and savvy moves to keep investors purchasing into 2023.

A renovated showplace in Los Angeles, a ranch house in Sonoma and a midcentury home in Orinda.

A renovated showplace in Los Angeles, a ranch house in Sonoma and a midcentury home in Orinda.

Find out how Lancaster, California, agent Christina "Queen" Stratford learned that staying positive and connected is a winning combination.

The broadcast journalist recently painted the floors of her Florida bungalow. Some people loved the idea; others hated it.

In a discussion after Q3 earnings in which Compass reported falling revenue, Inman asked the "Selling Sunset" star to expand on remarks he made about the brokerage at ICLV back in August. He obliged.

Final Offer is a web-based offer submission and management solution offering listing marketing, home search and showing coordination.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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