By Cait Goetz Heidi Burkhart’s philosophy is simple: Give to Live. Live to Give. As the president of a New York City-based affordable housing brokerage, Burkhart firmly believes giving back is synonymous with closing deals. Her firm, Dane Professional Consulting Group (Dane PCG), and philanthropic initiative, Saxon/Hart Alliance, have devoted countless hours to...
Based on data from the OECD Better Life Index, homeownership in the U.S. can lead to higher levels of subjective well-being. Translation: homeownership is linked to happiness. The Better Life Index gauges worldwide development, zeroing in on quality of life indicators that affect global progress – housing, jobs, civic engagement, health and safety, to name a few....
Sometimes REALTORS® find the darndest things in their listings...like a horse? OK, well maybe that's a stretch. Or how about that Florida man who found a human hand in his grandparents' house along with coins and a treasure map? It's like something right out of "The Goonies"! The point is: people have weird belongings in their home and sometimes, they are unearthed...
Contributed by Patricia Bonacorda It’s easy to ignore your plumbing when taking care of other household responsibilities. Here are some easy tips to help make sure your plumbing continues to work reliably throughout the coming months: Water Heaters This will be a good opportunity to make sure your water heater is working properly so that you don’t run the risk...
Contributed by Karen Highland It seems like everyone has a real estate blog these days, as many real estate agents have joined the blogosphere over the last few years. ActiveRain has grown to over 250,000 bloggers, Zillow, Realtor.com, Homes.com and many other major real estate news sites have also started blogs. The space is glutted. Just out of curiosity, I did...
Contributed by James White, homeyimprovements.com When companies spend time building an online brand identity, what they are really doing is setting out to establish trust, and credibility is an important part of the equation. Without it, businesses cannot expect to generate leads, increase sales, or improve referrals and conversion rates. There is perhaps no other...
If you’re like me, thoughts of putting your home on the market and moving up, down or out of dodge all together periodically float through your mind. These days, there’s extra incentive given the inventory shortage in most regions of the country—some areas are even experiencing bidding wars. “After back-to-back years of a robust housing recovery, we are continuing...
As the market continues on its road to recovery, many obstacles are falling by the wayside making it easier than recent years to find the right homes for the right buyers. Mortgage rates are still low and affordable, the unemployment rate has dropped, and in many areas across the country, inventory has more or less stabilized. These factors are always some of the...
Cruising along the winding roads of Old Greenwich and nearby Riverside, Conn., one senses the rows of homes, spaced on lots less than a half-acre, parallel the enveloping feel of community. With views of steel-blue, glittering Long Island Sound peppered between homes, the neighborhood is at once a shore town and embodiment of a bygone era, where the school, firehouse...
This gives new meaning to the term “groundbreaking.” While the rest of us struggle to recycle junk mail, a select few are saving the planet by constructing homes made of rammed earth – locally sourced clay, gravel and sand walls that trump anything Etsy or farmers markets can offer. And though its roots trace back to ancient civilizations, rammed earth walls...
