• US home sales remained low due to high mortgage rates and home prices in 2024.
• Southeast cities like Charlotte and Knoxville saw high demand despite affordability issues.
• Analysts predict a potential rise in home sales in 2025, driven by lower mortgage rates.

Another tough year in the US housing market was anything but boring for those in popular cities.

Home sales were soft for a third straight year, the National Association of Realtors recently noted. Mortgage rates and home prices are down from peak levels, but affordability remains a major issue and has sidelined millions of would-be buyers, who are instead renting.

But sellers in hot markets still won big as buyers battled for scarce spots in coveted cities.

10 places movers flocked to in 2024

To determine this year's most popular US real-estate markets, Business Insider compiled and analyzed data from six sources about moving patterns, rents, rental market competitiveness, search interest from homebuyers, and home price growth history and projections.

Although there were some mixed signals, there were also some clear conclusions about which regions, states, and cities drew the most interest from buyers and renters.

A brief look at migration data from Atlas Van Lines may yield more questions than answers. The moving firm found that the places with the most inbound movers relative to those leaving were Arkansas; Rhode Island; North Carolina; Washington, DC; and Idaho. Also on the list of states with inbound rates of at least 55% are Maine, Connecticut, Washington, Alaska, Alabama, and New Mexico, which essentially covers all four corners of the US.

But while that moving data gives a solid big-picture overview, it doesn't provide insight into which individual markets were most popular. That was instead determined by other measures of demand, like how much prices for homes and apartments rose, or how tough they were to land.

This process was more of an art than a science, but the 10 cities that best fit those criteria within states with substantial positive inflows of movers were all east of the Mississippi River. Even more notable is that the Southeast region was home to eight of those 10 popular markets, which were spread across just three states: North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

North Carolina was tied for second in the nation in mover inbound rate at 63%, due in part to four especially hot markets. Winston-Salem and nearby Greensboro saw their rents rise 6.7% and 5.3% this year, respectively, giving their rental market competitiveness scores a big boost. Meanwhile, two other major cities in the Tar Heel State — Charlotte and Durham — saw rents decline but were among the 20 most searched markets by homebuyers.

Those four North Carolina cities are set for high-single-digit or low-double-digit home price growth next year, per Realtor.com, and the NAR highlighted Charlotte as a top spot in 2025.

Neighboring Tennessee also had one of the nation's highest inbound rates at 62%. Knoxville was one of the more competitive smaller markets despite rent growth of just 1.5%, and it ranked 10th in the nation in homebuyers' searches. It's also on the NAR's list of standout markets next year. Meanwhile, Memphis saw 22.7% rent growth and is in line for 10.5% home price growth.

Kentucky's inbound rate of 56% was more modest. However, it had Lexington with 9.9% rent growth, a lofty rental market competitiveness score, and the eighth spot in buyers' searches, as well as Louisville, which Rent Cafe said was the top trending rental market of 2024.

Jonathan Miller, the cofounder of the real-estate firm Miller Samuel, told Business Insider that the Southeast market is popular because it's relatively warm and has ample housing inventory.

"It's a combination of the weather and housing affordability," Miller said in a recent interview.

The nation's capital represented the bordering Mid-Atlantic with a 63% mover inbound rate and a fifth-place ranking in homebuyers' searches, pushing prices up 10.2%. Washington, DC, was also one of the 30 most competitive rental markets, though supply kept price growth in check.

Rounding out the list was New Haven, Connecticut, which was arguably the hottest market. It was the fourth most competitive rental market this year, and its rent growth was easily the highest in the US in December at 35.7%. It also had 18.3% home price growth in November and is set for another 9.7% next year due to its Yale University ties and proximity to New York City.

What to expect in 2025

The US housing market has slowly thawed after it froze over as mortgage rates spiked. Some real-estate analysts expect sales to heat up in 2025, though others are more skeptical.

Optimists are calling for the biggest jump since the pandemic boom. The National Association of Realtors sees home sales rising 7% to 12% in 2025, including an 11% jump for new units, while eXp Realty's CEO is calling for 10% growth caused by sliding mortgage rates and rising supply.

But Realtor.com's sales forecast is more tempered at 1.5%, as is Miller's call for a 3% increase. The veteran real-estate analyst said mortgage rates will likely stay above 6%, weighing on demand, plus supply is also limited. Even still, he's expecting a 4% to 5% jump in home prices.

"If mortgage rates unexpectedly fall below 6%, we can have a housing boom," Miller said. "It just doesn't appear that that's in the cards, but there's a lot of upside potential in transaction volume, despite higher mortgage rates."

Miller said that against that backdrop, buyers will continue to seek out affordable markets, which are often correlated with abundant inventory. That's why the Sun Belt region was so hot in 2024.

This year's most popular markets will likely be among the winners next year, in Miller's view. He didn't predict the next boom town but said surges into Texas and Florida have run their course. Those states were red-hot in the early 2020s, though each had level moving flows this year.

"It's not that those markets are less attractive," Miller said. "There's less intensity from inbound migration as millions of new residents get situated. The rate of growth is no longer surging."

However, it appears as if the exodus from large states with highly populated cities isn't over, as three of the five states with the most outbound movers were California, Illinois, and New York. Each of those states has relatively high taxes, and Miller has a hunch that some movers might try to preemptively move before the potential expiration of state and local tax deductions slated for the end of 2025.

• Private home insurers are dropping a growing number of customers in most states, a Senate report found.
• That leaves homeowners at risk, turning to more expensive last-resort options or going uninsured.
• While Florida has managed to reverse the trend somewhat, the risk to homeowners is set to intensify.

As Americans flock to places in the US vulnerable to natural disasters, private home insurance companies are running the other way.

The problem has left a rising number of homeowners with just one option to cover property damage: insurers of last resort.

The scale of homeowners losing their plans became clearer on Wednesday after a Senate Budget Committee investigation found that private insurers' nonrenewals spiked threefold in more than 200 counties between 2018 and 2023.

"What our new data reveal is that the failure to deal with climate change is also affecting whether families can even get homeowners insurance, which threatens their ability to get a mortgage, which spells trouble for property values in climate-exposed communities across the country," Senate Budget Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse said in releasing the report.

A recent study by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies found that between 2018 and 2023, the number of properties enrolled in California and Florida's insurers of last resort more than doubled. A similar trend is playing out in Louisiana. While Florida has reduced participation this year, it still has the highest enrollment in the country.

The problem isn't isolated to the most predictable states. The Senate Budget Committee found that the rate of homeowners losing their private insurance also rose in Hawaii, North Carolina, and Massachusetts.

Policymakers and insurers are trying to stabilize the private market, by enacting new laws and overhauling regulations. However, with scientists predicting that climate-fueled disasters will become more frequent and severe for the foreseeable future, the risk to America's homeowners is mounting.

Growing insurance risk has some states looking for solutions

In nearly three dozen states, insurers of last resort, known as Fair Access to Insurance Requirements, or FAIR, are available to homeowners and businesses who struggle to find insurance on the private market.

The numbers are rising because private insurers are pulling back coverage and hiking premiums in areas at risk of wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, and other disasters often made worse by climate change.

While state-mandated FAIR plans are designed to be a backstop, insurance regulators and private insurance companies are alarmed by how many homeowners and businesses are enrolling, especially in California and Florida. The plans are often more expensive and provide less coverage. Plus, saddling one insurer with the riskiest policies increases the chances of one major disaster sinking the system and leaving taxpayers and insurance companies with the bill.

Florida and California are trying to reverse the trend, and Florida has seen some progress. The state's insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, said on December 4 that its policy count dropped below 1 million for the first time in two years.

Mark Friedlander, a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, said the drop reflects a series of changes in recent years to stabilize the state's private insurance market after more than a dozen companies left the state or stopped writing new policies.

The Florida legislature passed laws to curb rampant litigation and claim fraud that drove up legal costs for private insurers. Friedlander said insurance lawsuits in the first three quarters of 2024 are down 56%, compared with the first three quarters of 2021 — the year before the new laws were enacted. Citizens also started a "depopulation" program that shifts customers to the private market. State regulators in October said they had approved at least nine new property companies to enter the market, and premiums weren't rising nearly as much as last year.

In California, many of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires have occurred within the last five years. As a result, some private insurers are hiking premiums and limiting coverage in risky areas, pushing more homeowners to the insurer of last resort. The Harvard study found that policies in the state's FAIR plan doubled between 2018 and 2023 to more than 300,000. As of September, the California Insurance Commission said policies totaled nearly 452,000.

The commission is working to overhaul regulations to slow the trend, including requiring private insurers to sell in risky areas. In exchange, it should be easier for companies to raise premiums that factor in reinsurance costs and the risks of future disasters. That should help stabilize rates, said Michael Sollen, a spokesman for the commission.

Sollen added that in the past, private insurers could seek approval for higher premiums but weren't required to offer coverage in wildfire-prone areas.

"In a year from now, what's happening with the FAIR plan will be a key measure for us," he said. "We expect to see those numbers start to stabilize and go down."

A mounting home insurance crisis

Still, a reduction in state-backed plans isn't necessarily a sign of progress, Steve Koller, a postdoctoral fellow in climate and housing and author of the Harvard report, told Business Insider.

A growing number of homeowners in places like Florida, Louisiana, and California are purchasing private insurance from nontraditional providers barely regulated by state governments. These so-called "non-admitted" insurers don't contribute to a state fund that guarantees homeowners will have their claims paid even if the insurance provider fails, leaving their customers without access to this backup coverage.

"Someone could be moving to a private insurer from Citizens, and that insurer might have higher insolvency risk," Koller said.

He added that more homeowners are opting out of insurance altogether. The number of US homeowners going without insurance has soared from 5% in 2019 to 12% in 2022, the Insurance Information Institute reported.

Plus, Americans are increasingly moving into parts of the country most vulnerable to extreme weather. Tens of thousands more people moved into the most flood—and fire-prone areas of the US last year rather than out of them, the real estate company Redfin reported earlier this year.

As insurers of last resort try to shift more risk to the private market, home insurance premiums are expected to keep rising. That's especially true in the areas hardest hit by climate-fueled disasters.

If private insurers exit hard-hit regions en masse in the future, Koller said states might need to become the predominant insurance provider in the same way the National Flood Insurance Program took over after the private market for flood insurance collapsed in the 1960s. Most flood insurance plans are still issued by the federal government.

"My guess is states are going to work very, very hard to avoid that and ensure the existence of a robust private market, but that's a parallel that I can't personally unthink about," he said.

Have you struggled to get home insurance, moved to an insurer of last resort, or gone uninsured? Contact these reporters at [email protected] or [email protected].

• Brennan Schlagbaum has zero interest in managing properties but wants exposure to real estate.
• His solution is to invest in real estate syndications, which are completely hands-off.
• This is when a group of investors pool capital to purchase a single investment.

Brennan Schlagbaum recognizes the advantages of real estate — from the tax benefits to portfolio diversification — but he's not willing to buy and manage an investment property.

He says he has his hands full with simply maintaining a primary residence: "I hate real estate with a passion. If something breaks in my house, I call somebody."

To benefit from real estate without having to actually own and operate properties, he invests in real estate syndications.

"I think it's one of the best ways for somebody that hates real estate but understands the tax benefits of real estate to get in because you don't have to do anything," the self-made millionaire and founder of Budgetdog, who built his wealth primarily investing in low-cost index funds, told Business Insider.

How real-estate syndications work

In real-estate syndication deals, a group of investors pools together their capital to purchase a single property managed by the syndicator.

Once the investor contributes capital, their role in the deal becomes completely passive. The real-estate syndicator is responsible for finding the deal, executing the transaction, and, ultimately, delivering returns to the investors.

"You lose control from that aspect. You don't really have control over how that performs," said Schlagbaum, who said he invests in five multi-family syndications. But if you work with a syndicator with a good track record that you trust, "it's essentially an index fund."

He invests with a syndicator that specializes in multi-family properties.

"They go in, upgrade the units, increase rent prices in a really high-demand area that's underpriced, own and operate that building for a couple of years, and then typically sell it after a three- to five-year period, sometimes up to seven," he explained. "And you don't do anything as an investor; you're just an equity partner. So you literally send some capital their way and hope they do their job."

A good option for established investors looking for hands-off strategies

BI has spoken to a variety of established investors who, after building wealth by acquiring rental properties, are turning to syndication deals for a more passive experience.

"You hear that real-estate investing is passive, and that's certainly not been my experience," said self-made millionaire Tess Waresmith, who owns five units across three properties. "I still think it's a wonderful way to invest, but it's not passive like investing in the stock market is."

She invested in her first syndication in 2023 and likes that it opens the door to bigger investment opportunities.

"I check out the deal and make sure it's something that feels good to me, and then when I invest the money, I'm hands-off. I'm not involved in the day-to-day decision-making of the property," she said. "But as an investor, I get to benefit from investing in the larger unit properties."

Carl and Mindy Jensen, a financially independent couple who have started shifting toward passive-investing strategies, including real estate syndication, also appreciate the hands-off nature of these deals. But it's hard to know what your returns will look like, Carl told BI: "The people running these syndications will tell you they're expecting numbers, and it's infrequently accurate."

It's important to remember that the syndicator is "probably using their best, sunny-day scenarios." That said, "every syndication we've had has actually outperformed the original numbers."

To participate in this type of partnership, you typically have to be an accredited investor, meaning you either must have a net worth of over $1 million or an income of over $200,000 (individually) over the past two years. There's also typically a minimum investment requirement, depending on the syndicator.

But there are workarounds, said Schlagbaum, especially if you're part of a real-estate community or network.

Investors who are part of the community he's built, for example, don't necessarily have to be accredited to participate, since "the SEC deems pre-existing relationships allowable," he said. "They just get access to the deal because they know me."

Sometimes, "Getting around those hurdles is just knowing the right people."

• Three baby boomer homeowners told BI they want to downsize but can't find suitable options.
• Rising home prices have led to a big increase in their home equity over the years.
• But those rising prices also make it harder to find affordable homes for retirement.

As many baby boomer homeowners look to cash in on their home equity and downsize, some are grappling with a shortage of suitable homes.

Older homeowners are increasingly staying put, as mortgage rates and housing costs remain stubbornly elevated and inventory— particularly of affordable and accessible homes — is scarce. Some simply can't find a suitable home that would leave them with enough cash to retire on, while others simply don't feel downsizing is a savvy financial move with housing and borrowing costs so high.

Kim Cayes is one of those boomers who feel stuck. The 67-year-old always banked on selling her four-bedroom house in Parsippany, New Jersey, to help support herself in retirement.

"My plan had kind of been: save everything I can, and then when I retire, move someplace cheap and use the equity in my house to buy a house in cash to reduce my costs," she told Business Insider.

Cayes bought her home for $245,000 in 2000 after her divorce. She added a major addition and has since benefited from New Jersey's soaring home prices — the house was recently appraised at nearly $700,000, according to documents reviewed by Business Insider.

But Cayes, now semi-retired from corporate communications, is no longer interested in leaving northern Jersey for a cheaper part of the country. Two of her three adult children live with her, and she doesn't want to leave her community.

"I would hate to move somewhere and leave one of my kids behind because, not being married, my kids are all I've got," she said. "Especially as you get older, you need a network of people."

Cayes is looking for a single-story home in the $400,000 to $450,000 range. But she hasn't had any luck finding something suitable. She says the homes she's looked at would need a lot of work and aren't in familiar neighborhoods.

"Thinking I'm going to spend the final years of my life in a worse situation than I've ever been in — that's just so depressing," Cayes said. "Especially when my friends are all traveling around the world with their spouses and constantly posting on Facebook which countries they're in."

'A lateral financial move'

Some boomers who can afford to stay in their homes don't want to endure the costs and possible stress associated with downsizing. Even those who are still paying off their homes often have much lower mortgage interest rates than what they could get on the market today, hovering around 6.5%. And leaving a familiar home and neighborhood can be emotionally taxing.

Dorothy Lipovenko, 71, and her husband love the single-family home in a well-connected neighborhood of Montreal where they've lived for nearly 25 years. But the options to downsize in their area seem limited to pricey new condos and old homes that need major repairs. Lipovenko doesn't want to live in a modern condo without green space, but she also doesn't want to take on a home renovation project.

"It becomes a lateral financial move, and that is what has us saying 'no,'" she said. "Downsizing is a huge undertaking, physically and emotionally, and a one-for-one trade makes no sense."

Ideally, Lipovenko and her husband would move to a smaller, single-floor house — she dreams of a Levittown-style suburban starter home, she said.

"It's not just giving up possessions and going into a smaller space; it's shrinking a lot of things to fit a new mindset," she said. "I just can't see my husband and I spending the last decades of our life in a little apartment."

'I'm lucky I have this house'

Andrea S., 60, already lives in a single-story starter home in Sherman Oaks, California, that's well-suited for a retiree. But Andrea, who requested partial anonymity to protect her privacy, isn't sure she can afford to stay in it.

The former agent and producer bought her two-bedroom bungalow with her ex-partner in 1994 for $245,000. She's lived in the home ever since, hasn't made any major improvements, and has a housemate to split the bills with. The Zillow estimate, reviewed by Business Insider, found the house is now worth about $1.3 million.

"I'm lucky I have this house," she told Business Insider. "I just hate the fact that the house is pretty much my pension fund."

Andrea's income is lower than she expected it to be at this point in her life — she's struggled to work since suffering from a head injury in a car crash in 2021. Meanwhile, the pandemic and Hollywood writers' strike killed off some of her projects, she said. At the same time, maintenance and repair costs for her nearly 75-year-old house are daunting: the HVAC system needs to be replaced, and the pool and large yard are expensive and energy-intensive to maintain.

"If I can't get a job that covers me enough to cover my bills, then I have to think about do I sell the house," she said.

But she's concerned that she won't be able to find an affordable home in a neighborhood as pleasant and walkable as hers, especially on a budget that makes sense. After her crash, she gave up driving and wants to keep living in a place with bus access and grocery stores within walking distance. Plus, she's concerned about the capital gains tax she'll need to pay if she sells the home.

"I'm realizing now, at age 60, all the things that you become very vulnerable to, especially when you're a woman and you don't have a life partner," she said.

Andrea and her friends joke about their dream of retiring together in the British seaside town of Port Isaac — the idyllic setting for the early-2000s TV show "Doc Martin."

"You get some nice little cottage in town. They don't have big yards. And you walk out your door, and you see the lovely English coastline," she said. "That sounds good to me."

Are you struggling to downsize or find a suitable home to retire in? Are you otherwise affected by the cost of retirement housing? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

• Real estate investor Ludomir Wanot shares strategies anyone can use to find deals.
• He doesn't expect rates to drop in 2025 and encourages investors to lean into creative financing.
• Strategies such as subject-to financing can help investors avoid excessive borrowing costs.

Real-estate investor Ludomir Wanot wants other investors to know that there are deals to be found — you just have to know where to look.

"I love rentals. I love to see the physical, tangible assets," the Seattle-based millennial, who built his wealth wholesaling and now runs an AI company that helps lenders communicate with their clients, told Business Insider. "The proven, consistent strategy that's worked for me over the last seven years is sticking with the rental strategy of buying at a 30% discount to appraised value, making sure it cash flows at least $500 a month, and the property has to be in an opportunity zone — and I find these properties all the time."

He's acquired five units in Oregon in the last five months, which BI verified by looking at settlement statements.

"They're definitely out there," he said. "But sometimes they're not in Washington. Sometimes you have to look outside the state."

Wanot shared strategies that any investor can use to find deals, what types of properties he's looking for and what he's avoiding, and the simplest way for anyone to break into real estate investing in 2025.

Source off-market deals through wholesalers

One strategy for finding deals is to look for off-market properties — meaning, properties for sale that are not listed on the multiple listing service. While more difficult to find, they're typically easier to negotiate thanks to less competition.

There are various ways to find off-market properties, from real-estate auction websites to Craigslist to door-knocking. There's also wholesaling, which is when the person acting as the wholesaler finds and buys a discounted property and then sells the contract to another buyer.

Having done wholesaling for years, Wanot is aware that "there are wholesalers that consistently find discounted properties, and you can find those people on Facebook, through investment communities, they're all over."

He encourages investors to meet with wholesalers in their area and provide them with specific property criteria. If you're new to investing and haven't yet built a network, start by attending real-estate meet-ups or joining online real-estate communities.

As Wanot has learned, "Surround yourself with people who know more than you, ask questions, and build relationships with all different kinds of people you meet because you never know when you can work with them down the road."

Maximize cash flow with creative financing

Wanot doesn't expect rates to drop significantly in 2025. To get a property to generate positive cash flow in a higher-rate environment, he recommends leaning into creative financing.

"With interest rates remaining high, traditional financing methods may not yield the best returns," he said, but strategies such as seller financing, subject-to agreements, and private lending could help investors lock in better terms and avoid excessive borrowing costs.

Seller financing is when the buyer buys directly from the seller. The seller acts as the lender and provides a loan with agreed-upon terms about things like the interest rate and schedule of payments.

With subject-to financing, the buyer takes over the existing financing. The buyer doesn't actually assume the mortgage — it remains in the seller's name with the same terms — but will make mortgage payments on behalf of the seller.

Private money lending is another way to avoid a bank or traditional mortgage lender, and can be a "great way to avoid high interest rates and fees," said Wanot, adding: "I've had a lot of luck sourcing private money lenders through real estate Facebook groups."

Look for single-family homes that need work

"If you're a new investor, I'd definitely go after the distressed, small single-family homes," said Wanot.

Another tip is to look for property where the seller has "at least 50% equity in the home and has owned it for a long time," he said, as they might be more motivated to negotiate, especially if they're managing it from out-of-state. "I'm looking at owners who are over the age of 50 because the older owners tend to want to get out of the real estate space. It is so draining and requires a lot of physical and mental work."

Wanot owns multi-family properties but has found that they're more difficult to make the numbers work, at least in his current market.

"If you're a sophisticated investor, yes, small or large multi-families are good if you actually have run your numbers 1,000 times and you know exactly what you're looking for," he said. "There have been probably five properties that I was going to buy in the last year that I didn't pull the trigger on because the profit and loss statements that were given to me were significantly different from the actual bank statements."

A common mistake he's seen investors make, especially when it comes to these big multi-families, is just paying attention to the P&Ls, "which are made by the property managers or the owners of the property and show one story," he said. "They're not actually going through the bank statements and seeing what actual revenue is coming in and what expenses are going out."

He also advises avoiding the BRRRR — buy, rehab, rent, refinance, and repeat — method in a high-rate environment: "It hasn't really been working the last couple of years because the interest rates are so high right now, and so smart investors are moving away from that."

The easiest way to get started: Rent a portion of your home

For most new investors, the simplest and most risk-averse way to get started is "creating rentable units in their single-family home space," said Wanot, referring to a strategy known as "house hacking."

This requires owning a primary residence and converting a garage, basement, or even a bedroom into a rentable space. If you have a bigger budget and meet zoning requirements in your area, another option may be to build an ADU.

At a minimum, renting out a portion of your home will reduce your mortgage — and could even fully cover it. Lowering your monthly housing payment could then help you save up to buy a proper investment property.

Wanot's top advice heading into the new year, however, is to actually implement what you read about and learn. Taking action could be as small as joining a real estate community and networking.

"People are buying programs, they're going to the events, they're watching people come up onstage and talk about how wealthy they got through a particular strategy. But very few people actually implement anything they're being taught," he said.

"The day we actually stop listening to and reading all these stories, podcasts, and YouTube videos and actually apply ourselves is the day we're finally going to start seeing progress in our lives."

• Single women in the US are outpacing men in homebuying, the National Association of Realtors found.
• In 2024, single women represent 20% of all homebuyers, compared to 8% for single men.
• Three single women shared with BI their motivations for buying a home without a partner or a spouse.

Karla Cobreiro, 33, lived with her parents for nearly a decade after college, diligently saving to buy her own home.

"I didn't want to be house-poor or struggle financially," Cobreiro, a publicist, told Business Insider. "I waited for the right moment — when I had a higher-paying job, had saved up a large down payment, and had built a solid emergency fund.

In 2022, she purchased a 900-square-foot condo in Downtown Doral, a Miami suburb, for around $400,000. She was 31 and single.

"I didn't have a partner at the time, but I didn't think that should stop me," Cobreiro said. "So I went for it."

Cobreiro is one of many single women in the US who haven't let the absence of a relationship or marriage stop them from buying a home — an achievement long seen as a key milestone of wealth building and the American dream.

An analysis of data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) shows that single women have consistently outpaced single men in homebuying since the organization began tracking data in 1981.

The chart below shows that since 2020, the share of single women homebuyers has continued to increase steadily, while the share of single men has declined.

By 2024, the gap has reached its widest, with single women representing 20% of all homebuyers, compared to 8% for single men.

Single women find independence in homeownership

So why are single women statistically more likely to purchase homes than single men?

Brandi Snowden, NAR's director of member and consumer survey research, told BI that it largely comes down to lifestyle choices and women's unique societal roles.

Snowden explained that many single women purchase homes because they desire independence, have experienced divorce, and are responsible for raising children.

NAR found that female buyers are typically older than their male counterparts, with the median age for single women at 60, compared to 58 for single men.

"These buyers may be recently divorced or purchasing a home not just for themselves but also for their children and parents," Snowden said.

"It's just me and this mortgage."

Cobreiro said that buying a home without a spouse has its own challenges, such as settling for a smaller condo since she's not part of a DINK household — an acronym for "dual income, no kids."

Data from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances shows that DINKs have a median net worth of over $200,000. This financial advantage enables them to more easily afford housing or spend their disposable income on luxuries like boats and expensive cars.

Despite the financial benefits of a two-income household, many women have chosen to live independently in an era of increasing financial and social autonomy.

Cobreiro is responsible for a 30-year mortgage, which includes $2,500 in monthly payments and an additional $1,000 in HOA fees — all of which fall entirely on her.

"Though I live comfortably, If I get laid off, break a leg, or face an emergency, I'm on my own, she said. "I always joke to my friends, "It's just me and this mortgage."

Still, she believes the benefits of sole home ownership outweigh the risks of waiting to purchase with a boyfriend.

"I'm glad I didn't wait until I was in a relationship or married to buy a home," she said. "Owning a home with someone you're not committed to can get tricky, especially if you break up. There's no prenup; if you disagree about selling, that can get messy."

Some women say no prenup, no co-owning

New Yorker Jessica Chestler, 33, shares a similar perspective to Cobreiro.

In 2022, Chestler, a real-estate agent with Douglas Elliman and a business owner, purchased a three-bedroom condo in Williamsburg for $3.25 million.

She told BI that she viewed homeownership as an investment in her future, one she wasn't willing to risk with someone she wasn't fully committed to.

"When you're buying a home with someone else, there's obviously a lot more to consider, especially if you're not married," Chestler said. "There's always that uncertainty: What happens if you break up — how do you divide the assets?"

Chestler, who also renovated her home, said the greatest benefit of owning solo is the ability to rely on herself and the freedom to live on her own terms.

"I only had to consider myself," she said. "I didn't have to worry about anyone else's opinion. I loved the apartment, knew my numbers, and was confident I could make it work — That sense of comfort was really important to me."

Women say they don't need a knight in shining armor

Some single women who buy homes may have boyfriends but aren't waiting for a ring to start building wealth through home equity.

Take real-estate agent Ayriel Von Schert, who, in February, purchased a 2,280-square-foot townhouse for $365,000 in Mesa, Arizona, without a cosigner.

Although Von Schert, 30, is in a long-term committed relationship, she wanted to take control of her financial future.

"I think many women feel the same way: Why wait for someone else to help you achieve your goals?" she told BI.

Her decision to buy alone could pay off in the long run. Another unit in Von Schert's complex is on the market for $410,000. If it sells for that price, her home will have appreciated by about $35,000 in one year.

"In a few years, I might sell this place or keep it and rent it out while buying another property," she said. "My long-term goal is to build a real estate portfolio and earn residual income, and I feel like I'm definitely on the right path."

For now, she and her boyfriend are living like roommates, equally splitting the bills for the home, including utilities and the mortgage.

She said it's a win-win situation for both of them.

"I don't think he minds because we no longer have a landlord telling us what we can or can't do," she said.

Are you a single or unmarried woman who purchased a home? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Realtor Patti DiMarco, 76, moved to Babcock Ranch after increasing concerns over hurricane damage.
• She purchased a $480,000 three-bedroom home and moved in two weeks after her first visit.
• DiMarco says she felt safe during the most recent hurricane season.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Patti DiMarco, a 76-year-old Realtor who splits her time between New Jersey and Florida. After increasing concerns over hurricane damage and rising insurance costs, DiMarco moved to the 'hurricane-resistant' community of Babcock Ranch.

Located 20 minutes north of Fort Myers, Babcock Ranch was built on land 30 feet above sea level. Developers took precautions for extreme weather events, like designing smart lakes to combat flooding and burying utilities underground. Babcock Ranch's field house, designed to withstand 150 mph wind gusts, also serves as an evacuation shelter for surrounding areas during a hurricane.

I used to live in a gated community in Naples, Florida, about three miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The homes were of various types, including condos with carports, condos with garages, and single-family homes. I lived in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom home that I purchased for $238,000.

My concerns started with the 2018 Surfside building collapse. After that tragedy, the Florida legislature required all condominium and homeowners associations to modify their accounting. They needed more cash for replacement costs, which would impact owners. I believed I would eventually get hit with a big assessment.

Then, there were the hurricanes. I was on the condominium association board, so I dealt with all the issues and the damage. I started to feel like it was becoming too much to manage. During Hurricane Irma in 2017, seven of our homes lost their roofs, and several people lost their cars. During Hurricane Ian in 2022, 18 garages were damaged.

I started to think, 'Where else do I want to live?' I wanted to stay in Florida but find a better situation. One of my grandchildren studied Babcock Ranch as part of a college course on sustainability. It inspired me to visit.

I visited Babcock Ranch for the first time in December 2023. I moved in two weeks later.

Last December, I visited Babcock Ranch, Florida. I toured it, returned the next day, bought the house, and moved in two weeks later.

I've been a Realtor for almost 50 years. When it's right, you just know.

Purchased for $480,000, it has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a den, and a two-car garage. Although I'm in a golf course community and don't play golf, I like the open space.

Settling into Babcock was easy. I unpacked my stuff and went to the pool the next day. The facilities and each of the different neighborhoods are very welcoming, and the people in the neighborhoods are also nice.

There's so much attention to detail in the community. With the utilities being underground, the smart lakes absorbing water, and even the lakes' overflow designed to flow into the street instead of houses, I feel very safe in the event of a hurricane.

My flood insurance costs around $600 per year, and neighbors have told me that I may even be able to abandon it once the final elevation readings are completed.

For the past hurricane season, I didn't worry at all. I was still in New Jersey and hadn't come down yet. Still, there was a Ring camera on my doorbell, and during the storm all I saw in the video was a little palm tree blow. It was just very reassuring.

I was speaking with my neighbors here, and one of them, in particular, was very nervous. She had just moved and hadn't been through a hurricane season. I kept telling her, 'If they didn't think you were safe here, they would be telling you to leave,' but it's the reverse. They're bringing people to Babcock for shelter.

I miss some of the shopping in Naples, but I don't mind zipping around in my golf cart

The people here are a total variety. There are young families, retired folks, people working remotely, and people working in Cape Coral, about an hour away.

The geographic areas where people are coming from are also very diverse. I've met many people from the Midwest, but I've also met people from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Massachusetts.

I don't miss being closer to the shoreline, but I miss some of the restaurants and shopping I had in Naples. New stores are coming here, though. We have a larger shopping district opening next year.

On the other hand, I drive my golf cart everywhere. I do my errands and then flip back to the pool and restaurants. It's like living in a little village from a Hallmark movie.

• Erwin Jacob Miciano left the Navy in 2021 to focus on his real estate business full-time.
• Miciano and his wife used VA loans to buy a triplex and start their business, Semi Homes.
• Semi Homes helps homeowners avoid foreclosure and launched Miciano's real estate career.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Erwin Jacob Miciano, a 27-year-old real-estate investor and the owner of Semi Homes in South El Monte, California. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a dedicated dad, a committed husband, a real-estate investor, and the co-owner of Semi Homes, a real-estate company specializing in direct-to-seller transactions and marketing strategies. I co-own the company with my wife, Theressa.

I don't have a college degree. I graduated from high school in 2015 and first worked at Wetzel's Pretzels. I decided to join the Navy to support my family abroad in the Philippines and my mom and brother in the US.

In March 2016, after three months of boot camp, I completed the basic training to become a photojournalist. Until September 2021, I served as a mass communication specialist, with most of my overseas years based in Japan, stationed on the USS Ronald Reagan.

I separated from the military in 2021 to pursue real estate full-time

My Navy job included writing press releases, aerial photography, videography, and printing. In later years, I was stationed at the Naval Hospital Balboa in San Diego, where we covered COVID-19, and I was deployed with USNS Mercy to San Pedro in Los Angeles during the pandemic.

I was presented with an "early out" program because of overmanning in my job, and it allowed me to complete my contract a couple of years early. I had already started my business, but leaving the military allowed me to pursue it full-time.

I also wanted to spend more time with my young family. My eldest was born in January 2020.

My wife and I met on the day I arrived on the USS Ronald Reagan in 2016

We became friends through the first-response/firefighting team, where she worked as an electrician. We also noticed each other at church services, and she invited me to her baptism ceremony, where she was baptized inside an open jet fuel tank.

Early in our relationship, we lived together in a small Japanese apartment. Then, we spent about a year doing long-distance, with me still deploying on the carrier and her based in San Diego.

After a year of dating, we got married, and soon after some vacation in the US, we discovered we were expecting our first child. During most of her pregnancy, Theressa lived alone until I got stationed in San Diego around her seventh month.

That same year, I became deeply interested in personal finance and real-estate investing, inspired by stories of blue-collar workers achieving financial freedom through real estate. I learned the most from the BiggerPockets podcasts.

We were motivated to become first-time homebuyers

We were eager to apply what we had learned and planned to use the VA loan entitlement from our military service. VA entitlement is how much lenders can lend to a veteran or active duty member without providing a down payment.

We aimed to buy a multifamily property — ideally a duplex, triplex, or fourplex — so we could live in one unit and rent the others to offset our mortgage. Today, this strategy is known as house hacking.

Being stationed in San Diego gave us a few key advantages

The housing allowance we received as military members was higher than in most US locations, boosting our household income to about $10,000-$12,000 monthly. This allowance was discontinued once we both left the military. Theressa left the Navy almost a year before I did at the end of 2020.

Second, the VA loan allowed us to buy a multifamily property with zero down payment.

Third, we included 75% of the gross rental income from the property in our loan application, increasing our approved loan amount. On paper, our monthly gross increased to $15,000-$17,000.

Finally, new legislation removed local VA loan limits for first-time users, giving us more purchasing power.

After months of searching, we found a triplex listed for $1.2 million

We offered $1 million and settled at $1.1 million. By March 2020, we had moved into a three-bedroom unit while renting out the other two for about $4,000 a month, reducing our housing costs to less than what one-bedroom rentals were going for at the time. This was the start of Semi Homes.

After living in the triplex for two years, we moved in with my mom and brother in September 2021 in the San Gabriel Valley. The triplex is now fully a rental property generating $1,500 to $2,000 monthly profit.

My day-to-day work involves meeting with homeowners who are looking for support in selling their properties

We now buy properties and resell them for a profit. We also help sellers in deep foreclosure and save them from it. My role is to get my team in front of our target audience and guide clients through the entire process, all the way to the closing table.

There are also late-night administrative hours and business-building, which I work on three to four nights a week. The biggest change from my Navy days is that I'm no longer away from my family for long periods — a small freedom I cherish.

I feel both fulfilled and successful

While Semi Homes started as a way to build wealth and achieve financial freedom for my family, it's grown into something more.

We stay in this tough business because we truly believe in the value we provide to the individuals we work with. I'm focused on building our online presence and spreading the word that foreclosing is not the only option.

I see myself in real estate for the rest of my life.

Want to share your story about getting on the property ladder? Email Lauryn Haas at [email protected].

When Zillow debuted in 2006, the fledgling site bore little resemblance to the real-estate behemoth it is now. There were no options to find an agent, get a mortgage, or request a tour — the search portal couldn't even tell you which homes were actually for sale. There was, however, the Zestimate: a "free, unbiased valuation" for 40 million houses around the US, based on a proprietary algorithm. Half the single-family homes in America suddenly had a dollar figure attached to them, and anyone could take a peek. Zillow's site crashed within hours as a million people raced to ogle at the results.

The initial rush was a sign of things to come. Nowadays, the Zestimate is arguably the most popular — and polarizing — number in real estate. An entire generation of homeowners doesn't know life without the algorithm; some obsessively track its output as they would a stock portfolio or the price of bitcoin. By the time a seller hires a real-estate agent, there's a good chance they've already consulted the digital oracle. For anyone with even a passing interest in the housing market, the Zestimate is a breezy way to take the temperature. Keep tabs on mortgage rates all you want, but they can't tell you that your house has appreciated 20% over the past year, or that your annoying coworker's property is worth more than yours.

Many industry insiders, however, regard the number as a starting point at best and dangerously misguided at worst. Real-estate agents recount arguments with sellers who reject their pricing advice, choosing instead to take the Zestimate as the word of God. One meme likens its disciples to adults who still believe in Santa. Zillow itself lost hundreds of millions of dollars during the pandemic when it relied on its algorithm to buy homes at what turned out to be inflated prices, part of an ill-fated attempt to flip homes at scale.

The Zestimate is just one of a slew of automated valuation models that are increasingly used by banks, investors, and laypeople to estimate the value of homes. No other model, however, has wormed its way into our culture like the Zestimate. The model, like other consumer-facing AVMs, is prone to errors that render it more of an amusement than a serious pricing tool. But while the algo's price-guessing skills may be suspect, it's undeniably elite at one thing: luring people to Zillow-dot-com.

The Zestimate is both everywhere and an enigma. About 104 million homes, or 71% of the US housing stock, have a little dollar figure hovering above them on Zillow's website. One of them is the house in Austin where I was raised until the age of 10. It's not for sale, but right underneath the address, in bold, is the Zestimate. Next to it is a "Rent Zestimate," or the amount the owner could probably charge a tenant each month. You can click to see a graph of its Zestimate over the past decade — the Zillow-fied value of my childhood home rose a staggering 72% from May 2020 to its peak in May 2022 but has since dropped 24% from that top tick thanks to the chill running through the Austin market. In just the past 30 days, the Zestimate has dropped by $4,455. Ouch.

Just how accurate are those numbers, though? Until the house actually trades hands, it's impossible to say. Zillow's own explanation of the methodology, and its outcomes, can be misleading. The model, the company says, is based on thousands of data points from public sources like county records, tax documents, and multiple listing services — local databases used by real-estate agents where most homes are advertised for sale. Zillow's formula also incorporates user-submitted info: If you get a fancy new kitchen, for example, your Zestimate might see a nice bump if you let the company know. Zillow makes sure to note that the Zestimate can't replace an actual appraisal, but articles on its website also hail the tool as a "powerful starting point in determining a home's value" and "generally quite accurate." The median error rate for on-market homes is just 2.4%, per the company's website, while the median error rate for off-market homes is 7.49%. Not bad, you might think.

But that's where things get sticky. By definition, half of homes sell within the median error rate, e.g., within 2.4% of the Zestimate in either direction for on-market homes. But the other half don't, and Zillow doesn't offer many details on how bad those misses are. And while the Zestimate is appealing because it attempts to measure what a house is worth even when it's not for sale, it becomes much more accurate when a house actually hits the market. That's because it's leaning on actual humans, not computers, to do a lot of the grunt work. When somebody lists their house for sale, the Zestimate will adjust to include all the new seller-provided info: new photos, details on recent renovations, and, most importantly, the list price. The Zestimate keeps adjusting until the house actually sells. At that point, the difference between the sale price and the latest Zestimate is used to calculate the on-market error rate, which, again, is pretty good: In Austin, for instance, a little more than 94% of on-market homes end up selling for within 10% of the last Zestimate before the deal goes through. But Zillow also keeps a second Zestimate humming in the background, one that never sees the light of day. This version doesn't factor in the list price — it's carrying on as if the house never went up for sale at all. Instead, it's used to calculate the "off-market" error rate. When the house sells, the difference between the final price and this shadow algorithm reveals an error rate that's much less satisfactory: In Austin, only about 66% of these "off-market Zestimates" come within 10% of the actual sale price. In Atlanta, it's 65%; Chicago, 58%; Nashville, 63%; Seattle, 69%. At today's median home price of $420,000, a 10% error would mean a difference of more than $40,000.

Without sellers spoonfeeding Zillow the most crucial piece of information — the list price — the Zestimate is hamstrung. It's a lot easier to estimate what a home will sell for once the sellers broadcast, "Hey, this is the price we're trying to sell for." Because the vast majority of sellers work with an agent, the list price is also usually based on that agent's knowledge of the local market, the finer details of the house, and comparable sales in the area. This September, per Zillow's own data, the typical home sold for 99.8% of the list price — almost exactly spot on. That may not always be the case, but the list price is generally a good indicator of the sale figure down the line. For a computer model of home prices, it's basically the prized data point. In the world of AVMs, models that achieve success by fitting their results to list prices are deemed "springy" or "bouncy" — like a ball tethered to a string, they won't stray too far. Several people I talked to for this story say they've seen this in action with Zillow's model: A seller lists a home and asks for a number significantly different from the Zestimate, and then watches as the Zestimate moves within a respectable distance of that list price anyway. Zillow itself makes no secret of the fact that it leans on the list price to arrive at its own estimate.

Other sites have their versions of the Zestimate, too — there are actually about 25 different AVMs in the market, says Lee Kennedy, the founder and managing director of AVMetrics, a company known for independently testing these models. Realtor.com will show you three estimates, each from a different AVM provider. Redfin, a Zillow competitor, also has its own model. Kennedy has been studying AVMs for more than three decades, but it wasn't until the advent of Zillow that the masses became aware of them. Consumer-facing AVMs, like the Zestimate or the Redfin Estimate (Restimate?) are meant to be used informally, he says, as casual starting points before consulting real experts. They're not supposed to be used for real pricing, which should be left to the big guys — the "business-to-business" AVMs used by banks, investors, and the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Lauryn Dempsey, a real-estate agent in the Denver area, gives similar advice to her clients.

"They're tools that provide information," Dempsey says, "but they should not be used in a vacuum to make decisions."

The business-to-business models are so costly to develop, Kennedy tells me, that they'll probably never be offered to regular people for free. But his testing indicates they're much more reliable. His firm has unveiled blind testing that looks at how models perform before taking into account the list price, a method that penalizes those aforementioned bouncy algorithms. The standard measurement breaks down how often the model can get within 10%, in either direction, of the actual selling price. In a highly urbanized area with lots of housing transactions, some of the models can correctly get close to the final selling price about 80% to 90% of the time — "not bad," Kennedy says. AVMs of all kinds work best in areas with a lot of homes that look and feel roughly the same. Cookie-cutter suburbs are heaven; areas with a wide range of home styles and ages, like Boston, pose a greater challenge. The value of a ranch home in the middle of nowhere is even tougher to peg.

So the Zestimate isn't exactly unique, and it's far from the best. But to the average internet surfer, no AVM carries the weight, or swagger, of the original. To someone like Jonathan Miller, the president and CEO of the appraisal and consulting company Miller Samuel, the enduring appeal of the Zestimate is maddening. "When you think of the Zestimate, for many, it gives a false anchor for what the value actually is," Miller says.

Miller is no unbiased observer. Given that he's an appraiser who estimates the value of homes for a living, it should come as no surprise that he's siding with the humans over the robots. But he raises real issues, highlighting the disconnect between the public's continued use of the Zestimate and its actual track record.

I could say that I virtually stalked my childhood home for "research," but let's be real: By the time I scrolled to the bottom of the page, I had fully surrendered to the voyeuristic urges that draw millions of visitors to the Zillow website each month. It's been almost two decades since I've stepped inside the house, and I can only imagine the changes its new owners have made to my old room (sadly, no pics of the interior). But with the aid of Zillow, my trip down memory lane was lined with data: I walked away with intimate knowledge of the home and its occupants. Prior to 2006, no regular person had this kind of power.

The launch of Zillow spawned a whole genre of internet snooping that, if anything, has only intensified in the years since. When I call up John Wake, a former economist and real-estate agent who now writes the newsletter Real Estate Decoded, he reveals that he, too, looked up his childhood home only a few months ago. "That part is really fun," he tells me. Keeping tabs on your own Zestimate, though, can provide less of a thrill. In December 2022, after interest-rate hikes tamped down home prices, Wake shared with his followers on X that his Zestimate was down 18% from May: "YIKES!" In a 2020 column, the Wall Street Journal editor Kris Frieswick opened up about the difficulty of quitting the algorithm: "My self-worth is defined by my Zestimate. Each day I approach Zillow.com filled with hope, and fear." The column reads mostly as tongue-in-cheek, but plenty of people take their number very seriously. As Frieswick pointed out, at least several disgruntled homeowners have actually sued Zillow over Zestimates they said were inaccurate.

Looking up other people's houses, by comparison, is a mostly harmless pastime. Bosses, neighbors, lovers, and exes — all are fair game in the all-seeing eyes of the tool. During the heat of the 2021 homebuying frenzy, a "Saturday Night Live" sendup of a Zillow ad declared: "The pleasure you once got from sex now comes from looking at other people's houses." The skit, which featured a lot of moaning and sultry mood lighting, was mostly about the fantasies of browsing homes for sale on Zillow — as one YouTube commenter observed, "They didn't even get into the naughty pleasure of looking up all your friends' Zestimate values." This kicked off a thread of others chiming in with "guilty!" and lots of cry-laughing emojis. "OMG I thought this was just my kink," another person replied. I imagine all of these people at a raucous dinner party, bonding over their exploits on zillow.com. And here I am, the buzzkill in the corner talking about median error rates.

Virtual spelunking aside, the hazards of the Zestimate are most obvious when a seller actually decides to list their home. Francine Carstensen, a real-estate agent in Alabama, says those in her line of work have a complicated relationship with the Zestimate: "We love it, and we hate it." A lofty estimate might jolt a homeowner into action — "I could sell my house for what?!" — and drive more business her way. But the number can also make it hard to do her job. A few times, she tells me, she's lost clients over a pricing disagreement involving the Zestimate. It can be difficult enough to pry a seller away from their unrealistic expectations without a number on a screen confirming their hopes for a bigger payday.

"I hate it when they tell me, 'Well, this is what Zillow tells me my house is worth,'" Carstensen says. "Because it's very rarely accurate."

Accuracy may not even be the point. It didn't appear to be in 2006, when the beta version of the Zestimate launched. "The Zestimate started out fairly inaccurate, but it didn't matter," Rich Barton, a Zillow cofounder who was then its CEO, recalled in a 2021 podcast episode. "It was provocative." Spencer Rascoff, another cofounder and former CEO, sold his own home in 2016 for 40% less than its Zestimate. The next year, the company offered $1 million to whoever could improve the Zestimate algorithm the most. The winning team, a group of three data scientists working remotely from the US, Canada, and Morocco, beat the Zillow benchmark by 13%.

No misstep appeared more damning, however, than the implosion of Zillow's homebuying business. In 2018, the company launched Zillow Offers, making all-cash offers to sellers looking to move quickly and seamlessly. In theory, Zillow could then turn around and offload the home in short order for a modest fee, plus however much the home had appreciated. The company used a combination of internal algorithms and human analysts to value the home and predict what it could sell for in a few months — in some cases, homeowners could get an immediate cash offer based on their Zestimate with just a few clicks. But the company's forecasts turned out to be way off base. Zillow Offers squandered $422 million in the third quarter of 2021 alone — a Business Insider investigation found that almost two-thirds of the homes listed by Zillow in Atlanta, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, and Minneapolis were being marketed at a loss. Amanda Pendleton, a Zillow spokesperson, tells me it was the volatility of the market, not the Zestimate, that really led to the program's downfall. Once the losses came to light, the company swiftly shuttered the division and laid off a quarter of its staff.

I remember wondering whether this would be the death knell for the Zestimate, a kind of algorithm-has-no-clothes moment. I was wrong. Zillow and its best-known creation haven't gone anywhere — the company continues to highlight its progress, providing periodic updates as its data scientists tinker away at the formulas. As search portals like Homes.com and Redfin jockey with Zillow for dominance, the Zestimate is too valuable of an asset to give up. People still flock to Zillow for those little numbers next to each home, for the thrill of feasting their eyes upon something that, like salaries, is considered taboo to talk about in person. For Zillow, that's an unequivocal win.

"It's 100% a marketing tool," says Mike DelPrete, a scholar-in-residence at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies the intersection of tech and real estate. "Like, not even 99%. It's a marketing tool."

James Rodriguez is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Discourse team.

• The US housing market might be much more friendly to homebuyers in 2025.
• Home sales should rise significantly as inventory grows and prices inch higher.
• Here are 10 real-estate markets that could see a surge of activity next year.

Homebuyers should stock up on champagne — and not just for New Year's Eve.

Next year may present long-awaited opportunities for aspiring property owners to trade their apartments for homes, or for families to get the upgrades they've been pining for. There's a growing sense among real-estate analysts that an extended home sales contraction will snap in 2025 as housing inventory rises and mortgage rates fall.

"Homebuyers will have more success next year," said Lawrence Yun, the chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, in a statement about the firm's 2025 outlook. "The worst of the affordability challenges are over as more inventory, stable mortgage rates, and continued job and income growth pave the way for more Americans to achieve homeownership."

Housing market transactions will soar 7% to 12% in the year ahead to 4.5 million units before an even larger 10% to 15% jump in 2026, according to the NAR. New home sales are expected to climb 11% next year and 8% the year after.

Earlier this month, real-estate brokerage titan eXp Realty's CEO told Business Insider that sales could advance 10% in 2025, though Realtor.com called for a comparatively modest 1.5% gain.

But a home sales boom seems plausible, based on what should be healthy supply and demand.

That inventory uptick will keep property price growth in check at only 2% in each of the next two years, the NAR predicted, which would translate to a median existing-home price of $410,700. And buyers may also move off the sidelines as mortgage rates drift toward 6% from around 7%, the firm added.

"If rates stabilize around 6%, about 6.2 million households can once again be able to afford median-priced homes, compared to the current constraints with rates near 7%," the NAR noted.

Slower home-price growth and lower mortgage rates will go a long way toward easing the affordability crisis that has plagued the US since the pandemic. Just over a year ago, buyers suffered through the least affordable quarter since 1985. That may soon be a distant memory.

10 hot real-estate markets

Home sales should surge across the US next year, especially in a healthy economy with solid job gains. However, researchers at the NAR expect certain cities to be far busier than others.

Buyers will flock to 10 top housing markets in 2025 due to a combination of rising home supply, manageable mortgage rates, and healthy local economies, the firm said. Healthy demand should underpin further home-price appreciation for owners in those metropolitan areas.

These soon-to-be-hot markets share several similarities, including strong property price growth since the pandemic, a sizable supply of starter homes, positive net migration, and an outsized share of out-of-state movers who are buying homes. Other factors were a market's job growth, mortgage rates, how long most homeowners had been there, and the share of millennial renters who could buy. The NAR outlined its full methodology for this exercise in a press release.

Below are the 10 real-estate markets that the NAR is bullish on next year, along with select economic and demographic considerations.

Along with each metro area is its home price growth in the last five years, starter homes as a share of total inventory, the share of homeowners who've been in place for more than 16 years and therefore may be ready to sell, net migration ratio, the share of out-of-state movers purchasing homes, job growth since late 2019, and commentary from the NAR.

1. Boston, Massachusetts

Price appreciation history: 51.5%

Starter homes as share of inventory: 41.1%

Share of long-term homeowners: 10.2%

Net migration to population ratio: 0.1

Share of out-of-state purchasers: 18.8%

Job growth history: -0.2%

Commentary: "Boston's housing market is expected to see significant benefits from stabilizing mortgage rates. With fewer locked-in homeowners, the impact of the 'lock-in effect' may lessen in the coming year as rates stabilize near 6%, encouraging more homeowners to sell and easing inventory constraints in this supply-tight market. Additionally, Boston's mortgage rates have been relatively lower than the national average, which provides a competitive edge in today's challenging financing environment. A lower rate could help mitigate some of the affordability pressures. Surprisingly, Boston has also a larger proportion of starter-homes, with about 41% of the owner-occupied units valued below $550,000."

2. Charlotte, North Carolina

Price appreciation history: 72.8%

Starter homes as share of inventory: 72.8%

Share of long-term homeowners: 46.9%

Net migration to population ratio: 1.4

Share of out-of-state purchasers: 23.5%

Job growth history: 10.1%

Commentary: "With an impressive 10% job growth over the last five years and strong migration gains, Charlotte's economy and housing market are poised for continued growth. More than 11% of the households are set to reach the age of 35 to 40 within the next five years, ensuring sustained demand for housing. Prospective buyers in Charlotte also benefit from a wider range of affordable options, as 43% of homes fall within the starter-home category (priced less than $324,000), making the market particularly appealing to first-time buyers and young families."

3. Grand Rapids, Michigan

Price appreciation history: 64.4%

Starter homes as share of inventory: 39.6%

Share of long-term homeowners: 50.7%

Net migration to population ratio: 0.2

Share of out-of-state purchasers: 38.7%

Job growth history: 3.1%

Commentary: "Grand Rapids offers a unique combination of affordability and promising long-term prospects. With 36% of Millennial renters able to afford homeownership and 12% of households entering prime homebuying age within the next five years, the demand for housing will remain strong. A smaller proportion of originations with rates below 6%, compared to the national level, suggests a reduced 'lock-in effect,' which could lead to more inventory in this area. Additionally, the availability of starter-homes allows newcomers to purchase a home and establish roots, making Grand Rapids a standout market for 2025."

4. Greenville, South Carolina

Price appreciation history: 68.8%

Starter homes as share of inventory: 42.2%

Share of long-term homeowners: 49.7%

Net migration to population ratio: 1.7

Share of out-of-state purchasers: 43%

Job growth history: 8%

Commentary: "Greenville stands out as the area that checks off the most criteria on NAR's top 10 list. This area particularly benefits from a strong net migration rate and affordability. The metro's average mortgage rate of 6.9% in 2023 is well below the national average, providing additional relief for buyers. With 42% of homes categorized as starter homes and 43% of movers purchasing homes, Greenville offers accessibility and stability for families and young professionals alike."

5. Hartford, Connecticut

Price appreciation history: 62.8%

Starter homes as share of inventory: 38.7%

Share of long-term homeowners: 58.1%

Net migration to population ratio: 0.3

Share of out-of-state purchasers: 45%

Job growth history: 0.2%

Commentary: "Hartford offers a favorable financing environment, with an average mortgage rate of 6.5% in 2023 — one of the lowest among the top markets — enhancing affordability for buyers. Additionally, Hartford holds the highest proportion of homeowners surpassing the area's average tenure of 17 years, indicating a potential increase in local inventory, which could help alleviate supply constraints."

6. Indianapolis, Indiana

Price appreciation history: 60%

Starter homes as share of inventory: 41.7%

Share of long-term homeowners: 48.5%

Net migration to population ratio: 0.5

Share of out-of-state purchasers: 21.7%

Job growth history: 9.3%

Commentary: "Indianapolis earned a spot on the list due its strong job growth and housing affordability, which continue to attract new residents and foster a stable demand for housing. Nearly 42% of the housing stock is priced below $236,000, making the market especially appealing to first-time buyers and young families. With fewer 'locked-in' homeowners than the national level, this area is likely to see more available inventory as mortgage rates stabilize around 6% next year."

7. Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas

Price appreciation history: 59.9%

Starter homes as share of inventory: 41%

Share of long-term homeowners: 50%

Net migration to population ratio: 0.3

Share of out-of-state purchasers: 25%

Job growth history: 4.8%

Commentary: "Kansas City is one of the few areas with both a lower average mortgage rate and smaller share of locked-in homeowners, creating favorable conditions for financing and increased inventory. This area is also one of the most affordable markets for Millennial renters, with one in three of them able to afford homeownership. This affordability, combined with its competitive financing environments, makes Kansas City a key player among top-performing housing markets in the coming year."

8. Knoxville, Tennessee

Price appreciation history: 90.9%

Starter homes as share of inventory: 42%

Share of long-term homeowners: 52.9%

Net migration to population ratio: 1.6

Share of out-of-state purchasers: 48.9%

Job growth history: 8.8%

Commentary: “Knoxville made up the top 10 list due to its strong migration gains and the appeal it holds for new residents seeking long-term stability as nearly 50% of movers in Knoxville chose to purchase a home. The impact of the ‘lock-in effect’ is expected to be less pronounced here, as fewer borrowers hold mortgages with rates below 6%. At the same time, homeowners in Knoxville have built substantial wealth, with home prices now nearly double their pre-pandemic levels. This combination of strong migration, high homeownership among movers, and significant wealth gains makes Knoxville a market with strong potential in 2025.”

9. Phoenix, Arizona

Price appreciation history: 72.3%

Starter homes as share of inventory: 39.3%

Share of long-term homeowners: 42.5%

Net migration to population ratio: 0.7

Share of out-of-state purchasers: 35.8%

Job growth history: 11.9%

Commentary: "Phoenix has become a key destination for residents migrating from California, driven by its comparatively lower cost of living and housing affordability. This migration is further supported by Phoenix's strong job growth, which has expanded by 12% in the last five years. This combination of demographic shifts and economic expansion has established Phoenix as a prosperous and dynamic market."

10. San Antonio, Texas

Price appreciation history: 44.8%

Starter homes as share of inventory: 40.5%

Share of long-term homeowners: 48.5%

Net migration to population ratio: 1.3

Share of out-of-state purchasers: 39%

Job growth history: 10.7%

Commentary: "The Texas Triangle couldn't be left off this list. Borrowers in San Antonio were able to secure mortgage rates well below the national average in 2023, at 6.4%. This suggests that buyers in the area benefit from a combination of local market dynamics that lead lenders to assess lower risk in this area. Additionally, San Antonio has experienced one of the strongest rates of job creation since pre-pandemic levels, which continues to draw new residents to the area."

The American dream — like a beloved pair of pants you left in the dryer too long — is shrinking.

The idealized image of American life we know today was crystallized in the country's collective imagination in the 1930s. Since then, the idea that anyone can obtain a life that has the house with the white picket fence, 2.5 children, a lucrative career at an office that's a reasonable distance away, and the occasional trip to an enviable vacation spot has loomed large in nearly every facet of cultural and political life.

There's just one problem: The once expansive vision is getting smaller. Not only is it harder to grab a piece of it, like a bag of chips or a roll of toilet paper that has less substance every time you buy it, but even nominally achieving the dream is leaving people unsatisfied. Americans are having fewer kids, their houses are getting smaller, they're schlepping further to work, and they're spending less time on vacation.

Americans are taking notice of the diminishing returns. Among the 8,709 US adults surveyed by the Pew Research Center from April 8 to 14, 41% said that achieving the American dream was once possible but no longer. That's particularly true for younger Americans; 18- to 29-year-olds were the most likely to say that the American dream was never possible, and only 39% said that it's still possible. Their millennial counterparts felt similarly, though they were slightly more bullish on the possibility of the American dream.

At the same time, Americans are increasingly less satisfied with their personal lives, Gallup polling from January found. The share of Americans who are "very satisfied" with their personal lives has been plummeting, the poll found, and sits near record lows — other times it's gotten this bad were during the economic crisis of 2008 and its fallout in the following years. And even among those who might have achieved the American dream — higher earners with college degrees — life satisfaction has slipped.

Call it the shrinkflation of the American dream.

The central element of the American dream is owning a house. Having a roof over your head is the cornerstone of security and stability; research has found homeowners are less stressed than their renter counterparts, and beyond having a place that they can call their own, they have growing equity. But nowadays, the homes that many Americans live in rarely have enough room for a big dog — much less a picket fence.

In 2013, the median square footage of a new single-family housing unit was about 2,460. In 2015, new homes peaked at about 2,470 square feet — and then spent the next six years shrinking. In 2021, homes started to slowly get bigger again, and then they once again constricted. By 2023, the figure had fallen to about 2,180 square feet. An analysis by the National Association of Home Builders found that the share of single-family homes built with two bedrooms or fewer hit its highest level since 2012 — and the share of new homes built with four bedrooms fell to its lowest level since 2012.

Of course, homes getting a little smaller isn't necessarily a bad thing — many advocates for increasing the housing supply argue that the dedication to giant homes has made it tougher to build the number of new units that the country needs. But shrinking homes are coupled with another biting reality: Americans are paying more for less. In the same period that Americans have seen their homes shrink, home prices have grown by nearly $200,000. The median listing price per square foot was $127 in 2016; by 2024, that rose to $224 — meaning Americans were shelling out more per square foot, even as their square footage decreased. By one measure, Americans now need to work 110 hours a month to be able to afford their mortgages — meaning mortgages eat up the bulk of their earnings.

With those prices, it's no wonder first-time homebuyers are older than ever. The National Association of Realtors found that the median age of first-time homebuyers hit 38 in 2024, a record high. In 1981, the median age of a first-time buyer was 29; in 2014, it was 31.

It's not all peaches and rainbows for American renters, either. The median rent price in the US is $2,035, Zillow found. Rent.com, meanwhile, found that median rental asking prices hit about $1,619 in October. That's nearly a $300 increase from May 2019. So if renters are paying more, surely they're still at least getting some bang for their buck? Nope, apartments are getting smaller, too. In 2016, the median square footage of a new unit in a building that had two or more units was 1,105 square feet. Apartments have been shrinking since then: In 2023, new units were clocking in at a median of 1,020 square feet — and the measure reached its lowest recorded level in 2021 as housing prices and demand soared.

A house is just a house until there are people in it; only then, the saying goes, is it a home. But increasingly, American homes are occupied by fewer people. Not only is there a slight rise in single people buying a house, but also the pitter-patter of babies' feet is becoming less common in the hallways of American homes these days. The share of homebuyers without a child under 18 in the house rose to a new high of 73%. That comes as Americans are having fewer kids: The average number of births per woman in the US has fallen from nearly four in 1960 to 1.7 in 2022.

It should come as no surprise that Americans are having fewer children given the economic and social pressures working against them. If it's hard for anyone to break into the ranks of homeowners, it's even more difficult for parents. Housing costs aren't the only deterrent, young parents are also floundering amid rising childcare costs and the loss of the social connections that are critical to raising kids. At the same time, more Americans seem to be on board with choosing to go child-free. DINKs — double-income, no-kid couples — have been on the cultural rise. But just because it's harder for people with kids and more acceptable to forgo them doesn't mean that people are giving up on starting a family. Many Americans want to have children or have even more kids, but it's out of reach.

Karen Benjamin Guzzo, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who's researched the gap between the number of children Americans intend to have versus their ultimate childbearing, told me that having kids is often seen as the "last step" in accomplishing the American dream. You go to college, you line up a good job, you get married, you buy a house, and then you fill it with kids. There's a problem, though. "Every step along the way has become less and less predictable," she said.

Guzzo's research has found, in part, that Americans still expect to have children — they just don't actually have them. The way Guzzo describes it is many Americans want kids, but with an asterisk: They want kids if they can find a good partner, a good job with family leave and enough pay to afford childcare, and so on.

"People need to feel confident that the next 25 years of their lives and the world in which their children will be raised and growing and becoming adults on their own. They need to feel confident about those," Guzzo said. "And we do not do a good job right now in the United States of making people feel confident about their futures."

Part of the American dream is the ability to actually enjoy it. You can come home for dinner, spend a nice evening with your family, and maybe enjoy some ice cream in front of the TV before heading to bed at a reasonable hour.

Unfortunately, for many people, the free time is getting sapped by a mind-numbing commute. The average travel time to work in 1990 was 22.4 minutes one way. By 2023, it rose to 26.8 minutes. That may not sound like a lot, but that adds up to nearly 4.5 hours a week just commuting to work, or about 10 days a year, assuming they went in every workday. Even if they're going into the office three days a week, that's still nearly 2.7 hours a week commuting, or the equivalent of almost 6 full days a year. Meanwhile, in 1990, Americans spent just about 3.7 hours a week commuting — about 44 minutes less a week. That's a whole episode of "Real Housewives." Even on a small scale, research has found that every minute added to a commute can reduce one's satisfaction with both their job and their leisure time. Most Americans commuting are doing so by car, which can also weigh on workers' mental health — and how well they're sleeping.

And as more Americans have moved away from urban cores — perhaps in pursuit of buying a house in cheaper areas — they're living farther from work. Young families, in particular, have fled larger urban areas and are finding themselves in the farthest reaches of suburbia. If you want the American dream of that larger, cheaper house, you might be paying for it in minutes stuck behind the wheel.

Reveling in the American dream also includes unwinding away from that house and job. But even as more Americans have access to paid vacation, that doesn't mean they're taking it. In July 1980, over 10 million working Americans were on vacation. At the height of the pandemic, that number had halved. And even as more Americans went on vacation in July post-2020, the number of workers vacationing in July has essentially plateaued over the past few years.

As The Washington Post found in an extensive analysis of eroding vacation time, some of that might be chalked up to another form of shrinkflation: Workers saving their vacation days for when they're feeling sick. In a very Dickensian twist, Americans might not be going on vacation because they're too busy being sick or caring for their ill kids instead.

All of this is not to say that the American dream has gone extinct, but there's a marked shift from the idea that things will get better for each successive generation. In a country where growth, expansion, and constantly improving your lot — and your family's lot — are North Stars, a diminishing and sickly American dream is a bit of an existential downer.

After all, in a March 2023 survey of 1,019 American adults by The Wall Street Journal and NORC, 78% of respondents said they were not confident that life would be better for their kids' generation. The share not confident their kids' lives will be better has soared over the past few decades; in 2000 just 42% said the same. In short: Many Americans are feeling like the dream is slipping through their fingers.

Guzzo said that we're seeing a bifurcation of the American dream. For the ultrawealthy, the ability to accumulate the markers of the dream has never been easier. The top 1% holds just over 13% of all real estate by dollar value in the US, while the bottom 50% holds just about 10%. And, as the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta recounted in its December Beige Book round-up, lower- and middle-income consumers are scaling back their vacation plans; they're renting homes for multiple families and eating in rather than splashing out on hotels or fancy restaurants. Instead, the strength in tourism spending comes from those higher-income consumers exploring and going on cruises. For Americans in the middle, those who might have the college degree and career that could set them on that trajectory, the dream is still possible, though it may come later in life. But Guzzo said others, especially younger men without college degrees, feel the American dream has been pulled out from beneath them.

At the same time, there's a bittersweet parallel running alongside the shrinking of the American dream. For decades, things like homeownership or formal recognition of marriage were out of grasp — and, in some cases, expressly forbidden — for many marginalized groups. It's only in recent history that LGBTQ+ Americans and Americans of color have been able to somewhat catch up to their straight and white peers. But now that the American dream is within reach for these people, it's already shrinking.

Juliana Kaplan is a senior labor and inequality reporter on Business Insider's economy team.

• Amazon is delaying full RTO for some employees due to office capacity issues.
• The policy required employees to work from the office five days a week, beginning January 2.
• Amazon has encountered workspace capacity issues in the past.

Amazon is delaying the start of its strict new RTO policy for some employees because the company doesn't have enough office space in certain locations, Business Insider has learned.

The company's real estate team recently started notifying employees that they can continue following their current in-office guidance until workspaces are ready with delays stretching to as late as May, according internal Amazon notifications viewed by BI.

Impacted locations include Atlanta, Houston, Nashville, and New York, the notifications showed. An Amazon spokesperson said buildings will be ready for the majority of Amazon employees by January 2.

Earlier this year, Amazon ordered employees to start working from the office five days a week. beginning January 2. The company has said this will improve collaboration and bring other benefits. CEO Andy Jassy, in a memo announcing the mandate, said Amazon the decision to "further strengthen" its culture and teams.

Some staff were upset by the change and have argued that remote work provides more flexibility. The policy five-day-a-week policy is stricter than at some Amazon rivals and, by some accounts, stricter than Amazon's office-work policy before the pandemic.

This isn't the first time office capacity constraints have delayed Amazon's RTO plans. When the company last year ordered employees to start working in the office at least three days a week, many of its buildings weren't ready to accommodate all of those employees.

In internal guidelines viewed by BI, Amazon told employees when the new five-day RTO policy was first announced in September that they should plan to comply by January 2 whether or not they have assigned workspaces.

"For the vast majority of employees, assigned workspaces will be available by January 2, 2025," the guidance stated. "If your assigned workspace isn't ready by January 2, we still expect everyone to begin fully working from the office by that date."

Are you a tech-industry employee or someone else with insight to share?

Contact reporter Ashley Stewart via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email ([email protected]). Use a nonwork device.

• To find deals, Dion McNeeley focuses on how many days a property has been on the market.
• The investor targets properties that have been listed for at least three times the average.
• The 'days on market' strategy helped him negotiate a seller down by $100,000.

Real-estate investor Dion McNeeley used to prioritize speed when making an offer.

"The first 10 years of investing, I wanted to be fast. I wanted to get an offer in within a day or two of a property hitting the MLS," the veteran investor told Business Insider, referring to the multiple listing service.

Now, with a 16-unit portfolio that generates enough cash flow to more than cover his lifestyle, McNeeley is less focused on acquiring properties quickly and more concerned with finding the best deal. To do so, he's paying attention to one specific metric: the number of days a property has been on the market.

Generally speaking, the longer a home has been on the market, the more motivated the seller will be. "Long" is relative to the average time a home sits on the market, which varies by location. In some areas, the average could be 10; in others, it could be 30.

McNeeley, who studies his market in Tacoma, Washington by looking at listings daily, knows that the average home sits for six to nine days, at least in December of 2024.

His rule of thumb is to take the average and triple it. That's the number you're looking for when looking at listings. In his case, he rounded up the average to 10 and is looking specifically for homes that have been listed for at least 30 days.

When he comes across a property he likes that meets his days-on-market criteria, he makes an offer that will get him the return he's looking for.

For example, the latest property he purchased — a duplex that needed a lot of work done — had been on the market for over 100 days. It was listed for $500,000, but based on the renovations McNeeley would need to complete, he calculated that the deal would only work if he could buy it for significantly less. BI verified all of his property ownership claims.

"I offered 400,000 because that's the number that made sense for me," McNeeley said. His offer initiated a two-month negotiation. "I never moved from 400. It went from 500 to 477 to 444 to 422. When I got another offer accepted somewhere else, I contacted them to say I was pulling my offer. They said, 'We'll take your 400.'"

If you're going after a home that's been on the market for longer than average, there may be something wrong with it, and it's important to do your due diligence. Or, it could simply be listed poorly.

"Maybe the agent was lazy and took bad pictures or doesn't have it listed correctly," said McNeeley.

In his case, it was a bit of both: The property, which he purchased in July 2023, ended up needing $62,000 worth of renovations, which he was prepared for, and it wasn't what it appeared on the listing. It was listed as a single-family home but was actually a duplex, which he found out by calling the gas and utility companies and asking how many meters there were.

"It had two meters for electric and two meters for gas. Everything about this was duplex, but the picture looked like a house, and the realtor listed it as a house," he said.

Talking to the gas company, he learned that the gas hadn't been paid in months and had been shut off, further indicating that he could be working with a motivated seller.

"That's one of the reasons when I offered 400,000, I didn't raise the number," he said, figuring, "If the seller has to sell, they'll take my number. If they don't have to sell, they'll just leave it listed, or they'll take it down and not sell. So, you're not always guaranteed to get a low offer accepted. Sometimes people don't have to sell — they are just willing to for a higher amount."

Airbnb has its sights set on global domination. In earnings calls this year, its cofounder and CEO, Brian Chesky, mapped out what he sees as the short-term-rental giant's biggest expansion markets: Mexico and Brazil in the Americas; in Asia, Japan, India, South Korea, and China, for Chinese residents looking to travel outside the country; and further into Germany, Italy, and Spain in Europe, where it already has a stronghold.

What's connecting these scattered countries? Dave Stephenson, the chief business officer at Airbnb, says they're all places where the company's footprint is small compared to the amount of money people spend on travel there. The company is working on ways "to show up locally relevant," he says, "so that people think of why it's better to travel on Airbnb." Stephenson maintains that Airbnb, despite its name recognition, has a smaller footprint than hotels. The company says it has 8 million active listings globally, compared to, by one estimate, some 17 million hotel rooms. Airbnb aims to close that gap, continent by continent.

There's something else tying this far-flung strategy together: Airbnb is looking for new frontiers at a time when cities around the world are cracking down on the company and other short-term rental platforms, largely in response to complaints that short-term rentals draw (often unruly) tourists and displace locals. Barcelona, which has an estimated 20,000 Airbnb listings, has said it will ban all short-term rentals by 2028. Málaga will stop giving out new short-term-rental permits in dozens of neighborhoods. New York enacted a law in 2023 that wiped nearly all short-term rentals off the map. Other cities, like London and Paris, have been enforcing strict limits on the number of nights each year that a property can be listed for short-term renting.

For Airbnb, terra incognita looks more appealing as some of its terra firma becomes less firm.

When Airbnb was new and growing rapidly in the 2010s, there was little regulation on short-term rentals. Many did not anticipate how homeowners, and even renters, would turn Airbnb into overnight miniature business empires. But complaints mounted over the years. Residents reported that short-term renters often had parties that brought trash, noise, and general chaos to buildings and neighborhoods, even after the company barred guests from hosting large gatherings. Locals also blamed the lucrative rentals for pushing up housing prices. Housing costs are influenced by many factors, but in 2020, researchers found that Airbnb growth in the median ZIP code accounted for an increase of $9 in monthly rent and $1,800 in home prices, making up one-fifth of rent growth and one-seventh of property value increases. A report by the New York City comptroller found that between 2009 and 2016, 9.2% of the jump in rental rates could be tied to Airbnb.

At this point, dozens of local governments around the world have enacted laws regulating short-term rentals that are bespoke to their cities. This gives places where Airbnb is looking to expand the advantage of seeing how various regulations have started to affect housing availability elsewhere, should they want to move proactively. "Even though those places that Airbnb could be pushing into may not have a [regulatory] framework, there's at least these examples where governments have recognized the need to protect housing and implemented successful ways of regulating it," says Murray Cox, founder of Inside Airbnb, which scrapes Airbnb data to show its footprint in cities around the world. Cities could take approaches from other playbooks, such as requiring Airbnb to share data with local officials, zoning short-term rentals to more commercial neighborhoods, or allowing hosts to rent out primary residences a limited number of nights a year.

For Airbnb, the patchwork regulation around the world is both "a problem and an opportunity," says Cox. If rentals are curtailed in Paris, the company could look to expand to nearby cities or rural parts of France where there are fewer regulations. For Airbnb, that might mean moving into new countries. "They either can't grow or they're declining in cities or some parts" of their core markets, Cox says. "The only way that they can either maintain their revenues or grow is to push into other markets."

Airbnb isn't opposed to rules outright. If regulations are in place before the company expands to a new market, it could make the process simpler for hosts and guests and spare Airbnb from having to pivot and wipe tens of thousands of listings from its platform in one swoop after a new law passes. "We really do welcome sensible regulation," Stephenson tells me. "In a sensible, reasonable way, it works quite well." Airbnb is still pushing back against what it believes are overreaching regulations, like those in New York City. And despite the regulations, Airbnb is growing. Its revenue is up 10% year over year, and the number of nights booked grew, along with experiences, which include activities provided by local businesses and tour guides, by 8%.

But Airbnb's challenges don't stop at the regulations. It must also get people around the world to buy in. "Each country is going to have its own dynamics," Jamie Lane, the senior vice president of analytics and chief economist at AirDNA, tells me. In some countries, hosting strangers in your home wouldn't be culturally acceptable. Lane also says there are local competitors to Airbnb in some places "that have been impactful and made it hard for them to compete."

Those challenges are partially why Airbnb pulled out of hosting in China in 2022, wiping out 150,000 listings there. For one, the country's strict travel regulations around COVID-19 lasted longer than measures taken by most other nations, which created a drag on travel bookings. But Airbnb struggled to compete with Chinese companies offering short-term rentals long before that. The homegrown alternatives there included Tujia, which was designed to attract Chinese travelers specifically by anticipating peak travel times and rates, Melissa Yang, the company's cofounder, told CNN several years ago.

Chesky is more confident that Airbnb can win over the hearts and minds of the masses anywhere it goes. "Airbnb pretty much resonates pretty equally everywhere once there's the awareness," he told investors in a call earlier this year. "In fact, I could argue that Airbnb might resonate better in Asia because there's a younger travel population that's not predisposed to hotels, and they're on social media. And we are disproportionately on social media versus our competitors. So I'm very, very bullish about that."

While the company isn't telegraphing its expansion strategy in every country, one of its most obvious moves began in Japan this fall. Airbnb ran an ad in English last year promoting travel in Kyoto, but it ramped up its Japanese ads in October. It's looking to court young Japanese travelers who want to take weekend trips, showing photos of a family traveling to a sleek, modern cabin in a wooded area, where they sing karaoke. Stephenson says Airbnb has also learned that local travelers want proximity to onsens, Japanese hot springs and bathing facilities, so listings there now show nearby onsens.

Elsewhere, Airbnb has been implementing payment methods preferred by locals. The company recently added KaKao Pay in South Korea and Vipps in Norway, among dozens of other options. It may seem like a small step, but Airbnb thinks meeting people where and how they pay will make the service more appealing.

Researchers are closely watching Airbnb's ongoing spread. Bianca Tavolari, a researcher and member of the advisory board of the Global Observatory of Short-Term Rentals, a group of Latin American organizations focused on housing, says Brazil has lagged in regulating short-term rentals, though a court ruled last year that hosts must have explicit consent from property owners to list apartments or condos as short-term rentals. Airbnb shares some tourism trend information with local officials through its city portal, but researchers like Tavolari still have questions about Airbnb's full impact. "We are in the dark," she tells me. Yet "cities are seeing it as a great opportunity," particularly those that depend heavily on tourism dollars, she says, and thinking less about the long-term costs to residents.

Cox says he's "hopeful that some of these locations that Airbnb is planning to push to have already started thinking about" how they'll handle its growth. If Chesky's hypothesis is right, Airbnb could continue to spread rapidly once people in other parts of the world get used to couch surfing or navigating a hidden lockbox to let themselves into their rentals. Cities should be ready before more tourists start packing their bags.

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.

• The infamous "lock-in" effect that's restricting home supply may be going away next year.
• Realtor.com's chief economist expects more homeowners to list their homes for sale in 2025.
• High levels of home equity and life changes will encourage home sales, Danielle Hale said.

2024 has been a tough year for homebuyers.

Affordability levels are still low with elevated home prices and mortgage rates. A huge jump in mortgage rates to around 6.8% today from under 3% in 2022 has also created a "lock-in" effect, where existing homeowners don't want to sell into a higher mortgage rate environment than when many of them bought — further limiting home inventory coming onto the market and sending prices soaring even higher.

There's reason to be optimistic, though. The US housing market will see more favorable buying conditions in 2025, according to Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. Hale sees two trends that will help encourage existing homeowners to put their homes up for sale.

Existing homeowners have built up home equity

Existing homeowners have reaped big home equity gains in recent years thanks to rapidly rising home values.

Homeowners are also increasing their home equity by making monthly mortgage payments, as those who bought houses a few years ago have had the opportunity to make a sizable dent in their mortgage, Hale said. Homeowners with a smaller mortgage balance may be less sensitive to the higher interest-rate environment of today's housing market.

According to Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, homeowners are feeling richer now thanks to the home equity they've accumulated over the last few years of dizzying home price increases. As a result, more listings are being put on the market.

Homeowners can put their home equity to work when they move and buy a new house.

"If they're using their home equity to make a move, that enables them to either be a cash buyer or take out a very small mortgage," Hale said. "That gives them a bit more flexibility in today's market."

Mortgage rates may become less important to buyers and sellers

Homebuying decisions can also be influenced by factors other than mortgage rates or home prices, according to Hale.

The more time that passes since a homeowner's initial purchase, the more likely it is that they'll have a life change requiring them to move, regardless of the cost of moving, Hale said.

People buy houses for reasons other than financial ones, Hale pointed out. Big life changes that could spur a move include a new job, retirement, marriage, or having children.

"All of these can be reasons that people might make a move even if the costs are more expensive to buy a home," Hale said.

Additionally, consumers might be getting accustomed to high mortgage rates, according to Redfin.

"Buyers realized mortgage rates may not drop below 5%, and probably not below 6%, in the near future," Mimi Trieu, a Redfin real-estate agent, said. Existing homeowners holding off on moving due to high mortgage rates may soon give up on waiting it out.

A more "buyer-friendly" housing market

These changes won't be immediate, but they will have a noticeable impact on the housing market, according to Hale. She believes that the housing market is trending in a more "buyer-friendly direction."

"It's going to take more time," Hale said of the lock-in effect. "But as it diminishes, that's going to free up more sellers."

Lower interest rates — and subsequently, lower mortgage rates — would certainly speed up the erosion of the lock-in effect, Hale said. However, even if mortgage rates hover around the 6% range in 2025, which is what Realtor.com expects, the lock-in effect will still fade.

Homebuyers could see a notable change by the end of next year, Hale predicted.

"In mid-2024, 84% of homeowners with a mortgage had a mortgage rate under 6%. We think that by the end of 2025, that share will be 75%," Hale said.

• Alfonso Cobo, 32, bought a three-bedroom apartment in an old Tribeca warehouse for $4.6 million in 2022.
• The tech entrepreneur, who studied architecture, spent $1 million making it a bachelor pad.
• Cobo sold his loft to pursue a bicoastal lifestyle and more renovation projects worldwide.

In 2022, Alfonso Cobo was on the hunt for new digs in Manhattan when he decided to look at listings in Tribeca.

Cobo, originally from Spain's Canary Islands, lived in a handful of New York City neighborhoods over the course of eight years.

"I've done this thing of moving a lot from Brooklyn to Manhattan," Cobo, a 32-year-old serial tech entrepreneur and the founder of social media platform Hypelist, told Business Insider. "Tribeca was a neighborhood I had never tried."

Eventually, he came across a listing for a three-bedroom apartment in The Fairchild, a seven-storey converted warehouse built in the 1880s.

"It was very, very dated. Everything was super white, dark floors, glossy white kitchen cabinets," Cobo said. "It just wasn't me at all. It didn't have the level of warmth I wanted. It didn't have any personality."

But Cobo isn't one to shy away from a project — so he took a leap and bought the 2,000-square-foot apartment for $4.6 million.

Cobo was dead-set on the apartment and paid 8% over the asking price.

Three years before buying the Tribeca loft, Cobo sold a social media app he created to Squarespace for $50 million.

As much as he might fit the bill of a tech entrepreneur, he says he feels like a designer first and foremost.

"Even though I didn't love architecture as an industry as a whole when I used to like work there," Cobo added, "I did really miss that physicality of designing spaces."

That itch to create is partly why he felt he could take on a real estate project as extensive as this — and was willing to pay 8% above the asking price.

"I do love putting all my passion and love into designing my own spaces."

Cobo enlisted British designer Helena Clunies Ross and spent $1 million on a renovation.

Cobo, who has an architecture degree from a British university, credits Ross with encouraging him to work in "unconventional" design choices that took his home "to the next level."

"We put a lot of effort in doing a really high-end renovation," he said.

The process ended up costing Cobo $1 million as it involved spending on a number of custom-designed features.

He estimates that about 80% of the interiors and furnishings are customized.

From the sofas and curved windows to the lamp in the dining room that spirals down from the 21-foot ceiling and the metal-clad library, almost every inch of the apartment was tailor-made to suit Cobo's personality and style, including nods to his Mediterranean heritage.

One of his favorite features is the dark gray kitchen island, which he said and Ross spent "weeks and weeks" picking out.

Cobo's priority was sourcing unique and high-quality materials, which meant the space turned out far from the "sad beige" aesthetic often associated with millennials.

"Even though I'm quite minimal when it comes to design, there's a lot of layering and a lot of texture," he said.

The apartment originally had three bedrooms, but Cobo ditched two of them.

Having found success at a relatively young age, Cobo said he didn't feel the need to have an additional two bedrooms.

"I don't have a family, I'm still single, so I really created a space that fulfilled my needs at the time."

What eventually turned into his bachelor pad was an oasis within the hustle and bustle of NYC where Cobo could work, be social with friends, work, and disconnect. "I really wanted to adapt the space to those needs."

Not having a guest room wasn't an issue, Cobo added. If his parents visited, for example, they got the bedroom while he set up camp on the couch.

One of his favorite features is a 16-foot olive tree that required a crane to install.

Given the apartment's modern design, Cobo wanted to add a more earthy element to his home.

The result was a huge 16-foot olive tree, which sits on the first floor and was no small feat to install.

"To bring that in, we actually had to close the traffic in the street, bring in a crane, crane the tree up, and then fit it through a really small window," he said.

It was "a whole thing," Cobo said. And for a moment, he had real doubts the tree would ever get into the loft.

But when it finally did, he said "it changed the space completely and brought that added missing piece of nature."

Cobo just sold the apartment for almost $7 million.

Working with Jessica Markowski, an agent from NYC real estate firm Serhant, Cobo said it took about three months to find the right buyer.

This week the loft sold for $6.9 million — making it one of the most expensive one-bedroom sales in Manhattan this year, he said.

Cobo wouldn't be drawn on the new owner, but said the individual shares a similar lifestyle and aesthetic.

And while he's renovated a handful of residences before, letting go of his Tribeca apartment wasn't easy. "I was quite emotional because I put so much of myself in it."

Cobo is already busy with new renovation projects.

Cobo's decision to sell the loft was prompted by increasingly dividing his time between New York and California.

As well as working on his latest tech venture, he's also looking ahead to future renovations through his real estate company, Olivar.

Creating beautiful homes is one of his "passion projects," Cobo said, adding that he has projects underway in the US, Bali, and Spain.

"I'm always thinking about what the next thing is, what I can build next, what I can renovate."

• Michael Jordan has sold his mansion in the Chicago suburbs after 12 years on and off the market.
• Jordan, who hasn't lived there in years, listed it for $29 million in 2012. It sold for $9.5 million.
• The massive home has custom nods to Jordan throughout, which might be why it took so long to sell.

Michael Jordan's mansion in the suburbs of Chicago, which has sat abandoned for years, has a new owner.

The legendary basketball star has officially sold the nine-bedroom home, which has been on the market on and off since 2012, for $9.5 million, according to property records.

Fourteen years ago, the former Chicago Bulls shooting guard listed the Highland Park, Illinois, mansion for $29 million. In 2015, he reduced the price to $14.855 million — whose digits add up to 23, the number on his Bulls jersey.

The mansion's sale price is a 67% discount from its original asking price.

Listing agent Katherine Malkin, of Compass, told The Wall Street Journal that after buying the property in 1991, he spent about $50 million building the home.

The house is full of nods to Jordan's basketball career, including the 23 on the front gate. His famous Air Jordan logo adorns the full-size indoor basketball court, and flag sticks on the putting green.

Even after various gimmicks, like offering a complete set of Air Jordans with purchase and marketing the home via videos in Mandarin to Jordan's fans in China, the house sat abandoned.

Jordan splits his time between his home state of North Carolina and Jupiter, Florida.

Below, we take a closer look at a house once considered basically unsellable. Most images are from footage taken by Concierge Auctions, which held an unsuccessful auction for the house in 2013.

The 56,000-square-foot compound sits on 7 acres.

The front gate is emblazoned with 23, for Jordan's number.

Jordan himself lived in the main house for 19 years.

One outdoor amenity is an infinity pool with a grass island in the middle.

The putting green outside the house comes complete with Jordan-branded flag sticks.

An indoor-outdoor entertainment space perfect for watching basketball.

Inside are multiple sitting areas and entertainment rooms. This one is the "great room."

This sitting room has a piano.

The centerpiece of the home is a full-size basketball court with a center ring that bears the name of his three children: Marcus, Jeffrey and Jasmine.

The home also features a locker room, trophy room, and a full gym.

Jordan's Chicago Bulls teammates used to work out there every morning, according to an interview shared by Concierge Auctions.

There is also a cigar room with card tables, where we're guessing Jordan has played some high-stakes poker games.

There's also an expansive wine cellar.

Some other fun details: The set of doors seen below are from the original Playboy Mansion in Chicago.

There is a large aquarium built into the wall in one of the dining areas just off the kitchen.

The library upstairs, which features a drop-down movie screen, was said to be Jordan's favorite room.

There are media rooms throughout the house. Even seemingly random nooks have TVs.

Even though it is widely considered abandoned, the house was at least at points occupied by staff Jordan hired to keep it looking fresh.

Jordan has other homes. In 2013, he spent $2.8 million on a North Carolina lake house located in a golf-course community.

The house is in Cornelius, about a 30-minute drive from the Charlotte Hornets' arena. Jordan bought the team for $275 million in 2010 and sold it for $3 billion in 2023.

Jordan also reportedly bought a house on a golf course in Jupiter, Florida, for $4.8 million in 2013 and spent $7.6 million on renovations. The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Jordan bought another mansion in Jupiter for $16.5 million.

He also owns a full-floor condo in downtown Charlotte, in the same building as NFL quarterback Cam Newton. Condos there reportedly went for between $1.5 and $3.5 million.

In 2019, Jordan listed his 10,000-square-foot home in Park City, Utah, for $7.5 million. Agents think it will likely sell faster than the Chicago compound.

Cork Gaines, Rachel Askinasi, and Tony Manfred contributed to this post. It was last updated on December 13, 2024.

President Biden has sparked anger among Pennsylvanians after he commuted the sentence of a corrupt judge who was jailed for more than 17 years after he was caught taking kickbacks for sending juveniles to for-profit detention facilities.

In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, former Judge Michael Conahan shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and shared $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Another judge, Mark Ciavarella, was also involved in the illicit scheme, the effects of which are still felt today among victims and families. 

The scandal is considered Pennsylvania’s largest-ever judicial corruption scheme with the state's supreme court throwing out some 4,000 juvenile convictions involving more than 2,300 kids after the scheme was uncovered.

BIDEN COMMUTES 1,500 JAIL SENTENCES, GRANTS PARDONS FOR 39 OTHERS: 'LARGEST SINGLE-DAY GRANT OF CLEMENCY'

Conahan, 72, pleaded guilty in 2010 to one count of racketeering conspiracy but was released from prison to home confinement in 2020 because of COVID-19 health concerns with six years left in his sentence.

But Biden, the so-called favorite son of Scranton, commuted Conahan's sentence Thursday as part of the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history in which he commuted jail sentences for nearly 1,500 people and granted 39 pardons.

"My Administration will continue reviewing clemency petitions to advance equal justice under the law, promote public safety, support rehabilitation and reentry, and provide meaningful second chances," the president said. 

Sandy Fonzo, who once confronted Ciavarella outside federal court after her son was placed in juvenile detention and committed suicide, said that the president’s actions were an "injustice" and "deeply painful."

"I am shocked and I am hurt," Fonzo said in a statement, per The Citizens Voice. "Conahan‘s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son’s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power. This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer. Right now I am processing and doing the best I can to cope with the pain that this has brought back."

The decision has raised questions as to why Biden would choose to commute the sentence of a judge who is detested in the area. 

Fox News has reached out to the White House for comment but has not received a response. 

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said that he opposed the president's actions and insisted that the judge should have been given a longer prison sentence given the damage he inflicted on families. 

"I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in Northeastern Pennsylvania," Shapiro said at a press conference in Scranton Friday while adding he was not privy to all the information about the decision. 

"This was not only a black eye on the community, the kids for cash scandal, but it also affected families in really deep and profound and sad ways. Some children took their lives because of this. Families were torn apart. There was all kinds of mental health issues and anguish that came as a result of these corrupt judges deciding they wanted to make a buck off a kid's back."

"Frankly, I thought the sentence that the judge got was too light, and the fact that he's been allowed out over the last years because of COVID, was on house arrest and now has been granted clemency, I think, is absolutely wrong. He should have been in prison for at least the 17 years that he was sentenced to by a jury of his peers. He deserves to be behind bars, not walking as a free man."

The scheme began in 2002 when Conahan shut down the state juvenile detention center and used money from the Luzerne County budget to fund a multimillion-dollar lease for the private facilities.

WHO ELSE MIGHT BIDEN PARDON AFTER HE SPARED HUNTER FROM SENTENCING?

Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care. 

Ciavarella ordered children as young as 8 years old to detention, many of them first-time offenders deemed delinquent for petty theft, jaywalking, truancy, smoking on school grounds and other minor infractions. The judge often ordered youths he had found delinquent to be immediately shackled, handcuffed and taken away without giving them a chance to put up a defense or even say goodbye to their families.

In 2022, both Conahan and Ciavarella were ordered to pay more than $200 million to nearly 300 people they victimized, although it's unlikely the now-adult victims will see even a fraction of the damages award.

During the case, one victim described how he shook uncontrollably during a routine traffic stop — a consequence of the traumatizing impact of his childhood detention — and had to show his mental health records in court to "explain why my behavior was so erratic."

Several of the childhood victims who were part of the lawsuit when it began in 2009 have since died from overdoses or suicide, prosecutors said. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The scheme, per The Citizens Voice, involved former Pennsylvania attorney Robert Powell paying Ciavarella and Conahan $770,000, who in turn funneled juvenile defendants to two private, for-profit detention centers Powell partly owned.

Powell served an 18-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to felony counts of failing to report a felony and being an accessory to a conspiracy.

Real estate developer Robert K. Mericle paid the judges $2.1 million and was later charged with failing to disclose to investigators and a grand jury that he knew the judges were defrauding the government. Mericle served one year in federal prison, per The Citizens Voice. 

Ciavarella is serving a 28-year prison sentence on honest services mail fraud charges, per the publication.

Fox News' Matt Finn and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

• Dion McNeeley used a buy-and-hold strategy to build a 16-unit rental portfolio.
• He experimented with the BRRRR method by purchasing and renovating a duplex in 2023.
• He could eventually sell the property and leverage an IRS rule to avoid capital gains tax.

Dion McNeeley spent over a decade carefully building a portfolio of rental properties throughout Washington State.

"I've never sold a property. I've never done a cash-out refinance. I've never taken out a home equity line of credit," he told Business Insider. "I'm the slow, boring investor: Save up a down payment, buy the next place; save up a down payment, buy the next place."

His buy-and-hold strategy allowed him to quit his day job in 2022 and retire in his early 50s. He had enough rental income coming in from his 16-unit portfolio to sustain his lifestyle and then some.

In 2023, he decided to experiment with the BRRRR — short for buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat — method and purchased a beat-up duplex outside Seattle.

"I don't think people should start investing with the BRRRR strategy. There are so many mistakes that you can make with the after-repair value, the estimated cost, and the estimated time of doing repairs," said McNeeley, who scaled his portfolio by "house hacking," a strategy that involves buying a multi-family property, living in one unit, and renting out the rest. "I didn't do any BRRRRs to reach financial freedom and retire early."

The early retiree shared his experience doing a "live-in BRRRR" — he lived in the duplex while doing renovations — including how he found the property and added value, and the strategy he could eventually use to sell and sidestep capital gains tax.

Finding a deal by focusing on 'days on market'

The first step to successfully executing a BRRRR is finding a distressed property with potential.

Real estate investors tend to agree that you make your money on the purchase — not on the sale. To land a good deal in 2023, McNeeley focused on one specific metric when combing through listings: the number of days a property has been on the market.

"I'm watching what are called 'days on market,'" he said. Generally speaking, the longer a home has been sitting, the better chance you have of negotiating a deal with the seller. "Long" is relative to the average days on market, which varies by location. "In some, it's 10; in others, it's 30."

In his area in Washington, he said the average is between six and nine days. He narrowed his search to properties that were listed for at least three times the average, or about 30 days.

The duplex he ended up buying had been on the market for over 100 days and was listed for $500,000.

"I offered 400,000 because that's the number that made sense for me," said McNeeley. After about two months of negotiating, he got it for the number he wanted. "I never moved from 400. It went from 500 to 477 to 444 to 422. When I got another offer accepted somewhere else, I contacted them to say I was pulling my offer. They said, 'We'll take your 400.'"

Putting $62,000 worth of renovations into the property

When McNeeley bought the duplex, one of the units was "completely destroyed," he said. "It needed drywall, plumbing, electric. It wasn't livable."

The unit he moved into wasn't much better. It was "close to not livable," he described.

He said he spent $62,000 and 10 months renovating. In May 2024, a tenant moved into the second unit.

"With the appreciation of the last year and the other unit being rented, the property is worth about $700,000, so I've made close to $300,000 in profit," said McNeeley, who bought the house in cash.

Avoiding financing was important to him.

"One of the biggest problems with the BRRRR method is the funding source," he said. "For the 'repair' part of BRRRR, a lot of people borrow hard money because they want to buy a property that you can't get traditional lending on. That hard money will have a higher interest rate — and usually within six months or a year the interest rate goes up a lot, so you want to get the repairs done and get it rented out within that six months or a year, whatever your timeline is, and then refinance to a traditional mortgage."

He bought in cash to avoid the time crunch.

The price of doing a 'live-in BRRRR': Living in a construction zone

The 'live-in BRRRR' has been lucrative for McNeeley. When he started the project, he moved out of the unit of one of his properties — a fourplex — and filled it with a tenant. Now that all four units are rented, the property is "almost making $4,000 a month without me living there," McNeeley said.

He moved into the duplex, which he purchased in cash, so he doesn't have a mortgage. He pays taxes and insurance, but the unit he fixed up rents for $2,125 a month and more than covers his expenses, "so I'm being paid to live where I'm at," he said.

The major tradeoff was living in a construction zone and without a kitchen and bathroom for months during the renovation

"I would literally go to the state park up the street to take showers. It was almost like camping for two months," said McNeeley. "I was willing to do some things that people aren't."

What's next? A cash-out refi or selling and avoiding up to $250,000 in capital gains tax

Now that the rehab is complete, the next step of the BRRRR method would be to refinance.

"I could do a cash-out refinance and get my money back because I've added the value to the property," he said. "I could take $500,000 or $600,000 out and go buy another rental and increase my cash flow. That's a good outcome."

Or, he could divert from the BRRRR and sell the property. This option intrigues him because of the Section 121 Exclusion, an IRS rule that lets taxpayers exclude up to $250,000 of the gain from the sale.

The main requirement is that you must use the home as your main residence for at least two of the five years preceding the sale, which McNeeley will satisfy in July 2025. If you're selling a vacation home, for example, you can't use the exclusion. You can also only use the exclusion every two years.

"I could sell it, make a couple hundred thousand dollars in profit, and not have to pay a penny in taxes — and either go and repeat the process somewhere else or go buy something with the gains and have a bigger, nicer place," he said, adding that he likely won't do another live-in BRRRR because of the rougher living conditions.

"I probably won't know until July when I have an appraisal done on if I'm going to do a cash-out refinance or I'm going to sell the place," he said. "It's really hard to make a decision when both outcomes are positive."

• My husband and I left our stresses of living in Seattle behind by moving to the suburbs.
• The tech boom raised Seattle's cost of living, making it hard for us to afford a home in the city.
• Now we enjoy having a close-knit community — and easy access to the city.

Growing up in a small town, I always thought the city was where I belonged. I moved to Seattle for college and loved the energy, the culture, and the endless entertainment opportunities.

But after a few years of struggling with some realities of city living — constant traffic, astronomical rent, and the never-ending search for a parking spot — I started to feel burned out.

Although I enjoyed living in Seattle, I decided to move about an hour away to the suburbs of Washington.

Now, I have the best of both worlds: I'm close enough to enjoy the perks of the city but far enough to escape its headaches.

Seattle's tech boom has made it even more expensive to live there

Seattle's population has grown by about 20% in the past decade, in part thanks to companies like Amazon and Microsoft setting up headquarters in the area.

Unfortunately, the influx of high-paying tech jobs has also driven up the cost of living.

When I lived in Seattle, rental costs ate up a lot of my income — sometimes up to 50%. Plus, online rental marketplace Apartments.com suggests the average rent in Seattle is about 30% higher than the national average.

Since renting in Seattle was already expensive, buying a house in the city felt like a far-off dream for me and my husband.

One of the biggest advantages of moving an hour away from Seattle has been our ability to find nice places to live within our budget.

Once we left, we were able to buy a renovated single-family home on almost half an acre outside the city for about half the price something similar might have cost in Seattle.

I love dealing with less traffic — and finding parking is much easier now

The Seattle metro area has some of the worst congestion in the US — and the busy, crowded streets made living in the city stressful for me.

I regularly spent hours of my day creeping down the freeway at 5 mph.

Sometimes, I'd lose track of time circling the block to find a parking spot near my destination — and if I had to park in a garage or lot, I'd pay upward of $20 for just a couple of hours.

In my town east of the city, I can pull right into my driveway, and I never worry about finding a spot at the grocery store, which is only 10 minutes from my house during rush hour.

Life outside the city offered tranquility my younger self didn't know I'd need

My gripes with living in Seattle may seem small, but they've had a big impact on my life.

Now, we live on a quiet street where the towns of Covington and Maple Valley meet, and suburban life blends with nature. We have ample space for a garden and hiking and biking trails minutes away.

The sound of nonstop city traffic has been replaced by birds and the occasional neighbor mowing their lawn. When we take our dogs for a walk, we cross paths with more families and fellow dog walkers than cars.

Our close-knit community is a welcome change from the anonymity I often felt in Seattle. I like that we know our neighbors and often chat with each other, which felt tough to do in a big city.

Although we don't have as many restaurants and events in the burbs, I'm still close enough to Seattle to attend concerts and sporting events, visit museums, or meet up with friends for dinner and a show.

I miss the city sometimes, but I'm happy I've found what matters to me most at this stage of my life.