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How to Oust Your Condo Board or HOA

Close to 30% of Americans live in a property governed by a condo board, homeowners association (HOA), or other community association—more than 70 million people. These associations are generally responsible for property upkeep, enforcement of community rules, and acting as a go-between for residents when disputes arise. Most people have a good or at least neutral experience with their condo board or HOA, but not everyone does.

If you find yourself in serious conflict with a condo board or HOA and get to the point where the normal channels (discussion, showing up at meetings, or even running for a position yourself) can’t solve the problem, you might contemplate a lawsuit. If common areas aren’t being maintained, or repairs aren’t being done, that might seem like your only option—but suing your condo board or HOA is often not your most effective option, and there might be better avenues to explore.

Why you should probably skip the suit

Thanks to pop culture depictions of attorneys and a constant stream of headlines, there’s a tendency to think you can (and should) solve every problem with a lawsuit. Lawsuits can certainly be an effective way to get relief of various kinds—but they're also an expensive, slow, and totally not guaranteed way to seek change or redress.

This is especially true when it comes to suing your HOA or condo board, because of something called the business judgment rule. This rule requires judges hearing a suit to favor the condo board or HOA as long as they believe they are acting in good faith and with a reasonable belief that their actions are for the good of the community—and proving otherwise can be tough. The specific laws governing your community association will vary, but in general this guideline makes winning a lawsuit against your community association very challenging.

Vote them out instead

Instead of spending a lot of time and money on a lawsuit you may very well lose, the better way to deal with a condo board or HOA that is either derelict in their duties or actively harming your property is to remove problematic board members—or replace the entire board altogether. This is usually a less challenging option because there will be language in the governing documents of the association (the Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions or CC&Rs) that outline exactly how to do this. Most states require that these governing documents include mechanisms for calling a special meeting (usually via petition signed by a majority of property owners). This can be done even if your condo board is dodging accountability by claiming to lack a quorum every time a regular meeting is called, a tactic bad condo boards sometimes use to maintain their control.

Here’s the basic steps you’ll need to take:

  • Read bylaws. Review those governing documents so you know how your association is set up. Pay particular attention to two things: Automatic removal criteria and how to force a vote. Most bylaws include certain requirements for board members, including a minimum number of meetings they have to attend and their ownership status at the property. These can potentially provide a straightforward way to remove board members without the need for a lengthy process—but first you have to know what those criteria are.

  • Contact your neighbors. If you can’t see any easy way to push bad board members out the door, you’ll need to bone up on the removal procedures outlined in your bylaws. These will vary from state to state and association to association, but in general, removing a board member (or an entire board) requires a vote involving all the property owners. That means your first step is to meet with everyone and make sure you have the necessary support.

    Next, you’ll need to call a special meeting of the condo board or HOA to hold a vote. If your board is being cagey about calling meetings because they know the residents are up in arms, you can usually force a meeting by getting a majority of owners to sign a petition.

  • Be ready. If you’re planning to remove the entire board, it’s a very good idea to have candidates lined up to replace them. This will minimize the chaos and delays, as well as the chance that the board members you just worked hard to remove don’t simply resume their seat when no one runs against them.

Keep in mind that if your association overtly works to prevent organizing your fellow owners like this (by imposing fines on distributing flyers, for example, to try to stop owners from organizing), it’s pretty clear evidence of bad faith, which would probably negate the business judgment rule protections and make a lawsuit a slightly better risk.

Working to remove a community association takes a lot of time and effort no matter what route you take—but if your property is being adversely affected by mismanagement or malfeasance, you really don’t have a choice. If that’s where you are, break out those bylaws before you call an attorney.

You Should Run a Background Check on Your Future Landlord (and Yourself)

Finding a place to live is becoming increasingly stressful. Not only are rents rising—the average rent in the United States is now almost $2,000 per month—but renting a place can be an overwhelmingly complex process. There’s the application (and the application fee), proving your income, providing references, and enduring all manner of checks and intrusive questions, with zero guarantee that you’ll actually have a place to live at the end of it.

The stress of securing a roof over your head leads most people to forget one simple fact: You need to be checking out your potential landlord, as well. Knowing that your landlord is routinely on a list of the worst landlords in your city, for example, is key information that can help you make this important financial decision. But even if your possible landlord isn’t quite that bad, you should run a background check on them so you know what you’re dealing with. And while you’re at it, you should run a check on yourself to make sure they’re seeing accurate information when deciding whether you’re a good risk for the rent.

Check yourself

Forewarned is forearmed, so your first order of business when looking for a home to rent is to find out what potential landlords will see about you. The last thing you want is to find the perfect place to rent only to be rejected for mysterious reasons. And just like credit reports, your rental history report can contain inaccuracies that can affect your ability to get past a rental application, so checking them should be your first order of business.

Landlords use a variety of companies for this service, including the big credit report companies TransUnion (SmartMove), Equifax (TotalVerify), and Experian. Other companies that provide rental history reports include RentPrep, First Advantage, Verifirst, and E-Renter. All of these companies charge a fee to provide the reports, but the good news is that under the same law that gives you access to your own credit report every year for free, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you can request a free copy of your rental history report. Since you have to contact each company individually to request one, your best strategy is to ask any potential landlord what company they use to screen tenants and then request your report from there (it’s also a good idea to get free copies of your credit reports, while you’re at it).

If you find any errors on your rental history report, you can file a dispute and have the report corrected, just like you do with a credit report. This can take some time, so it’s a good idea to do this the moment you know you’ll be looking for a place to rent.

Check your landlord

Once you know that you have a clean renting record and should have no problems getting through an application (or at least know what a landlord might be concerned about so you can be prepared to make a case), it’s time to make sure you’re not about to sign up with a slumlord.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple service you can pay for that will conduct a landlord check (that would be too easy), so you’ll have to cobble together information from several sources:

  • Internet search. The first and simplest thing to do is to Google the property address and the landlord’s name (or the name of the management company). This will turn up any public information about how the landlord runs things. Next, check out review sites where people can leave reviews of landlords and buildings, like Rate My Landlord or WYL. These sites can give you a quick snapshot of what tenants deal with at the property you’re considering.

  • Public records. Wherever you live, there are property records that can tell you a lot about how a landlord operates. Depending on where you live, some of this information may be online and easily searched up (in New York City, for example, you can look up properties on the Automated City Register Information System [ACRIS]), or you might have to go to your local courthouse to dig through records. But it’s worth the effort, because these records will tell you about code violations, the rate of evictions, lawsuits filed against the landlord or management company, and foreclosure proceedings. If you find a lot of these data points, you should be concerned about trusting this landlord with your living arrangements.

    Many municipalities also maintain “worst landlords” lists (again, New York certainly does) which can be a quick and easy way to find out if you’re about to rent from some sort of property demon.

  • Ask neighbors. The people who already live in a prospective building are your best resource for the current state of affairs there. You can probably learn more from one or two conversations with folks already living there than through days of research.

Your tolerance for red flags in a landlord will be in direct proportion to your desperation to find a place to live, of course, but knowledge is power. If you turn up a lot of complaints, lawsuits, and financial chicanery surrounding a prospective apartment, it might be best to keep looking.

How to Get a Mortgage When You’re Self-Employed

Getting a mortgage when you're self-employed can be more challenging than it is for traditional W-2 employees, but it's absolutely possible with the right preparation. Since you don't have standard pay stubs from an employer, lenders just need sufficient documentation to verify your income. Here are some tips for qualifying for a home loan while self-employed.

How to get a mortgage when you’re self-employed

Establish a solid income history

Most lenders want to see at least two years of steadily increasing self-employment income. They'll typically ask for your federal tax returns (personal and business) for the past two years to verify your self-employment income. The more years of documentation you can provide showing rising revenues, the better.

Maintain a solid credit score

A low credit score is always going to affect your ability to qualify for loans at decent rates. And with other forms of income less clear-cut, your credit score carries extra weight for proving your creditworthiness. Most lenders require self-employed borrowers to have credit scores of at least 700.

To keep your credit score high, pay all bills on time, keep credit card balances low, and avoid new large debts before applying.

Minimize your debt-to-income ratio

Lenders calculate your debt-to-income (DTI) ratio by adding your total monthly debt payments and dividing by your gross monthly income. With fluctuating self-employment income, you'll want to keep this DTI below 43% to qualify. That may mean paying down debts before applying.

Minimize your write-offs

It may be tempting to write off every possible expense to minimize your taxable income, but that could backfire when trying to qualify for a mortgage. Lenders want to see maximum income to ensure you can repay the loan. If you're eyeing a mortgage this year, avoid writing off more expenses than absolutely necessary.

Be prepared with documentation

Beyond at least two years of tax returns, have paperwork ready documenting your self-employment income sources like 1099s, profit/loss statements, quarterly tax payment records, business licenses, client invoices, and more. The more you can document, the better.

Get pre-qualified and compare lenders

Get pre-qualified with several lenders to compare rates and requirements. Meet with local banks, credit unions, and specialized self-employment lenders. You can absolutely qualify for a mortgage as a self-employed borrower—being organized and having good records will make the process smoother.

When to Get a Tankless Water Heater (and When Not To)

In so many ways, we’re living in the future. We have wireless internet, artificial intelligence, and holographic KISS concerts. Technology has advanced so fast it’s often difficult to keep up—as soon as you’ve mastered one new paradigm, a dozen others have popped up while you weren’t paying attention.

But not everything in our lives has gotten better—or even changed that much. Your standard water heater, for example, is kind of primitive: It’s a tank of water with a fire underneath, or electric heating elements inside the tank. It’s not terribly complicated or that far removed from a bucket suspended over a fire.

There is a more advanced, modern option: The tankless water heater, aka a “demand” water heater. These fixtures eschew the tank altogether, heating water on demand. Not only are they more energy efficient by as much as 34%, they offer the tantalizing possibility of infinite hot water—and infinitely long hot showers. Despite these benefits, however, a tankless water heater won’t work for everyone or every living situation.

Capacity

Tankless water heaters can supply infinite hot water in the sense that they don’t rely on a set amount of stored, heated water. But they’re not magic—they can only heat up so much water so fast. Every tankless water heater has a flow rate measured as gallons per minute (gpm), and every fixture that provides hot water (faucets, showers, dishwashers, laundry) has a flow rate as well. Your tankless water heater has to have a flow rate sufficient to supply hot water to all the fixtures simultaneously.

For example, if your family frequently has someone showering (2 gpm) while the washing machine (3 gpm) and dishwasher (2 gpm) are both running, your tankless water heater will need to provide at least 7 gpm. A heater with a higher flow rate will come with a higher price tag—and if you have moments when your hot water usage spikes beyond the normal rate, your tankless water heater might not be able to keep up.

Another factor affecting tankless water heater performance is the temperature rise. This is the difference between the temperature of the water when it enters your home through the pipes and the temperature you want your hot water to be. If your groundwater is 50ºF (10ºC) and you want your hot water to be 120ºF (49ºC), you need a rise of 70ºF (39ºC). If the water temperature coming in drops a few degrees for any reason, your tankless water heater might struggle to provide water that’s hot enough for your needs, especially if you use a lot of appliances and fixtures simultaneously.

That means if you have a large family or use a lot of hot water in your house, a tankless water heater might not be the best choice even if you calculate its capacity carefully. And since tankless models don’t have a stored supply of water and rely on constant intake, any mineral buildup in the pipes or drop in water pressure to your home might result in lukewarm water or not enough hot water to go around. A storage water heater will eventually fill up even with reduced water pressure, and will eventually heat water of any temperature to the desired setting. But if your hot water usage rarely spikes and the temperature rise is manageable, a tankless unit should work well.

Space

Although tankless water heaters are smaller than traditional tank heaters (and you can buy compact units designed for smaller spaces), that doesn’t mean you can necessarily fit one in your existing mechanical space. Depending on the capacity you need, if you have a tight mechanical room or area you might not be able to squeeze one in, leaving you with the option of installing it outside the house or in plain view somewhere else in the house. I personally know someone who had to have theirs installed in their living room, so now they have a huge unit with pipes running everywhere right in the middle of their home. And choosing a more compact unit might mean sacrificing capacity, leaving you with chronically lukewarm water.

It’s best to consult with your plumber or contractor to make sure they can fit a tankless water heater into your home before you commit to one. If not, but you can tolerate having it exposed to guests or mounted outdoors, then a tankless unit will still work for you.

ROI

A final consideration with tankless water heaters is the return on investment. Because of their superior energy efficiency, tankless water heaters are often promoted as wise investments—and you will get your money back, eventually. Tankless water heaters can last 20 years or more (more than double the lifespan of a typical storage water heater), and they can save an average family of four about $100 a year on energy bills. If your tankless water heater lasts 20 years, you’ll save $2,000 over its lifetime. The cost of installing one of these units ranges between $1,500 and $3,200 (including labor), so you might get all or at least most of your money back.

But if you’re not planning to stay in your home that long, the investment might not pay off. If you’re planning to sell your home in a few years, a tankless water heater might appeal to some potential buyers, but there’s no data to support the idea that a tankless water heater significantly affects home value one way or another. On the other hand, if you’re in your forever home or have no plans to move any time soon, the combination of infinite hot water and energy efficiency will pay off.

When It’s Actually a Good Idea to Remove a Bathroom

Bathrooms have slowly become one of the most important rooms in our homes. Once a small, single space that people didn’t particularly want to spend a lot of time in, modern bathrooms are luxurious and spacious—and they're multiplying. While the basic modern standard is about two baths for every three bedrooms, we’re living in an era of “toilet inflation,” and it’s increasingly common to have as many bathrooms as bedrooms—or more. Fifty years ago, there were on average two people for every bathroom in a house; today it’s closer to one person per bathroom.

One reason for this is changing layouts: Once en suite bathrooms off of primary bedrooms became common, people needed to add an extra bathroom for guests or other residents. Another is the value a bathroom adds to a house: Although the return on investment (ROI) on an added bathroom is just over 50%, real estate professionals will tell you time and again that more bathrooms mean a higher sale price and more offers when you decide to sell your house.

But the opposite can also be true, believe it or not. While adding a second bathroom or an en suite bathroom in your home probably always makes sense (in terms of lifestyle and ROI), there are some scenarios when it’s actually smarter to remove a bathroom in your house.

Too many baths

You might not have a bathroom-to-bedroom ratio of 16-to-9 like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, but you can still have too many bathrooms. While house hunters are generally delighted to find plenty of bathrooms in a house, there is actually a point where the number of bathrooms in your home can become a detriment instead of an asset. Each bathroom in your home—whether it’s a half-bath, a spa bath, or lavish suite all its own, represents a portion of cleaning, maintenance, and potential water damage in the home. Even bathrooms that aren’t used regularly have to be cleaned, and not only will you not enjoy cleaning a bathroom you never use, potential buyers won’t like the idea either.

If your home isn’t particularly large, squeezing extra bathrooms into that small space can be counter-productive as well, as it simply underscores the small size of the place, and can result in rooms that feel too small. Having a third bath won’t do you much good if it’s the size of an airplane bathroom—and it could make the adjoining bedroom too small to fit a queen-sized bed.

Awkward locations

If you’ve ever watched a TV show about folks hunting for a new home, you’ve probably seen a few moments when folks discover a bathroom in an odd place and react negatively. If you have an extra bathroom right off the kitchen, for example, where guests will be using the facilities three feet away from where the cooking happens, that may be more of a downside than a positive. Removing an awkwardly located bathroom can improve the flow of the house and prevent an immediate bad impression.

Value elsewhere

Finally, if you have more bathrooms than you need, it’s possible that you could get more value out of your home by removing a bathroom and transforming it into something else that increases the utility, comfort, and value of your home:

  • That weird powder room off the kitchen might be space better used as a pantry—or making a tiny kitchen larger; in a recent survey, 80% of first-time home buyers considered a walk-in pantry to be “essential or desirable.”

  • A half-bath located near the entrance that no one ever uses (seriously, how many people are in such a rush they have to dash into a bathroom immediately upon entry?) might be better used as a coat closet

  • If you have more bathrooms than bedrooms, converting one of the baths to an additional bedroom might make sense. Extra bedrooms add slightly more value to a home than bathrooms, so if your bathroom-to-bedroom ratio is a confusing number like 4-3, changing it to a more comprehensible 3-4 makes a lot of sense.

The take-away is simple: While it might be counter-intuitive, if you have more than enough bathrooms, getting rid of one of them can benefit you in terms of how much you enjoy your home—and how much it’s ultimately worth.

Why Mortgage Lenders Charge Prepayment Penalties (and How to Avoid Them)

When you take out a mortgage to buy a home, you are borrowing a large sum of money from a lender that you agree to pay back over a long period of time, often 15 or 30 years, and the lender makes money off the interest you pay on the loan over those years. However, some lenders include a prepayment penalty clause that allows them to charge you a fee if you pay off all or part of the mortgage early before the full term is up. If they sound pesky, it's because they are, and they're crucial for anyone with a mortgage to know about.

What is a prepayment penalty and why do they exist?

A prepayment penalty is an extra fee, typically a percentage of the remaining mortgage balance, that you would owe the lender if you prepay your mortgage. This creates a disincentive for you to pay the loan off faster than scheduled.

From the lender's perspective, a prepayment penalty protects them from losing out on the interest income they expected to receive if you paid off the loan over the full term. When you get a mortgage, the lender is counting on receiving that interest revenue over 15 to 30 years. If you can afford to pay the loan off in 5 to 10 years, the lender doesn't make as much profit. Prepayment penalties help lenders reduce the risk of borrowers refinancing and prepaying when interest rates drop. It ensures they still make a minimum amount even if you pay the loan off early.

Not all mortgages come with prepayment penalties, though. More consumer-friendly lenders may choose not to include them to attract borrowers who want the flexibility to prepay without added fees.

How to avoid a prepayment penalty

The best way to avoid getting hit with a prepayment penalty is to be aware of the terms before you get a mortgage and choose a lender that doesn't charge one. Be sure to read the fine print carefully.

If you already have a mortgage with a prepayment penalty provision, find out what the specific terms are. Prepayment penalties are not permanent—they expire after a certain period of time, typically a few years. The penalty may also have limits, like only being charged for a certain amount of the loan prepaid each year.

By understanding exactly how the prepayment penalty works, you can plan accordingly. You may be able to make additional principal payments up to the limit each year to pay down the balance faster without triggering the full penalty initially. And once the penalty period expires, you can look into options to fully prepay without added fees.

While prepayment penalties can be an unwanted surprise, doing your research upfront and understanding what you're agreeing to can help you avoid them when possible or mitigate the costs if you do have to pay one.

When Renovating Your Rental Is Actually a Good Idea

If you’ve reached a point in your life when buying a house seems like the logical next step, you’ve probably noticed that housing prices have skyrocketed and mortgage rates have jumped significantly from just a few years ago. The end result of these economic trends is that folks need to earn over six figures to be able to even think about buying a house—nearly double what you needed just a few years ago.

If that means you’re stuck renting a place for the foreseeable future, you’re not alone—but if you'd really rather not live in a personality-free white box, you’re also not alone. Plain apartments with old fixtures and generic style can be sad places—which is why you should ignore the conventional wisdom and consider renovating your rental.

Benefits of renovating your rental

This might seem like a bad idea at first: You don’t own the space, so any money or sweat equity you invest is a total loss. Except that it’s not, because you’ll benefit from your efforts in several ways:

  • Mental health. Renovating your home offers a sense of control over your environment and the chance to make it serve your needs. Instead of white walls and an inconvenient layout, you can make the place feel like a real home. This can be especially impactful if you’re feeling frustrated by being priced out of home ownership.

  • Lifestyle improvements. If your apartment is equipped with old infrastructure like beat-up kitchen appliances, replacing them with newer models will significantly improve your enjoyment of the space. And changing the layout of the space to modernize it—by adding closets to old pre-war bedrooms, for example—can make your time living there much more pleasant.

  • Finances. Renovating a property you don’t own doesn’t have to be a total loss. If your proposed changes will improve the property and make it more valuable, your landlord may be willing to pay for materials and possibly even offer a lower rent in exchange for your labor. If you negotiate carefully, you might even come out ahead.

Even if your landlord isn’t willing to give you a break on rent, as rental renovator Imani Keal told the Washington Post recently, people routinely spend thousands of dollars on transient experiences like vacations, so spending similar amounts on renovations that you’ll potentially enjoy for years isn’t such a bad idea.

What to consider before renovating your rental

Of course, you shouldn’t just jump into major renovations in a rental without putting some thought into the project. A few things to consider:

  • Approvals. Start by reading your lease agreement carefully, noting specific language about changes and alterations to the apartment. While you’re unlikely to get tossed out of your place over some paint, bigger changes without prior approval can be problematic.

    Contact your landlord about planned renovations—and be prepared to make your case. It’s important to point out the benefits they’ll get from your changes—if you leave the place significantly improved, they’ll likely be able to raise the rent on future tenants, making it a win-win.

  • Ownership. If your renovation plan includes things like new appliances or other infrastructure, you’ll need to clarify ownership—will you be leaving these things behind when you leave or taking them with you? If your landlord offers a break in the rent in exchange for your work, they might assume they own anything you add, so it pays to be as clear and explicit as possible—and to have a digital paper trail that lays everything out.

  • Custom pieces. If you purchase appliances, furniture, or other decor that is sized for the space or custom-made for it, it might not work in your next place even if you maintain ownership. If you buy a high-end compact dishwasher for the tiny kitchen in your apartment, you might not have much use for it if you move into a place with a larger kitchen. This won’t be a problem if you’re leaving it behind, but if you want to take it with you when you move out, it pays to think ahead.

The Weirdest Side Hustles That Can Make You Real Money

Whether the rise of the side hustle is evidence of the can-do American spirit or the decline of the American Dream (why not both?), a lot of folks need one. Not quite a second (or third) job, but more than a hobby, a side hustle is a way to turn free time and sweat equity into cash, and maybe have a little fun at the same time.

Most side hustles aren’t all that exciting—delivering food or driving for Uber may offer the occasional adventure, but are typically about as boring as a full-time gig. But there are some seriously weird side hustles out there, the sort of side gigs that make you wonder about the state of modern civilization—but that offer real, actual American currency, sometimes a surprisingly high amount of it. While these side hustles might seem bizarre at first glance, they offer a legitimate opportunity to earn some extra cash while simultaneously providing you with all the party small-talk material you’ll ever need.

Pooper scooper

People have dogs. Those dogs poop. A lot. While many folks take their dogs out for walks, some people just let their dogs run loose in their backyards, and the poop can, er, pile up. Or, sometimes, people discover that stray dogs are using their backyards as a toilet, and they would rather anyone else come and deal with all the poop. And that’s where you come in: You can earn around $50 an hour doing this once you get enough customers. And it’s actually an easy business to start—you don’t need any special equipment, and you can get started just by contacting your neighbors and offering your services.

It’s worth it to do some research to see if anyone else is in your area offering pooper scooper services. There are companies like DoodyCalls that do this, so you might consider getting a part-time job with a company, or just check their pricing to ensure you’ll be competitive.

Baby gear rental

Do you have a bunch of old baby stuff that your kids have outgrown? You can donate it, sure, or offer it to friends and family who are just starting their families. Or you can monetize it by renting it out to folks.

The need here is mainly for families who are traveling: They’re going to be in your area for a short period of time, and it’s easier and cheaper to rent cribs, toys, and other baby stuff than to transport their own or buy a bunch of temporary stuff. Companies like BabyQuip and TravelingBaby let you sign up to be an affiliate independent contractor. When someone in your area needs baby stuff, you’re contacted, deliver the stuff to them, then pick it up when they’re done. The money obviously varies depending on volume, but TravelingBaby says you can earn as much as $1,200 a month doing this. Even if it’s much less, you’re monetizing stuff you no longer use, so it’s a win.

Friend services

It’s something a lot of adults discover to their dismay: Being a grown-up can be incredibly lonely. But that yawning chasm of loneliness is an opportunity, because that means people will pay you to be their friend or to come and cuddle with them. To be clear, these are both explicitly platonic arrangements: You get paid to hang out with someone or to engage in nonsexual physical contact just to provide some comfort. RentAFriend says you can earn “up to” $50 an hour, though they also say that renting a friend starts at just $10 an hour, with friends offering “special skills” or expertise costing more. Still, getting paid to hang out with someone isn’t bad work. Cuddling, which involves physical contact, can earn more money—as much as $150 an hour.

Sell your underwear

There is income potential in your used, worn, and absolutely not laundered underwear, socks, and other intimate items of clothing. All Things Worn and Male Things Worn are two marketplaces where you can list your unwashed knickers for profit. Prices are up to you (though All Things Worn provides a helpful list of suggested prices), but turning old, used underwear and other clothing into cash is a lot better than just throwing them away or wasting your time and money washing them.

Sell your hair

If you’ve got healthy, undyed, and relatively long hair, you can sell it. Best of all, it’s a renewable resource—you can sell a foot of your hair, wait a few months, then repeat the process. You can get anywhere from $100 to $1,000 for your hair depending on several factors, which isn’t bad, especially if you were planning to cut it all off, anyway.

Line standing

It’s often said that the main benefit of being rich is time: You can pay people to do things for you, which leaves you more time to do the things you actually want to do. And for a lot of rich folks one of the things they definitely don’t want to do is stand in line with the plebes waiting for concert tickets, fresh cronuts, or limited edition sneakers for their collection.

That’s where you, a mobile physical object capable of handling basic transactions, come in. Get paid to stand in line for your economic betters. Companies like Same Ole Line Dudes need employees, and sites like TaskRabbit have explicit listings for line standers. Typically, you can make about $25 an hour for ... waiting.

Virtual juror

Everyone groans when they get that jury duty summons in the mail—but you can make some decent side money by serving as a virtual juror. Law firms and marketing companies conduct a lot of mock trials as part of their research and case prep, and they need regular folks who are representative of actual jury composition to serve in those trials.

Most of these gigs are done at home over video, and the pay varies widely—from $5 per case on the low end to several hundred bucks for more complex cases that might take more time. There are a lot of companies looking for virtual jurors, so you can sign up with several and just take the assignments as they come, making a fair bit of coin for doing something that’s really interesting.

Sell your poop

If picking up dog poop doesn’t appeal to you, perhaps you’d be interested in monetizing another natural resource you’re producing all the time: your own poop. Companies need human feces for a wide variety of research purposes, and they’re willing to pay for it—as much as $500 per “donation” or $1,500 a month.

Not everyone is eligible for this side hustle, however, so don’t start collecting your output for future resale just yet. For example, GoodNature needs poop, but restricts donors to specific locations, and usually requires that you have a specific medical condition they’re studying. HumanMicrobes solicits stool donations for people needing a fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), and pays well for them. But you have to meet some pretty strict age and health requirements. Still, if you meet those requirements, you can make serious money just by going to the bathroom.

Why You Shouldn’t Buy or Rent for the Building Amenities

Buying or renting an apartment requires coordinating dozens of needs, wants, and must-haves. Figuring out what you absolutely must have versus what you could possibly live without under the right conditions can be a challenge. And after a while, every two-bedroom, 1.5-bath condo in your price range can start to look the same.

That’s one reason why we’re in the midst of the Amenity Wars. While a lot of so-called “amenities” are just practical things like in-unit laundry or parking spaces, landlords increasingly hope to distinguish their offerings with the luxurious extras that you get in their building. From pools and gyms to party rooms and even ultra-luxe stuff like cooking classes or weekly happy hours, apartments and condominiums for rent and for sale increasingly come with a dizzying array of amenities. Putting aside the fact that none of these amenities are actually free—you’re paying for them in the form of higher rent and condo or HOA fees—these amenities can be tempting. It’s easy to imagine yourself living a carefree life with everything you might need right there in your building. But if you don’t actually use those amenities, are they worth the premium?

Your lifestyle history

The number one data point when it comes to the likelihood you’ll ever be found in your building’s party room or gym is your prior history. If you never used the roof deck in your prior home, you most likely won’t use the one in your new place. On the other hand, if you were the mayor of your last condo’s gym, you’ll probably get a lot of use out of this one, too. Similarly, the best way to tell if you’re going to be throwing a lot of parties in the Party Room is to count the number of parties you hosted in the last one.

If this is your first apartment, you can still glean some clues from your own behaviors. When you stay at hotels, do you use the shared gym, pool, or other amenities, or are you worried strangers will walk in and force you into awkward conversation (or silently judge you in your swimsuit)? If the answer’s yes, you might not get as much use out of those amenities as you think. Also note if the amenities on offer match how you use those facilities elsewhere. If the gym in your building doesn’t have the equipment you normally use, chances are you’ll have to maintain your outside gym membership anyway.

Psychology and privacy

It’s a quirk of our psychology: People tend to assume shared amenities will always be in use and crowded, and therefore tend to simply not use them. Why haul a bunch of stuff up to the roof deck to spontaneously enjoy the sunset just to find out that a bunch of your neighbors are already up there using all the chairs? And amenities like screening rooms and yoga rooms sound luxurious, but in reality you’ll probably just watch movies on your enormous TV, or go do yoga in a studio instead of relying on a collective to organize an instructor.

Even an amenity that seems like an obvious win, like a private balcony, might not get used if your neighbors’ balconies are jammed right next to yours. When evaluating the amenities in a building, ask yourself if you’ll be comfortable using them even if other people are always there.

Ease of reservation

An important question to ask when touring an apartment or condo is how the building handles reserving amenities like party rooms, roof decks, and other spaces. If it’s a difficult or arcane process—or if there’s no real process at all—then using these amenities will be more trouble than it’s worth.

You’ll also want to inquire about the rules of use—does your building require you to drop a hefty security deposit for using shared spaces? Are you required to hire a security guard for parties? Do you have to arrange for professional cleaning after use? Knowing how much extra money and effort will be involved will help you figure out how often you’ll actually be willing to go through the trouble.

On the other hand, if there are few restrictions for use you might find that your neighbors—or your neighbors’ rowdy kids—are constantly in there making a mess.

Capacity versus population

The “amenities war” sometimes inspires buildings to offer undersized services and spaces just to tout them in listings. When you’re in the gym, party room, or standing on the roof deck, imagine that everyone in the building—or even half of them—is trying to use it at the same time. If it seems like you might never get to access the amenities, or that you’ll be crammed in when you do, your chances of actually using these spaces plummet.

Shared spaces can also inspire petty grievances and turf wars. Other residents may have ideas about how these spaces get used, or complaints about how other people use them, and these can erupt into simmering conflicts that can negatively impact every other aspect of your life in the building. If the amenities seem a bit skimpy for the size of the building, it might be best to assume you’ll never actually use them.

Kids in building

Something to consider in relation to amenities is how many children are in the building. Amenities like an indoor pool might be swarmed with kids at all times. While not necessarily a bad thing, your tolerance for children in general should be a consideration. Be honest with yourself: If a bunch of tweens cannonballing into the pool on a regular basis is a turn-off, assume you’ll never use it if there are a lot of kids around.

Condition

Finally, take some time to evaluate the condition of these amenities. Are they clean? Well-organized? In disrepair? If the gym has broken equipment or the party room has a dent in the wall when you’re there for a tour, that’s a sign that things are just going to get worse over time.

Also, ask about cleaning schedules. A theater room might inspire you to imagine hosting all your friends and relatives for movie nights, but is anyone cleaning the seats, or will you walk out of there sticky and grossed out?

Here's How a Home Equity Loan Works

If you're a homeowner with equity built up in your house, you may be able to tap into that equity through a home equity loan. A home equity loan allows you to borrow money by using your home's value as collateral for the loan. Here's a step-by-step look at how these loans work.

How does a home equity loan work?

1. Determine your home equity

Home equity is calculated by taking the current market value of your home and subtracting the outstanding balance on your mortgage. For example, if your home is worth $300,000 and you owe $200,000 on your mortgage, you have $100,000 in home equity.

2. Apply for the loan

You'll need to apply for a home equity loan from a bank, credit union, or online lender just like you did for your original mortgage. The lender will look at your income, credit score, employment status and outstanding debts to determine your creditworthiness and maximum loan amount.

3. Establish the loan amount

Most lenders will let you borrow up to 85% of your home's equity. From the example above with $100,000 in equity, you may be able to borrow up to $85,000 with a home equity loan.

4. Receive lump sum payment

Unlike a home equity line of credit (HELOC) where you borrow as needed, a home equity loan provides the funds as a lump sum upfront after closing on the loan.

5. Make monthly payments

You'll repay the loan over a fixed term, such as 10 or 15 years, with a fixed interest rate and equal monthly payments, just like a typical mortgage. Home equity loans are installment loans with a definitive payoff date.

6. Maintain mortgage payments

Your home equity loan is separate from your original mortgage. You'll need to continue making your regular mortgage payments on top of the new home equity loan payments.

Home equity loans allow you to access some of your home's equity for things like home renovations, debt consolidation, college tuition, or other major expenses. Just keep in mind your home secures the debt, so defaulting could put you at risk of foreclosure.

How to Spot a 'Catfish House' (Before You Buy One)

House-hunting has always been stressful and exhausting. In recent years there’s a whole new layer of difficulty being added to the process as, once again, technology that’s supposed to make our lives easier instead betrays us—because now we have to deal with “catfish” homes.

The phrase is a riff on the term “catfish,” which describes a scam where people use fake social media profiles to establish a relationship. A catfish house is one where a lot of effort goes into making the house look updated and in good condition when it’s actually neither of those things. This goes beyond the deceptive photos routinely used in real estate listings, or the egregious ways real estate TV shows fudge the truth around house flips. It crosses over into real harm, because you can be fooled into buying a house that’s hiding expensive problems—and that could even be dangerous to live in.

How a catfish house can fool you

Catfish houses go beyond the staging and photography tricks used to make homes look their best and cross over into potential fraud. On a recent episode of HGTV’s “Why the Heck Did I Buy This House” the “catfish house” problem was depicted in horrifying detail. In a clip posted to Instagram, an electrician showed that real effort had been put into updating only the aspects of the electrical infrastructure that could be seen—panels, outlets, and short lengths of wire that would be exposed. Everything else was old, not up to code—and potentially very dangerous. But it could only be seen once the walls were opened up.

Some of the ways a catfish house can prove to be deceptive include:

  • Listing bedrooms that turn out to be too small or awkwardly shaped to be used—or that don’t meet the legal standards for a bedroom, which typically require an egress window and a closet.

  • Purely cosmetic work hiding significant problems. For example, cheap carpeting over damaged floors, fresh paint over mold or ongoing water damage, and new fixtures attached to broken or failing plumbing or wiring.

  • Using Photoshop or other digital tools to imply upgrades that haven’t actually been done, like making walls seem freshly painted, or making kitchen cabinetry look new instead of battered.

  • Covering up foundation problems like cracks with superficial fillers and paint.

  • Exaggerating the size of the home with deceptive photos and “fuzzy” math that includes unfinished spaces or outdoor areas in the square footage.

  • Insect damage and rot to joists and wall studs that’s just left in place—the bugs may be gone, but the framing of the house is compromised and hidden behind new walls and flooring.

What makes a house into a catfish is the intention to deceive. While many real estate listings strive to present the property in an ideal way that might not represent the everyday reality of living there, a catfish house actually hides serious problems or fakes significant upgrades.

How to avoid a catfish house

Obviously, buying a catfish house is something to avoid. While you might have legal remedies to pursue if you discover you’ve been fooled into buying one, spending years in court while simultaneously spending a small fortune to repair and renovate a home you thought was move-in ready isn’t exactly an ideal scenario. So how can you avoid buying a catfish house in the first place?

  • Inspections. Never waive your right to have a property inspected, and regard any pressure to do so from the seller as suspicious unless the home is advertised as an “as-is” sale. In high-pressure, multiple-bid situations, waiving your right to inspect is sometimes suggested as a way to improve your chances, but only do so if you’re ready to deal with whatever’s lurking under the surface.

  • Photos. Always be skeptical of photos in real estate listings. Beyond the usual wide-angle lens tricks, pay attention to details like the time of year—if the photos show a bright spring day but it’s currently cold and snowy out, those photos may show the home from years ago. Also think about what’s not shown in those photos—are all the bedrooms and bathrooms in the listing shown? Missing rooms or other features might indicate some chicanery is being hidden.

  • Physical signs. One possible sign of a catfish house is fresh work despite the listing not mentioning a recent renovation. While freshly painted walls are a common way to freshen up a house for sale, look at things like

    • Wall plates. Mis-matched or loose outlet and switch plates might indicate quick, dirty work to hide an electrical problem. Brand-new plates on walls that haven’t been painted might also be a clue.

    • Inconsistent performance. Flickering lights or inconsistent water pressure in certain areas of the house without a disclosed problem can be danger signs.

    • Wall textures. Look at those freshly painted walls: Are there smooth spots that could indicate a hasty drywall repair? Or rough spots where joint compound was larded into a hole and poorly finished?

    • Floor bounce. Pay attention to more than how floors look—think about how they feel. Bouncy floors might indicate problems with the joists underneath new carpeting or recently installed flooring.

Why a Flat Fee Real Estate Broker Probably Isn’t Worth It

A home is a place to put down roots, start a family, and build a community—except, not really, because people are pretty restless. First homes are often considered “starter homes,” purchased with the implicit intention of living there for a relatively short time, and the average homeowner lives in their house about 10 years before selling it and moving into a new one. Which means they’re paying a lot of realtor fees.

If you’ve only ever bought a house, you might not consciously think about those fees, because the seller typically pays them—but they can add up. Typical real estate commissions range between 5-6% of the sale price of the house (the average commission in 2023 was 5.46%), split between the two agents involved. If you’re selling your house for $250,000, for example, a 5.46% fee is $13,650 of your profit paid to the buyer’s agent and your agent. This is negotiable, to an extent—agents can agree to take less—but many sellers find their eyes watering at the amount of money being shaved off their sale price. That haircut can inspire homesellers to seek out alternative arrangements, like a flat-fee broker.

The flat fee

A flat-fee realtor is exactly what it sounds like: Instead of taking a percentage of the sale price as a fee, they charge a flat, up-front payment, typically between $3,000 and $5,000, though this varies by region and the value of the home.

At first glance, that’s a great deal. Let’s say you hire a flat-fee real estate broker for $3,000 to sell your $250,000 home. Instead of $13,650, now you’re paying $9,825 in fees (the $3k to your agent and half the 5.46% still owed to the buyer’s agent), saving yourself close to four thousand bucks. That’s pretty good! And if your home is worth more, your savings can be much more dramatic. So why wouldn’t everyone use a flat-fee service to sell their home? The answer’s simple: You probably won’t actually save $4,000 on the deal.

The downsides

To be clear: You might save that much money, or at least significant money. But there are a lot of reasons this isn’t as easy as it seems:

  • The other agent. The first thing to remember is you’re still on the hook for the buyer’s agent fees. In our $250,000 home example, that’s close to $7,000. And since that fee is still pegged to the sale price of your house, if you sell it for more than expected—say, $275,000—after a bidding war, that fee will just go up. You’ll still save money on your side because your agent’s fee won’t go up, but it’s important to remember that your overall costs can increase even with a flat-fee arrangement on your end.

  • Add ons. When hiring a flat-fee service, you need to know what services they provide. Many flat-fee agents will only list your home in the multiple listing service (MLS) and do some light marketing, leaving everything else for you to either do yourself or pay for out of pocket. These costs can include stuff like having photos taken, advertising the home with printed signs or mailings, organizing open houses, staging services, and cleaners.

  • Liability. Real estate agents normally handle a lot of legal stuff for a home sale, but flat fee agents may not offer those services, or they may be an extra cost. Unless you’re familiar with the laws in your area and know all the disclosures you must make, forms you must fill out, permits, surveys, and other documents you’ll need to provide, you could find yourself responsible for some expensive consequences. You’ll also need to prepare the deed properly.

  • Lower sale price. A flat-fee home is essentially a for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) with extra steps, since you’re doing most of the work. And FSBO homes typically sell for a lot less than agented homes—a lot less. The median sale price for FSBO homes is $310,000, while the median sale price for homes with a full-service agent is $405,000. If you save $7,000 on fees but lose $100,000 on the sale price, you didn’t actually save anything. Another factor is agent motivation: A traditional agent has an obvious motivation to sell your home for the highest possible price: Their fee goes up. A flat-fee agent has little reason to put any effort into getting a better price, since their fee stays the same—and has already been paid.

While it’s certainly possible to save significant money by using a flat fee real estate agent, doing so requires you to know precisely what you’re getting in return for that fee and how much it will cost you out of pocket to do everything else. Plus, there are the non-monetary costs in terms of your time and labor, since you’ll be the one handling anything your flat fee agent won’t. Chances are, once you count it all up, you won’t have saved much at all.

Five Ways Home Sellers Can Screw You Over After the Closing

Buying a house is rarely a fast, simple transaction. There’s a lot of money tied up for everyone involved, a lot of research and negotiation, and a lot of time—especially if you take the proper steps to protect yourself. When you finally find your dream home, you have it inspected, you make a good offer, and you hire a lawyer to ensure everything goes smoothly.

Closing on the house should be the end of all the stress and the beginning of the fun part—moving in and making the place yours. But if you’re not careful, move-in day could be a source of even more stress if the seller has played a dirty trick or two on you. Even if your home inspection went without a hitch and you had a great team of real estate and legal professionals on your side, home sellers sometimes try a few schemes to enhance their end of the deal.

Swapping appliances

Imagine this: You tour a potential new home, and you fall in love with the kitchen. It’s renovated beautifully, with gorgeous cabinetry and modern, new appliances.

Then you walk in after closing on the sale, and the appliances have all been replaced with cheap or used versions that are far from what you saw during the open house and subsequent visits. The seller has absconded with the pricey new stuff and left you with a broken-down kitchen. Or, just as bad, you discover that despite being new and high-quality, one or more of the appliances is broken or malfunctioning.

The law is a bit murky here; some experts will tell you that anything attached to the house, like an oven, is automatically part of the house, while others will tell you that appliances are considered possessions that aren’t automatically included in the sale.

To prevent this sort of situation, note whether the appliances are part of the home’s appraised value—if so, you have a strong case to force the seller to return them or compensate you. Make sure the appliances are specifically mentioned in the sale contract. Finally, insist on a final walk-through before closing—and take photos of everything for later comparison.

Dumbing down

Another dirty trick home seller play involves “smart” infrastructure like thermostats or door locks. These devices connect via the home network and offer rich functionality that can be controlled via smartphone apps.

If those “smart” features were part of your decision to buy this particular house, make sure you spell out in the contract that they stay put. Home sellers sometimes remove those pricey thermostats and other smart tech, replacing them with the dumb originals they removed when they upgraded. If you haven’t specified that they stay with the house, you may not have any way to get them back, even if you counted them as part of the value of the house when you made your offer.

Changing light fixtures

One common aspect of a home that people often assume will transfer to them when they buy it is the light fixtures—and even the bulbs. If you love the lighting that the current homeowners have installed, take photos and ask your real estate agent to make sure they’re explicitly mentioned in the contract. Otherwise you might not even notice that the fixtures have been swapped until it’s too late.

And check on those light bulbs, especially if the house has dynamic bulbs like Philips Hue. Those bulbs can cost as much as $50 each, so if the home is large and has a lot of lighting features you could be looking at a significant expense if the sellers swap those bulbs with cheaper versions—or simply remove the bulbs and leave you in the dark.

Leaving a mess

Moving house is a chaotic experience at the best of times. If the home you’re buying is occupied, consider asking the seller to stipulate in the contract the condition of the home you’ll be taking possession of. Otherwise, you might open the front door to find garbage left behind, scratched floors or walls from moving furniture, or even personal effects left behind the sellers might assume you’re willing to hold onto and return to them at some point.

Even if the home is unoccupied when you’re buying it, you should document the condition of the home when you do your final walk-through just in case the sellers decide to do anything that could leave behind a mess or cause damage to the property. If you do encounter a mess, there’s not much you can do unless it was contractually specified that the house be in a certain condition when you moved in, aside from contacting the previous owner and asking them to either clean it up or pay to have it done.

Hiding problems

Finally, remember that even the best home inspector may not catch everything. Home inspections are relatively brief and superficial, and are designed to catch obvious problems—which means an unscrupulous home seller can try to hide issues that are less obvious. Water damage in a ceiling? A patch-and-paint job a few days prior to an inspection can hide it—until you move in and the first heavy rain falls. Alternately, a home seller might employ cheap, temporary fixes to things, like clamps or rubber patches on damaged pipes or wood hardening agents on dry rot.

Although it’s illegal to hide what are known as “material defects” in a house up for sale, these sorts of tricks are harder to defend against because you typically can’t open up walls or crawl into every nook and cranny of a home to observe its infrastructure. What you can do is be aware of the common ways homeowners hide or obscure problems in the house and keep your eyes peeled for telltale signs like furniture in odd places, fresh paint (especially if it’s in just one small area), or the heavy use of air fresheners, which might be a sign of mold or other smelly problems in the house.

When you buy an expensive asset like a house, you have every right to expect it to be in the same condition as when you viewed it. Keep these dirty tricks in mind when you’re writing an offer on a new home, take lots of photos—and don’t hesitate to put everything in writing, no matter how obvious it might seem.

Six ‘Builder-grade’ Home Features You Don’t Need to Upgrade

If you’ve ever looked into buying a house that was never significantly renovated (or have thought about building a new house from the ground up), you’re probably familiar with the terms “builder grade” or “contractor grade.” While these terms were originally intended to imply decent quality—the idea being that if these materials were good enough for professional home builders, they were solid and dependable—over time they’ve come to imply cheap, basic stuff. Calling something “builder grade” is not a compliment.

That’s led to an assumption that all builder-grade stuff in your house must be upgraded, sooner rather than later. If you’re actively building a home, your builder is probably encouraging this, as they make a pretty good profit upselling you—but even if you’ve bought a gently used home that still has a lot of basic, builder-grade stuff in it, you’re likely feeling pressure to upgrade everything. Some builder-grade stuff, like windows, insulation, or roofing, should be upgraded if you have the option, because it can negatively impact the comfort, safety, and longevity of the home. And if you have the resources there’s no reason not to upgrade stuff that you don’t like. But don’t give in to the belief that you have to upgrade all that stuff. Some of the builder-grade materials in your home are just fine.

Cabinets

Kitchen and bathroom cabinetry are about form and function. Most people consider builder-grade cabinets to be pretty ugly, as they’re usually made from cheaper materials like plywood or MDF. That’s all true, but that doesn’t mean those cabinets won’t do their jobs admirably enough or last for many years with basic maintenance and care.

Instead of going through the expense and trouble of tearing out those cabinets, you can easily do some very basic upgrades. New pulls are easy to install, and if your definition of classy cabinets is the soft-close type, you can pretty easily add that feature to any cabinet in existence for just a few bucks. Cabinets can also be painted or wrapped to give them a more luxe look.

Countertops

The countertops in a kitchen are one of the first things people think to upgrade. And if your countertops are made of cheap laminate, it’s probably a good idea to ditch the builder-grade and move up a few notches.

But if the countertops are natural stone like granite, well, builder-grade granite is still, you know, granite. As long as you like the look of them, it’s not necessary to upgrade them in any way even if they were part of the basic package for the house build. Of course, if you hate them, go ahead and switch them out—but don’t feel like it’s a rule to do so.

Faucets and fixtures

The thing about builder-grade stuff is that it may not be top-of-the-line, but it meets all the basic requirements. Builder-grade faucets and other fixtures probably come in a limited range of styles and won’t offer fancy features like touch activation, but they will work perfectly well for a very long time. Unless you think they’re absolutely hideous (or they’re leaking or otherwise malfunctioning, of course) you could better spend your money elsewhere.

Appliances

Appliances are a weird flex; some folks insist on a chef’s kitchen even though they haven’t cooked a meal in years, and eat every dinner out of an Uber Eats bag in the living room. Builder-grade appliances won’t be fancy, but they will be functional. Unless you have a specific need for something fancy in your appliances, you’ll live a perfectly good life using the basic fridge and stove the builder has provided. And if your sole complaint is that the appliances look builder-grade, consider a simple glow-up.

Tile

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with builder-grade tile (most commonly ceramic tile, which is very durable) in your bathroom or your kitchen’s backsplash. It might lack a certain style, but it will perform just fine, and if kept clean will look pretty good for years to come. Upgrading the tile on your bathroom floors or your walls is almost always going to be an aesthetic choice more than anything else. Certainly if you have the money to splash out on something luxe, you should go for it, but it’s never going to be a necessary upgrade.

Lighting

Finally, the lighting fixtures that a builder installs in your home will be fairly basic, but they will get the job of lighting up your house done. Usually lighting problems are due more to a lack of wired lighting fixtures than the fixtures themselves—if the builder didn’t install enough lighting and your house is dim, changing out the fixtures won’t accomplish much. Again, if it’s the aesthetics of your lights that you want to change, go for it—but the builder-grade lights don’t need to be changed.

Upgrading your home can be fun and satisfying. But a lot of the basic stuff builders include in a home are functional, durable, and perfectly usable as-is, no upgrades needed.

The First Six Things to Do When You're Facing Foreclosure

Buying a home is a huge step in the average person’s life. A home purchase is typically the largest asset any of us will ever own, and most people need a pretty big loan in order to pull off the transaction. The numbers in your mortgage documents can be eye-wateringly, heart-palpitatingly large, but we usually rationalize that down to an affordable monthly payment that gets us out of the hole—and into 100% equity—in a few decades.

But what happens when our lives change and those monthly payments aren’t affordable anymore? The property you bought with your mortgage is what’s securing the loan, so once you fall a few months behind on your mortgage, your lender may initiate a foreclosure process. That basically means they take possession of your house and sell it to get their money back. When you receive the first notice that your lender has started that process, you might be tempted to give up. Don’t—there are options left to explore, and plenty of work you can do to improve your situation. Here are six things to do right away if you’re being foreclosed on.

Research

The first thing you need to do is learn everything you can about your situation. You’re not powerless, and there may be moves you can make—but you need to know what those moves are. Start with:

  • Mortgage documents and correspondence. First, review your actual mortgage docs, which will detail how your lender handles delinquency and foreclosure. One key thing to look for is a “power of sale” clause, which is where the lender claims the right to sell the property if you default on the loan—make sure you understand the details laid out there. Next, review all the correspondence the lender has sent regarding late payments, and make a note of any options listed in there that might be useful to you.

  • Local laws. Every state has its own laws governing foreclosure—get to know yours. This way you’ll know if your lender is acting within the bounds of the law, and you’ll know how much time you legally have to respond, and whether a short sale of your house will satisfy the debt or if you could be held liable for other costs. Look for a “right of redemption” as well, which in some cases gives you the right to reverse the foreclosure process if you can come up with the cash owed to “cure” the loan.

  • Government programs. The federal government offers some programs that can help people avoid foreclosure, including the Making Home Affordable (MHA) program and the Hardest Hit Fund (HHF), which can lower mortgage payments or give financial aid to people struggling to pay their mortgages. Getting involved with programs like this can help you convince your lender that foreclosure is unnecessary.

Talk to your lender

Once you’re armed with some information, it’s time to open up lines of communication with your lender. Most lenders would prefer not to foreclose—it’s a lengthy and expensive process for them. They’d much rather keep getting monthly payments from you. So do the following:

  • Figure out what you can afford. Step one is to know what monthly payment you can manage. Be realistic—calculate a number that lets you keep up with your other bills.

  • Contact your lender. In the notices sent to you will be a contact person for your lender—call them. Request a loan modification, and make it clear you’re willing to work with them. Tell them what you can afford, and see what can be done. Your worst-case scenario here is that they say no, and nothing changes.

  • Keep records. Note every call you make and letter you send, ask for everyone’s name and other information when you speak with them, and always ask that they record the time and date of every call in their records. Being able to demonstrate your efforts to make good on the loan and work with your lender is vital.

Talk to a counselor

While you’re talking to your lender and exploring alternatives to foreclosure, contact the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and look into speaking with a housing counselor. This is a free service, and the counselors can outline your options and offer advice on how to proceed. Their website also provides information on local counseling services to avoid foreclosure.

Lay the sale groundwork

Despite your best efforts and sincere intentions, it may not be possible to stop or significantly modify the foreclosure process. You should start preparing for that eventuality now, even if you hope to modify the loan and get back on track. Getting ready to sell the house in a short sale (selling it for less than you owe on the mortgage) before your situation becomes an emergency will allow you to get the best possible deal with less stress.

First, get a comparative market analysis (CMA) on the home. This gives you the market value of your home based on similar home sales in your area. Find a local real estate agent who has experience doing short sales and get them involved—not all real estate agents know how to navigate one. Finally, ask your lender about the procedure for requesting a short sale (they have to agree to one) and the likelihood of getting one approved.

Monetize the house

A foreclosure situation means you’re dealing with some sort of budget crisis. Whether it’s a lost job, sudden unexpected expenses (like a medical emergency), or an adjustable interest rate skyrocketing, a foreclosure means you’ve fallen behind on your bills. While you’re doing everything you can to understand and avoid the foreclosure process, you still own the house, and that means you can potentially monetize it to help your financial situation.

This could include adding roommates and collecting rent, or renting out the whole house or just parts of it using something like Airbnb. You can also monetize amenities like a pool or a backyard to bring in some extra cash, or sell all that stuff you have lying around. The specific opportunities will depend on you and your unique situation, but even if losing the house to foreclosure is inevitable you can at least help soften your landing post-foreclosure.

Consider bankruptcy

Finally, if you’re dealing with a foreclosure action in motion, do some research on filing bankruptcy. There are a lot of downsides to bankruptcy proceedings—most notably the impact on your credit and finances—but the bankruptcy process can freeze foreclosure proceedings, and possibly give you more avenues to deal with your mortgage debt. This is an extreme option, but you should start learning about the process in your specific area and what it can achieve the moment you’re informed of a foreclosure coming. Hopefully, you won’t have to go down this route, but as in everything else in life, knowledge is power.

How Fractional Ownership Can Help You Actually Afford a House or Car

Capitalism is wild stuff. Just when you think you understand basic concepts like ownership, a new twist comes along that renders all your knowledge useless. This hits especially hard in recent years when the idea of actually owning things is under assault from all sides; increasingly you don’t actually own anything, you’re just paying a subscription that allows you to use it.

A twist in the whole ownership paradigm that’s been on the rise is “fractional ownership.” If you’ve despaired of ever owning something fancy like a vacation home or a new car, it might be a way to get you to there. Fractional ownership comes with some disadvantages to consider, but the bottom line is that it’s a way to own expensive assets without having to pony up the full purchase price.

"Fractional ownership" is not a timeshare

As the name implies, fractional ownership is collective ownership. If we use a house as a simplified example, let’s say you and five other people buy a vacation home for $300,000. You each put in $60,000 and own one-fifth of the title. Because this is true ownership, if the house increases in value to $350,000 during the course of your ownership, you’ll get back $70,000 if the house gets sold. In the meantime, you get all the benefits of the property—you can stay there when you want, you get a share of revenues if you rent it out, and you can use it as an asset when borrowing money. There are a lot of companies out there that will be happy to help you get in on a fractional ownership arrangement in a vacation home.

A key thing to note is that fractional ownership is not a timeshare arrangement. In a timeshare, you buy time and access—you can use the property a set number of days each year. But you don’t actually own anything. While you can use a fractionally-owned property in a similar way to a time-share, you own a portion of the title to the asset, not just access to it.

It's not just for houses

Okay, so fractional ownership lets folks collectively own a fancy vacation home! Bully for them. How can fractional ownership help you?

You can use fractional ownership to buy a primary residence, too. Companies like Ownify have turned it into a way for cash-strapped folks to buy houses—with a down payment of just 2%, you get a fractional share of the title. Ownify and its partners own the rest of the property. Over time, your equity increases (about 1.6% per year). When you reach 10% equity, you can cash out or buy the rest of the title from Ownify.

If you and some partners can put together the money to buy a house together, of course, you don’t need a partner company—you can set up a fractional ownership arrangement all on your own. Of course, in either case you’ll have to work out the use of the property with your fellow fractional owners. If more than one set of investors intends to live in the house, you’ll have to come up with a plan.

Fractional ownership is spreading into a wide range of other assets as well:

  • Cars. Fractional ownership of luxury vehicles has been a thing for a while now, but with cars being so expensive these days the idea is starting to spread to more affordable vehicles and scenarios. Companies like Upshift and Flexcar offer “fractional car leases” that give you use of a car a certain number of days each month, and make some effort to personalize the car by setting things like radio stations and climate control the way you prefer before delivering the vehicle.

  • Art. Do you aspire to a collection of fine art that doubles as an investment, just like rich folks? Well, you can by using a fractional ownership model through companies like Masterworks, which allow you to own a percentage of a painting, sculpture, or other collectible. Just like with houses, you get all the benefits of ownership—if the piece appreciates, the value of your stake goes up, and if it’s sold you get a percentage of the profit.

  • Stocks. It’s been possible to buy fractional shares in stocks for a while now, which can allow folks who don’t have much money to invest in blue chip stocks that are a bit out of reach. Retail investment firms like Charles Schwab or Robinhood both offer the service, making this a pretty easy way to get into the market.

  • Planes. Yes, you can fractionally own a private jet. If you’ve been desperate to escape the masses at the airport, companies like Flexjet can help you buy as little as one-sixteenth ownership in a plane, which translates to a specific number of hours of use.

  • Luxury items and collectibles. You can fractionally buy pricey stuff like jewelry or diamonds, fine wines or rare whiskies, and even stuff like baseball cards or comic books.

Fractional ownership is increasingly becoming a way to afford stuff that would otherwise be out of reach—but there is one big downside to consider: You don’t own the entire asset. That means using it will require constant negotiation with your co-owners, who may have very different goals for their investment. But if you don’t see any way you can afford a house or other investment any time in the near future, a fractional ownership arrangement might be a terrific option.

Six Signs a Home Seller Is Hiding Something

Buying a house is always a fraught decision. It’s an enormous amount of money for most people, which makes it a stressful decision in the best of times—and a terrifying one when the market is tight. These market forces can drive house hunters to do some pretty crazy things, like contemplating a dramatic fixer-upper situation, or even buying houses without ever seeing them in real life.

The worst part of the whole experience is that your stress levels will probably hit their highest levels after you’ve bought the house—because that’s when all the hidden, overlooked, and unnoticed problems will emerge. More than three-fourths of home buyers discover expensive repairs shortly after moving into their new home, which is typically when folks are the most cash-strapped.

Most of these problems are just bad luck and part of the home-owning experience, but sometimes the sellers knew there were problems in the house and decided not to disclose them. This is unethical and downright evil, but if you’re not careful it could happen to you.

Weird staging

When touring a potential home, it’s not unusual to question the sanity and taste of the current owner—design and layout choices are highly subjective and personal. But oddball staging can also be the result of an effort to hide damage or obvious signs of problems, like water stains or structural cracks. A few things to look for:

  • Furniture placement. Couches or other large pieces that seem out of place might be hiding problems on a wall or floor. Take a look under and behind them to see what’s there.

  • Curtains. Curtains are pretty common in many homes, but think about their size and placement. Curtains where there are no windows are a clear sign of either strange design instincts or hidden damage. Curtains that are placed at the very top of a wall or that extend far beyond the width of a window could also be hiding something.

  • Piles of stuff. If you encounter big piles of stuff, especially in basements or attics, you might be tempted to write it off as a messy current owner. But a big pile of boxes in a basement could be sitting on top of evidence of flooding, or sitting in front of cracks in the foundation. In an attic, a huge pile of stuff might be hiding a roof leak or other problems.

  • Outdoor furniture. Odd furniture placement isn’t just an indoor problem. If you look in the yard and find some outdoor furniture (or odd statues or other props) sitting in an unusual spot, check underneath to see if they’re hiding a patch of dead grass that could indicate an old oil tank or other contamination in the ground.

Fresh paint

Giving a house a fresh coat of paint isn’t an unusual move when selling a home. But paint is the cheapest, fastest, and easiest way to hide damage in a home, so look for these tells:

  • Single room. If only one room in the entire house has been freshly painted, look closer. The paint job might have been necessary after a roof leak or other damage.

  • Painted deck. A deck is a great feature in a house, but if it looks freshly painted that’s a potential bad sign. Thick, durable outdoor paint creates a shell that can hide rot, split boards, and insect damage—just long enough to make it your problem.

  • Patched areas. Look closely at fresh paint—are there patched areas on the walls and ceilings? This could indicate repairs made to eliminate structural cracks or water stains. If the underlying causes weren’t addressed, that fresh paint is just a temporary fix.

If the whole house was painted, look at the work critically: Sloppy, fast paint is often a sign of a cheap flip that will go sour on you, fast.

Odd showing times

Open houses remain a key marketing tool for selling a house. They give you the opportunity to be in the space and check everything out. You should always visit a house several times before pulling the trigger—and try to see the house at different times of day to see what the neighborhood is like. If the current owners insist on a very limited and narrow viewing schedule, be suspicious: They may be trying to hide environmental factors like noisy neighbors, snarled traffic jams, or regular flooding.

Hyping “as-is”

When someone lists a home for sale “as-is,” you already know the home will have some problems. You might expect that this sort of listing indicates the sellers are being open and honest—they’re admitting the house may have some issues and need some work, they just don’t want to be tasked with fixing anything.

But an “as-is” listing is also a way of eliminating liability. If you purchase the house, anything that pops up later is entirely your problem. Again, this is fine—it’s part of an “as-is” deal—but pay very close attention, because the sellers may be hiding bigger problems behind smaller ones. If the problems the sellers disclose about the house don’t seem particularly terrible and you start to think this is the steal of the century, be suspicious. Most people won’t offer a house “as-is” if the problems are easily fixable.

Too much air freshener

Smell is an underrated scent that can have a big impact on our emotions and thought processes—you’ve probably heard the old advice about baking some cookies to make a house feel cozy. Certainly a house that smells clean and fresh will show better than one that smells like old shoes and farts, and some sellers may try to leverage this with some air fresheners or diffuser action. If the house assaults you with a wall of scent, however—if every room is a wall of Febreze—this could be a sign that the homeowners are hiding a troubling smell, like mold, or sewer backup.

Mismatched stuff

Finally, when house-hunting, put on your interior designer hat and look critically at the finishes and fixtures. Odd, out-of-place stuff that’s much newer or in a wildly different style than the stuff around it could be a sign of a quick, cheap repair. A few examples:

  • A brand-new faucet in an old and busted kitchen or bathroom

  • A single new or mismatched cabinet

  • A patch of fresh tile that’s much less faded than the rest

  • New wallpaper that doesn’t match anything else in the room (or the house)

  • A much brighter ceiling tile in a suspended ceiling

This can be pretty subtle, but if you go into the home with your eyes peeled, out-of-place stuff will jump out at you, and offer the opportunity to investigate.

How to Figure Out Why Your Utility Bill Spiked

Existence is expensive, especially if you enjoy things like heat and clean water. The fact that fundamental resources like water, gas, and electricity are just pumped into our homes is kind of amazing, but when the bill comes you might regret every hot shower and the sauna-like temperatures you maintained all winter long.

Most of us have a pretty good idea how much a typical utility bill will run, and we take reasonable steps to keep those costs under control. We turn the thermostats up or down depending on the seasons and we try not to waste water unnecessarily. So when a shockingly high utility bill shows up, it’s cause for panic—and an investigation. A surprisingly high water, gas, or electricity bill isn’t just an immediate financial concern, it could indicate a larger problem that you need to figure out before you go broke. Here’s how to figure out what’s going on.

Note changes

Your first step is to examine your behaviors and usage patterns for recent changes. A few things to consider:

  • New devices or appliances. Have you added new electronics to your home? Replaced an old appliance recently? While new devices and appliances will usually be more energy-efficient than older ones, any new equipment might be malfunctioning or may have been installed incorrectly, so that’s a good place to start. Try disconnecting the new stuff and see if the spike in usage stops.

  • Different patterns. Life isn’t static. If your utility bills are suddenly higher, ask yourself if your patterns have changed. Did you have guests in the house, swelling water and power usage? Have you started working from home, using more resources than normal? Has the weather been more extreme? Sometimes an unusually hot or cold period can lead to a shocking utility bill. If your life’s patterns have been different recently, wait until things go back to normal and see if your bills drop back to previous levels.

  • Recent projects. Did you recently renovate part of your home? Any change to your home’s infrastructure can have an impact on your energy profile, and if you accessed the electrical, water, or gas lines in the house something may have gone wrong. From an incorrectly-wired appliance to a punctured water pipe in the wall, damage from home projects can lead to spiking energy bills.

Look for problems

If you haven’t changed anything recently that might explain your sudden energy spike, it’s time to look for other kinds of problems:

  • Malfunctioning meters. Call your utility company and have them inspect your meters. Your super-high bill might be the result of a meter that’s gone wonky. You should also ask them to review your bill to ensure that mistakes weren’t made on their end.

  • Check for leaks. Even if you haven’t done any work around the house recently, you might have a leaking water pipe—or, worse, a leaking gas pipe. Most utility companies add a chemical called mercaptan to natural gas to make it smell like sulfur—if you smell something like rotten eggs, call your utility company immediately. For water leaks:

    • Look for signs of water damage: standing water, stains on walls or ceilings, warped floors, or loose tiling.

    • Go into your basement or crawl space and inspect the pipes running under the house, where small leaks can go undetected for years while running up your bills.

    • Inspect the water heater for leaks, and make sure it’s not set too high, which can run up gas and electricity bills.

    • Check all the toilets in the house for leaks. If you have toilets that run constantly, that’s wasting water and costing you money. They may need repair or replacement.

    • Check all the faucets in the house. A steady drip may not seem like a big problem, but that wasted water can add up, and drips can indicate a larger problem.

  • Strategically hit the breakers. One way to troubleshoot high electricity usage is to turn off the breakers one at a time and observe your energy usage. If you hit a specific breaker and the meter suddenly slows down dramatically, you may have isolated your problem. For example, if you hit the breaker associated with your HVAC system, it might be a good idea to have someone come out and take a look at your compressor.

  • Check your supplier. Utility bills typically show three fundamental costs: Delivery costs, taxes, and supply costs. The delivery is the rate your utility company charges for getting the gas, water, and power to your home. These rates are usually set by the government and don’t change often. Taxes also don’t change often. The supply cost, however, can change dramatically if you change suppliers. If you don’t recall changing your supplier recently, look back at older utility bills to see if anything’s changed—if your supplier was changed to a much more expensive one without your knowledge (a scam called Slamming), you’ll need to contact your utility company to lodge a complaint and get it switched back.

  • Utility theft. It’s rare, but it does happen: Someone may be stealing your utilities. This is most commonly seen with electricity, but it’s possible to install an illegal gas hookup to steal natural gas or to tap into your water line. This could be as simple as someone running an extension cord from your outdoor outlet into their home, or it could be much more complex. An easy way to see if someone is tapped into your utilities is to turn off at the mains and then observe your meters—if they continue to show usage even when your house is cut off, it’s time to call the utility company.

If you’ve tried going through all of these steps and still don’t know why your bill is spiking, it’s time to consult with some professionals: Have an electrician and/or a plumber come out to inspect everything.

Why Selling Your Home to an iBuyer Is Almost Always a Bad Idea

If you own a home, you own an asset. In fact, it’s probably the largest asset you possess, which typically means that if you want to change homes you’ll need to sell your current house. After all, most of your cash is probably locked up in home equity, and your only options for accessing that are to borrow against it or sell.

But selling a house can be a lengthy process. If you desperately need to get your money out of a home—whether it’s to fund a new home purchase or to deal with some other financial challenge—you might be tempted to sell to an “instant buyer” or iBuyer. An iBuyer is a company that uses algorithms and other technologies to quickly estimate your home’s value and craft an offer on the property, usually within a day. You might recall that real estate site Zillow got itself into a lot of trouble when its iBuyer division went off the rails a few years ago. That debacle tamped down enthusiasm for iBuyers, but they still exist, and you can still sell your home to one. But you probably shouldn’t.

Advantages of iBuyers

So why would someone sell their house to a faceless corporation instead of some nice family that writes you warm letters about their future happiness in your home? The main advantage of selling to an iBuyer is speed: Instead of waiting weeks or months for an offer to come in (the average time it takes to sell a house is close to two months), you receive an offer within hours after filling out a form on their website. And iBuyers also typically close on the deal more quickly than traditional transactions.

So if the speed with which you’re paid is your absolute top priority, an iBuyer might make sense. iBuyers also work to make the whole process easy, so if you simply don’t have the bandwidth to handle the stress of selling your house, it can be tempting to click a few buttons and just let someone else determine everything. But you still probably shouldn’t.

Unreliable estimates

The first reason you shouldn’t use an iBuyer is because they will definitely boil that frog when it comes to the sale price. Once you fill out all the forms on their site, they will send you that instant offer based on their algorithm. Except that’s not a final offer. If you like it, they’ll conduct a physical inspection of your home, and if they decide it needs any repairs or their algo missed something, they will reduce the offer accordingly based on the estimated costs of those repairs.

And those estimates can be way off, reducing your profit on the sale—some iBuyers have even been fined by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for overcharging on repairs in order to reduce the sale price of properties.

Lowball prices, highball fees

And something else about the offer you’ll get from an iBuyer: It will almost certainly be less than what you could sell the house for with a little more patience. iBuyers underpay about 10-15% on average for the homes they purchase. You could think of that as a convenience fee for the speed and ease of the transaction, but that’s a significant chunk of cash that could be in your pocket instead of the iBuyer’s.

Using an iBuyer without a real estate agent also means you’re not paying a traditional Realtor fee, which is typically about 6% of the transaction. Instead, you pay an iBuyer a set of fees for their services, which in many cases can be equal to or even higher than a Realtor’s fees. And foregoing an agent when selling your house means you don’t have a local market expert to advise you, and you’ll have to rely totally on the iBuyer’s information. And if you do decide to use an agent while working with an iBuyer, now you’re paying at least twice the fees to sell your home.

Unless you absolutely must sell your home as quickly as possible, an iBuyer is always going to be an inferior choice. You’ll probably get a low price for your home, you won’t get any advice from a professional, and you’ll likely wind up paying the same fees—or more—as you would have if you’d gone the traditional route. If you can stand the waiting, avoid the iBuyers.

Here’s How Much You Can Actually Make by Taking Online Surveys

It’s inevitable: If you ask the Internet how to make extra money, someone (more likely several someones) will suggest taking online surveys (also, doing clinical trials). On the surface, this sounds terrific: Sign up with a few websites or apps, spend some downtime answering questions, get paid. And it generally is that easy to make a little money using platforms like Survey Junkie, Swagbucks, or Kashkick. The real question is, how little is the little money? Taking online surveys is easy work, but the Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25, and state minimum wages go as high as $17 per hour. Can you make anything even approaching that via online surveys?

The answer is: No, you cannot. Not even close (with one caveat noted below). Here’s how little the little money in online surveys actually is.

The downside to taking online surveys for pay

Every single online survey site you sign up with will pay you dramatically less than $7.25 an hour. In some cases, you’ll wind up earning less than one dollar an hour, while folks using Survey Junkie can sometimes get as high as $5 per hour—and on SurveySavvy, you can snag 10-minute surveys for $1 each, so theoretically you can earn a majestic $6 per hour if you hustle nonstop. Note that all of these ranges are significantly below the $7.25 you’ll earn—at minimum—from some sort of actual part-time job.

And these numbers assume you’re able to dedicate significant time and effort to surveys, and that you enjoy remarkable efficiency—which is difficult due to three aspects of the platforms:

  • The qualification process. When you sign up on these platforms, you fill out an initial questionnaire designed to determine which surveys would find your feedback valuable (you often get a small sign-up bonus for this). When you snag a survey, however, your first few responses will narrow things down even further, and you might be rejected from the survey after you’ve begun the process, and get paid just a tiny amount for your time—often as little as 2-3 cents. For example, one person attempted 152 surveys on Survey Junkie over the course of one and a half months, but only managed to successfully complete 53 of them. The typical success rate for completing surveys is about 25%.

  • Search time. While some of these platforms will actively recruit you to surveys you’re particularly well-suited for, you have to spend time searching for surveys to take—and they go fast. And that time is unpaid. If you spend an hour trying to sign up for surveys and then make $3 taking them over the course of the next hour, your pay is really $1.5 per hour.

This means it’s probably better to think about online survey work in terms of monthly earnings instead of an hourly wage. For example, the person who completed 53 of 152 attempted surveys? After one and a half months they’d earned $26.17, or about $13 per month. And the platforms themselves are pretty clear about this. Survey Junkie, for example, explicitly states in their FAQ that you can expect to make “as much as” $40 a month using the site, and Swagbucks states that typical survey-takers “should be able to” earn as much as $1,825 per year, which is about $150 per month—but that’s the high end. And one site reviewing KashKick concluded you could earn $10-$40 per month there.

That’s not nothing! But it’s also not exactly a great way to make a living, and it's definitely not a replacement for a job.

The upside to taking online surveys for pay

So, online surveys won’t make you rich or replace your 9-5. But used in the right way, there are certainly upsides to online surveys:

  • Easy. They typically require no special skills or experience, and signing up is free. While specific backgrounds or demographic details may snag you more or higher-paying surveys, there’s almost zero bar to making at least some money on these platforms.

  • Spare cash. That $40 a month might not pay your rent, but since you can earn it in the spare moments between other tasks—clicking through a lunch hour, or tapping on your phone while on the bus to and from work—it’s a low-friction way to toss some extra cash into your accounts.

  • Fun. Most people enjoy offering their opinions and learning about new products or concepts, so taking surveys is often a lot of fun—fun you’re getting paid for.

Finally, if you’re a professional in a demanding field of some sort, there can be a lot more upside taking surveys. There are specialized companies that pay pretty handsomely for the opinions of doctors, lawyers, or other professionals—for example, one doctor reported earning as much as $1,000 per month taking surveys offered by companies like InCrowd, Curizon, and M3 Global Research.

There’s also FocusGroups.org, which pays pretty well for online surveys (they also do in-person focus group studies and phone call interviews, which pay more). Many of their surveys fall into the $6/hour range (or less), but if you sift through and do some math to translate their points system into dollars, you can find some that pay out pretty high hourly rates—as much as $60 an hour, according to one review. However, there are generally fewer surveys to take here, and they are harder to qualify for—and that hourly rate depends on how fast you can finish the surveys, so your mileage may vary quite a bit. In the end, even though FocusGroups.org pays a bit better, you probably still won’t make a huge amount there every month.

Use These Five Strategies for Finding an Affordable Rental in an Unaffordable City

Living in a city like New York, San Francisco, or Boston often means forking over a large portion of your income to pay your rent—especially if you don't want to live with roommates. This often prompts those living in more affordable housing markets to wonder, or even ask, why you don't simply pack up your life and move somewhere cheaper.

While that might be an option for some people, others have ties to pricey cities, like their job or family, or have other reasons why relocating isn't on the table. But until more affordable housing is available, people who call those major metro areas home will have to figure out how to stretch their rent budget as far as possible. Because strategy is important in real estate, I reached out to Andrea Neculae, a research analyst at RentCafe, for some insider tips on finding a rental you can afford in an unaffordable city. Here's what to know.

How to find an affordable rental in an expensive city

A recent report from RentCafe determined how much living space you can get for $1,700 per month (roughly the national average rent) in the 50 largest U.S. cities. In one Memphis neighborhood, you can find a rental home with nearly 2,000 square feet of living space for $1,700. Meanwhile, in Manhattan, you'll barely be able to rent a 200-square-foot space for the same amount.

Here are Neculae's takeaways from analyzing those data—which, she says, might help improve your chances of finding a rental that won't break the bank in a notoriously expensive city.

Find the sweet spots

When analyzing the study data, Neculae and the rest of her team noticed a pattern emerging in many of the larger rental markets: The ring of ZIP codes surrounding a city's downtown area often has the best balance of price and location. "These spots can be real gems without costing a fortune," she tells Lifehacker. That said, if you wander too far outside the city center, you might find that the cost of rent spikes in neighborhoods with a mix of urban and suburban features. "These are now highly coveted by older millennials with families looking for urban amenities in a suburban setting," Neculae explains.

Relocate your home office

It's no surprise that people who work remotely often want a rental with space for a home office. But before blowing your budget on an extra room, Neculae suggests looking into rentals near coworking spaces. You'll need to do the math, but it could work out to be cheaper to rent a desk in a shared office than to pay more to rent a home with room for an office. "In cities like Chicago and New York, for example, giving up a spare bedroom could save you anywhere between $9,000 to $20,000 each year," she notes.

Consider a transit-oriented development

According to Neculae, you may be able to save money living in a transit-oriented development (TOD). A combination of residential and commercial areas, TODs are designed to maximize access to public transit, offering easy access to work, and city amenities, without having to rely on a car. "Plus, several states have announced initiatives to build more housing close to transit, so you can expect to see more of these projects in the future," she adds.

Look for rentals in the fall or winter

Typically, more people are on the hunt for rentals in the spring and summer, meaning there's more competition over properties, and less room for negotiation at this time of year, Neculae explains. "If you're hoping to find a good deal, consider looking in the autumn and winter months when rental demand is typically lower, giving you the chance to score the apartment you love—often with a rent special," she says. Neculae recommends starting your search early in January or February for the best chances of finding a property that meets your needs at a decent price.

Don't ignore the fees

If you find an apartment with rent so low that it seems too good to be true, there's a good chance that it's either a scam, or you haven't factored in all the various fees the resident is required to pay on top of their rent. "These not-so-obvious charges like application fees, security deposits, charges for trash collection, or pet fees can pile up to a significant amount that would raise your monthly expenses," says Neculae.

Pressurized Walls Can Embiggen Your Crowded Apartment

Housing has become pretty expensive—rent is super high all over the country, and mortgage rates have shot up 4.6% since just last year. So it’s not really all that surprising that more adults are entering into roommate situations in order to afford their housing. A roommate can magically turn an apartment that makes you choose between rent and groceries into an affordable home.

Roommates, of course, come with downsides—especially if you’ve lived on your own for a while and thought your days of sharing space and splitting bills were long over. And it’s one thing to take on a roommate when you have the actual bedroom to offer; it’s something else entirely when you’re living in a studio or one-bedroom apartment and need someone to split the rent. There are a lot of relatively easy and affordable ways to create a second private space in your apartment, but most of them either don’t offer true privacy or require you to be able to actually renovate your place, which a landlord probably isn’t excited about.

So what can you do if you want to add a wall to your place without endangering your lease or your security deposit? You can install a pressurized wall.

Under pressure

So what’s a pressurized wall? It’s a freestanding wall that uses tension to hold itself in place. They are non-load-bearing and not permanently attached in any way, but resemble real walls in every superficial way. These walls can even have doors or windows built into them, and can have soundproofing added to enhance their privacy features. These walls typically have to be ordered custom from a company that makes them, but the upside to that is that they can be customized to match the apartment’s decor and style so they blend in pretty seamlessly. And best of all, they can be completely removed when the time comes to move out, leaving no trace behind.

The cost of having a pressurized wall installed in your apartment depends on the size of the wall needed and the features you want included. A typical price range is between $800 to $2,000, though you can spend much more on very large or super-fancy walls. Still, if the cost is split with your roommates, it can be an affordable solution because it can turn a large bedroom into two bedrooms in a way that looks professional and natural.

Legalities and downsides

Unfortunately, you can’t just order a pressurized wall off the Internet and install it whenever you want. Because a pressurized wall changes the layout of the apartment you, have to follow certain basic guidelines when installing them:

  • Get permission. Your first stop is your landlord, who may or may not allow pressurized walls in the building. Some buildings have specific posted policies concerning pressurized walls, so if you’re apartment hunting and looking for a bargain you can target studios or one-bedrooms in buildings that explicitly allow them. Otherwise, you’ll need to get permission.

  • Permits. You also might need to get a permit from the Department of Buildings or another entity that issues certificates of occupancy. Many jurisdictions consider pressurized walls to be the same as any other wall, which means installing one is treated similarly to any major renovation.

  • Follow the law. Wherever you live, there are laws pertaining to bedroom size and shape, ventilation, window access, and fire escape routes. When adding a pressurized wall to your apartment to create a new bedroom you’ll need to follow all of those rules whether you had to pull a permit or not. The company you order your wall from should be able to assist in the planning, but you might need to hire an architect or other contractor if not.

  • Strength. Since these walls aren’t true walls, you may not be able to attach anything heavy to them, like bookshelves. You should check with the manufacturer about the load they can handle before you plan to attach anything to them.

Most companies that manufacture these walls will lease them to you for a period of years, so you don’t have to purchase them outright if you’re renting. This is good because you can simply end the lease and give the wall back if and when you move, but if you stay in the apartment for a long time you might end up paying more in leasing fees than you would have if you bought the wall.

A pressurized wall isn’t right for everyone, but if you can swing one it can add rooms to your apartment with a finished feel and a real sense of privacy without damaging anything. It’s certainly better than trying to convince potential roommates that your spacious walk-in closet is actually a second bedroom.

Make Sure Your Rent Payments Are Being Reported to the Credit Bureaus

Many people don't realize that consistently paying rent on time can positively impact your credit score. Reporting your on-time rent payments to credit bureaus demonstrates responsible financial behavior and allows you to build your credit history. If you're looking to give your credit score a boost, here's what to know about reporting your rent to the credit bureaus.

Why you should report your rent

When your rental payment history is included in your credit file, it can do the same helpful things that mortgage or loan payments do. First, it establishes length of credit history, which accounts for 15% of your FICO credit score's calculation.

But to be clear, simply paying your rent will not help you build credit. You need to actually report your rent using the methods below.

Who should report their rent

Any renter who pays on time each month should consider reporting payments. Whether you rent an apartment or house, you deserve recognition for this responsibility; even if you don't have a solid credit history, you probably have a history of paying your rent on time. This is why rent-reporting is valuable for anyone with thinner credit files, as well as those who may need to rebuild credit after issues like bankruptcy.

How to report your rent

Many property management companies and private landlords now facilitate rent reporting. Ask your landlord first if they submit payments to credit bureaus on the renter's behalf. There's a good chance you were automatically enrolled when you signed your lease, at no additional cost.

Otherwise, look into getting your landlord to enroll in a rent-reporting service like Piñata (which is free to use). This way your rent payments will be reported to all three of the credit reporting bureaus: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. All three bureaus will take those payments into consideration, as paying your rent on-time and in full speaks positively towards your financial management skills.

There are rent-reporting services that cost money, but I don't recommend those. Whatever boost you get to your credit history likely won't be worth the annual fees from these services, especially when free ones are on the table.

Additional tips to boost your credit score

Reporting your proper rent payment history is an easy, no-cost way to get credit for demonstrating financial responsibility month after month. Along with rent reporting, make sure to avoid late payments, maintain low balances on credit cards, and fix any errors on your credit report to raise your scores higher.

After a certain point, having a super high credit score doesn’t actually matter. What matters is that with a little diligence, you can build strong credit to keep your financial options open, even when times get tough. For more actionable tips on improving your credit score, check out this Lifehacker post.

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