There are areas in the U.S. that are considered to be the least difficult places to buy a home, according to a new real estate indicator.

When the counties are sorted by index rank, Iroquois County, Illinois is the least difficult market to buy a home, according to the NBC News Home Buyer Index. 

The following counties ranked as the least difficult areas when sorted by the four contributing factors:

1. Cost: Iroquois County, Illinois is the most cost-effective or affordable housing market among measured counties in the U.S.
2. Competition: Somervell County, Texas is the least competitive housing market of the counties measured in the U.S.
3. Scarcity: Imperial County, California is the least scarce housing market among measured areas.
4. Economic Instability: Macon County, Tennessee has the most stable local economy among measured areas.

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The index evaluates cost, competition, scarcity and economic instability.

Cost, the most heavily weighted element, measures how much a home costs relative to household incomes and inflation, as well as expenses like insurance costs, according to NBC News.

Competition looks into the level of demand in an area or how many buyers are on the market for a home.

Scarcity refers to an area’s supply of listed homes for sale and how many more are expected to enter the market in the coming month.

And finally, economic instability considers an area’s market volatility, unemployment levels and interest rates.

The NBC News Home Buyer Index was developed by NBC News alongside housing experts, such as a real estate industry analyst and a bank economist from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

On a scale from zero to 100, the index score represents the level of difficulty to buy a home in a U.S. county: The greater the value, the harder it is to buy a home in that area, according to NBC.

But, to compare counties with one another, it is important to consider the index rank as "ranks provide context to the scores," said Joe Murphy, a data editor at NBC News who co-created the index.

A low index rank — or closer to the value of 1,310, the number of counties measured in this month's report — suggests the county has better market conditions for potential buyers. In other words, a county with an index rank of number one "is the worst," Murphy said.

For most Americans, buying — and even maintaining — a home in the U.S. remains costly.

The median sales price of houses sold in the U.S. was $420,800 in the first quarter of 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau via the Federal Reserve.

On top of the high cost, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage in the U.S. is still close to 7%. Borrowing costs are unlikely to significantly change as the Fed held rates steady at its June meeting.

However, if you plan or aspire to own a home, there are ways to prepare, experts say.

Here are three things to do

If you want to be a homeowner, but remain on the sidelines, "getting financially prepared is one of the most important things people can do" before buying a home, said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com.

"Spend more time getting your finances in really good shape," said Jacob Channel, a senior economist at LendingTree. "It's very important, especially when you're making a six-figure purchase, to really take your time."

Here are three things to consider:

1. Boost your credit score: Take a moment to pay down debt and increase your credit score, said Channel.

Your credit score helps measure how creditworthy you are as a borrower, said Hale. You could potentially qualify for a home purchase with a minimum credit score of 500, depending on the lender, according to Experian. But having a higher score can help you achieve better terms on the mortgage, said Hale.

"Doing what you can to improve your credit score will raise your odds of getting a lower mortgage rate," Hale said.

2. Seek pre-approval from lenders: "It's worth it to start the process earlier rather than later so that there aren't as many surprises," said Hale, especially for buyers who've never bought a home before.

Rate lock policies will depend on the lender. In some cases, a lender will let you lock in a mortgage rate after they pre-approve you, Channel said.

But generally, a pre-approval is not enough to guarantee an interest rate, said Hale, "because you cannot lock in a mortgage rate until you have a full mortgage application."

"And you can't do a full mortgage application until you have a specific property that you want to buy," she said.

Once a buyer makes an offer on a property and officially kicks off the application process, it's possible the lender can lock in a mortgage rate if you ask, said Hale. Depending on the lender, the mortgage rate will be locked in for a period spanning from 30 to 60 days, which is "enough time for the closing process to happen," said Hale.

Ask your lender about what the rate-lock period is and ask what stage in the process the mortgage rate gets locked, said Hale. 

3. Intentionally budget and save: "The thing people should be doing is budgeting and saving," said Channel. The more time you give yourself to saving money for expenses like the down payment and closing costs, he said, "the better off you'll likely be."

When someone becomes a homeowner, "they're going to have a higher monthly payment than what they had before," said Hale. Therefore, while you prepare for homeownership, consider setting aside an extra payment, she suggested.

It would help build up savings for a down payment or an emergency fund, and "give an idea of how comfortable that housing payment" truly is, said Hale.

"It's better to be a renter who can afford your rental unit than it is to be a homeowner who can't afford your house," Channel said.

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“[It’s] the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the U.S.,” Ryan Johnson, CEO of Culdesac tells CNBC Make It.

Cars are not allowed on the Culdesac’s streets, and residents can’t park their own vehicles on site. Residents are offered discounts on transportation services like Waymo, a self-driving car.

“Our communities prioritize biking, walking, and transit over cars and parking,” the website states.

The community, located in Tempe, Arizona, has 180 residents with plans to grow to over 1,000. Apartments there range from studios to three-bedroom units, and prices start at around $1,400 a month.

“Since moving to this walkable community, I feel like I’ve definitely gotten a lot more out of my comfort zone,” Stratman tells CNBC Make It. “They’re not against cars; they’re just against car dependency.”

Stratman moved into one of Culdesac’s live-work spaces in February. The Brite Candle Co. shop is housed up front and Stratman’s bedroom and other living spaces are in the back. The unit features a walk-in closet and a washer and dryer.

“I’m able to actually have a retail front-facing shop to the public and also make money out of my apartment,” she says.

“At first, it was a bit uncomfortable just having so many people in my living space, but over time, I’ve gotten really used to it. I’m actually really excited for people to come and make candles.”

Stratman pays $1,472 in monthly rent and an additional $140 for utilities and Internet. Stratman’s upfront costs included a $1,000 security deposit.

Culdesac offers Stratman and other residents access to a pool, a fully equipped gym, rental cars, and light rails. Each resident is also given a free e-bike. The community has several shops and a supermarket on the grounds.

Though car-free, Culdesac still has parking spaces for visitors and the residents who need them.

Stratman does own a car and keeps it off property, as required, but says she has “actually become less dependent on my vehicle, although I use it for business purposes.”

Stratman doesn’t see herself leaving the neighborhood any time soon. “I’ve always grown up so introverted and just to myself,” she says. “So coming here and meeting all the friendly people that I have met and the connections that I’ve made is why I chose Culdesac.”

“Having a live-work space has actually saved me a lot of money,” she says.

Since moving in, Stratman has seen her business grow and wants to eventually move into a larger retail space there.

“Having [my work and home] integrated into one has been so helpful, especially for a small business owner who’s not making thousands of dollars.”

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The property, known as Tiedemann Castle, went into contract with a buyer in late May after the asking price was lowered to $6.3 million.

It was first listed around about six years ago for more than $14 million and had at one point failed to sell at auction.

The home in Greenwood Lake, a bucolic expanse in New York near the New Jersey border, is three parcels with six bedrooms and 13 bathrooms, and includes extensive gardens, a lagoon and an infinity pool, according to the listing.

Diane Mitchell, the listing agent for the property, declined to comment on the pending deal.

Jeter retired from the Yankees in 2014.

Like most elder millennials, I knew exactly where Laguna Beach was. I’d seen every episode of the reality show (I was an LC with a Kristin haircut) and was a superfan of “The OC” to boot. (Seth and Summer forever!) 

I don’t know why I pretended. Turns out, Brian’s a Seth-and-Summer stan, too.

I never imagined we’d end up living in the land of beachside cottages and sun-drenched ocean coves I’d seen on TV. But in 2021, we decided to leave the Bay Area and spend a couple months in Brian’s hometown. We both work remotely — I’m a writer and he’s in tech sales — so why not? 

We’ve been here ever since. Today, we live in an old-school, 940-square-foot, aluminum-sided trailer across the street from the beach. 

Deciding we wanted to stay in Laguna Beach wasn’t hard — I mean, it’s beautiful, sunny, laid back, and has a thriving art scene. But figuring out a long-term living situation in such a pricey area required us to get creative. 

Finding a creative way to live in Laguna Beach

The median home price in Laguna Beach hovers around $3 million and the median monthly rent is over $8,000. Brian and I were paying $6,200 a month for our short-term rental, a steep price we could stomach for a couple of months but not something we could sustain.

Luckily, we discovered a quirky little neighborhood tucked away in a picturesque canyon across the street from the ritziest hotel in town. It’s filled with mobile homes that sell for as little as $150,000.

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Brian and I are no strangers to alternative abodes — we’d previously lived aboard a 46-foot motor yacht for three years — so the concept of a house on wheels didn’t intimidate us.

When you purchase a trailer in this mobile home community, the structure is yours but you rent the land it sits on. We decided to look at purchasing a mobile home as a hybrid solution — part owning, part renting — all for less than what either traditional option would cost. 

We paid $212,500 for the trailer using money we’d saved up after negotiating a $5,000 credit from the sellers when the home inspection uncovered some necessary repairs.

After living on a boat, we didn’t have much more than a TV and a mattress to start off with. In order to rebuild the unstable back deck, fence the yard, re-do the landscaping, renovate the kitchen, and furnish the home, we took out a $150,000 home equity loan against the trailer. 

All told, we’re currently paying about $5,148 a month, including: 

• Land lease: $3,424
• Utilities: $394 (these fluctuate a bit every month, but this is what we paid in April 2024 for electricity, gas, water, sewer, and internet)
• Loan repayment: $1,330 

We’re eager to repay the home equity loan to bring our monthly cost of living down even more and hope to do so within the next two years.

Take a look inside our ‘vintage’ Laguna Beach trailer

Our two-bedroom, two-bathroom home was built in the 1960s. The exterior is original and we love the vintage look.

There’s no garage, just a carport, so we built a storage shed in the side yard for camping gear and holiday decorations.

In our carport, you’ll find a golf cart, which is our favorite way to get around the neighborhood, pick up groceries or zip across the street to the beach. When it’s not practical to use the golf cart, we have a regular car and a van for transporting Brian’s surfboards around town.

We put our own stamp on the kitchen, adding butcher block counters, a tiled backsplash, a dishwasher, and a wine fridge.

There are no closets — not one! — in this house, so we had to get creative with storage: My wardrobe is in the living room, our towels are stored in a buffet in my office area, and pots and pans go in the entertainment center.

It’s unconventional, but we make it work.

Though I have a real desk, I often write on the couch with our 15-year-old dachshund mix Indy (short for Indiana Jones).

Brian usually works in the second bedroom-turned-office so he can close the door while he’s on calls. Sometimes he’ll head outside.

We went a little wild with our wallpaper (tropical everything!), including in the primary bedroom.

There’s something so fun about knowing that this place is ours to decorate however we please.

The yard is what sold us on this place. It has an outdoor shower and a dining area, and gets loads of sun. We added some tropical landscaping, a hot tub, Ping-Pong table, pizza oven, and a projector screen.

I love sitting outside and watching the hummingbirds dance around our plants. 

A ‘less stressful’ version of the California dream

Living in a house on wheels doesn’t exempt us from the typical homeowner headaches. Since moving in, we’ve dealt with an ant infestation, tented for termites, and evicted a family of mice, and we’re currently grappling with a gopher problem.

But keeping our monthly housing costs low (for the area) makes tackling these issues less stressful.

We often enjoy our morning coffee on the deck, take walks down to the beach, and unwind with an evening dip in the hot tub. 

We love watching Indy sunbathe on his favorite lounge chair, having friends over for outdoor pizza parties, taking the golf cart into town to grab dinner or hit up the annual Sawdust Art Festival, and turning on the fire pit while we watch a movie under the stars. 

In short, we couldn’t be happier here. We’ve been in this home for two years now and we don’t plan on moving anytime soon.

Jaclyn Westlake writes books about funny, flawed women trying to find their way in the world. Her debut novel, “Dear Dotty,” is available wherever books are sold. A recruiter turned career advice columnist, her work has appeared on The Muse, Business Insider, and Inc. You can follow her adventures in writing, beach living, and beyond on Instagram @jaclyn_writing or at jaclynwestlake.com.

Want to be a successful, confident communicator? Take CNBC’s new online course Become an Effective Communicator: Master Public Speaking. We’ll teach you how to speak clearly and confidently, calm your nerves, what to say and not say, and body language techniques to make a great first impression. Sign up today and use code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off through July 10, 2024.

New York City is not exactly known for having ludicrously capacious living situations (at least for most people), but Queens appears to take it to another level. The borough has the smallest new apartments on average among each of the five boroughs, and the third-smallest in the country overall, according to a report from the real estate site RentCafe.

So just how small are the Queens apartments? At 692 square feet on average, new apartments there are slightly smaller than the ones found in Brooklyn, which on average measure out to 712 square feet.

Both boroughs have seen the size of the average new apartment there shrink over the past 10 years, according to RentCafe. Queens’ apartments have lost 32 square feet on average, a decline of 4.4% in the past decade. In Brooklyn, the shrink is a bit smaller: About 21 square feet smaller, a loss of about 2.9% of space.

Among major U.S. cities, only Seattle and Portland average smaller apartment sizes. The average new apartment in Seattle is 661 square feet, while Portland’s is 685 square feet.

Not far behind Queens and Brooklyn is Manhattan, where the average new apartment is 737 square feet — which is actually an increase of 2.2% from a decade ago, adding 16 square feet, RentCafe found. Manhattan had the sixth-smallest new apartment size, behind Detroit.

Two cities in New Jersey also made the list: With new apartments averaging 788 square feet, Jersey City was ranked 15th on the list, while Newark was 20th. The Garden State’s largest city actually saw the average new apartment size increase pretty dramatically since 2014, adding 113 square feet, up more than 16%.

Looking for a bit more room? Head to Gainesville, Florida, where the average new apartment there is just under 1,200 square feet, according to RentCafe. It was one of five Florida cities to make the list with the largest new apartments.

The hefty one-time payments, known as broker fees, are ubiquitous in New York but nearly unheard of anywhere else. In most other cities, landlords cover the commission of agents working on their behalf.

But legislation backed by a majority of the New York City Council would require landlords who hire brokers to pay their fees, marking a potential sea change in one of the country’s most expensive housing markets.

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Renters, who make up more than two-thirds of city households, are hailing the latest attempt at reform. At a hearing Wednesday, many New Yorkers recalled paying exorbitant fees to brokers who appeared to do little more than open a door to an apartment or direct them to a lockbox.

“In most businesses, the person who hires the person pays the person,” said Agustina Velez, a house cleaner from Queens who said she recently paid $6,000 to switch apartments. “Enough with these injustices. Landlords have to pay for the services they use.”

But the proposal has triggered fierce opposition from New York’s real estate industry.

Ahead of the hearing, hundreds of brokers gathered to voice their objections at a rally organized by the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s powerful lobbying group.

Through hours of testimony, they warned the legislation would sow chaos in the rental market and decimate the livelihoods of the city’s roughly 25,000 real estate agents. Many predicted landlords would pass on the costs of paying brokers to tenants through increased rents or keep apartments off the market altogether.

“This is the start of a top-down government-controlled housing system,” said Jordan Silver, a broker with the firm Brown Harris Stevens. “The language is so incredibly vague we actually have no idea what this would look like in the world.”

The bill’s sponsor, City Councilman Chi Ossé, has said he was moved to act following a recent apartment search that was “tiring, treacherous, and competitive.” Another local official, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, testified that he’d once paid a $2,500 fee to a broker he never met.

Their frustration was echoed at Wednesday’s hearing by dozens of ordinary renters, along with a mix of labor unions, housing policy groups and some prominent business leaders. Critics said paying brokers’ fees serves as a barrier to those who’d otherwise move to the city while preventing low-income New Yorkers from relocating to new homes.

Such broker fees were previously banned in 2020 under a package of renter protection laws passed by the state. But they were quickly reinstated following a lawsuit led by the Real Estate Board of New York.

Brokerage firms estimate that roughly half of the city’s apartments require a tenant-paid broker fee. The price of those fees can vary widely, though the standard amount is 15% of the annual rent. For the average apartment in Manhattan, where the median monthly rent recently hit $4,500, that would amount to a fee of $8,100.

Under the legislation, tenants would still pay brokers that they hired directly. The bill’s brief language — less than 200 words — only requires the party that hires the real estate agent pay their fee.

“How the market works is not as simple as a few sentences, which is what the bill is,” said Ryan Monell, a vice president at the Real Estate Board of New York. “It’s a misnomer to compare New York to other cities. This is really an exceptional market.”

Brokers are adamant that their jobs are far more intensive than merely opening the door to tenants. Many said they help put together listings, review applications, answer questions posed by tenants and arrange tours at all hours of the day. But some also acknowledged that the current system favors landlords.

“I think it’s not logical. The landlord should pay the listing agent who is working on their behalf,” said Maria Octavio, a real estate broker with the firm of Douglas Elliman. “Because it’s worked this way for many years, the owners are used to it.”

Anna Klenkar, a broker at Sotheby’s, said the industry group — known as REBNY — had contacted her employer after learning that she planned to testify Wednesday in support of the legislation. “It feels less like we’re protecting ourselves, and more like we’re protecting landlords, whom REBNY also represents,” she testified.

A spokesperson for REBNY did not respond to an emailed inquiry about whether they had reached out to the employer.

Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, warned the bill could have unintended consequences. He had strong real estate industry backing during his campaign and moonlighted decades ago as a real estate agent while working in the city’s police department.

It marks the end of the line for a landmark that never recovered from Superstorm Sandy. Its secluded location on a private island in Barnegat Bay has long been a source of fascination.

“It was always unique. It was always a conversation,” said Pat Hallock, a realtor in Chadwick Beach.

The abandoned mansion was only accessible only by boat, but is now leaving the landscape.

“We were hired by the homeowner to knock the house down about six months ago,” said Erich Kremer, of R. Kremer & Son Marine Contractors.

The company has been tearing down the home along with an adjacent guest house on Middle Sedge Island, situated slightly more than a half-mile from the Chadwick Beach section of Toms River. The mansion dates back to 1991.

“Back in the day it was a beautiful house,” said Chadwick Beach resident Phil Liantonio. “Then the storm just kind of messed everything up and they never repaired it.”

Superstorm Sandy left the home in ruins. The condition of the property only worsened since the 2012 storm.

“It’s been a hazard, a lot of people hanging out on it,” said Kremer.

People are not the only ones who have been coming to the house: Scores of seagulls made their home in the former haven for luxury and privacy. Those birds appeared to be quite agitated to be displaced by the demolition.

Utility lines extend from the barrier island out to the island. But everything was shut off years ago and experts say building anything new on the island would be extremely challenging.

“A lot of the island itself was washed away, the bulkhead was destroyed,” said Hallock. “There’ll be environmental issues, there’ll be issues we’ll have to discuss with the government.”

The owner of the mansion told NBC New York that the future of the island is still undecided. The job of clearing away the rubble will likely take a couple weeks, as the familiar and curious sight finally disappears years after nature’s wrath led to its downfall.

An array of iconic homes are for sale — and buyers will almost certainly pay extra for that pedigree.

However, that premium is hard to quantify since some uber-wealthy buyers will pay almost anything to own a piece of pop culture, according to real estate experts.

“It’s like owning a Picasso” or a Fabergé egg, said Tomer Fridman, a real estate agent based in Los Angeles who specializes in luxury and celebrity homes.

“You’re buying something that’s super unique and something that is very rare,” he said.

Buying for ‘Hollywood cachet’

Among recent notable listings: The Victorian home depicted on the sitcom “Full House” hit the market Thursday in San Francisco for $6.5 million. Last month, the “Home Alone” house — the brick estate famously boobytrapped by character Kevin McCallister — listed for $5.25 million.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s first New York City home, a two-story SoHo loft, also hit the market for $5.5 million in May. The Los Angeles home of the late Paul Reubens, best known for his character Pee-wee Herman, is also for sale, for about $5 million.

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Luxury real estate prices recently hit a record high. The uber-wealthy are largely insulated from high mortgage rates since many can afford to make all-cash deals, according to real estate experts.

Famous homes generally command even loftier price tags than their market equivalents, those experts said.

Josh Altman, a luxury real estate agent in Los Angeles who is featured on the Bravo show “Million Dollar Listing,” estimates the premium can be perhaps 5% to 10% if the home is tied to a “household name” celebrity.

“There’s definitely this Hollywood cachet of ‘I bought so-and-so’s house,'” said Altman. His firm’s clients have included stars like Justin Bieber, James Cameron, Alicia Keys and Britney Spears.

“Home Alone” is “one of the most famous movies ever,” he added. “That’ll definitely get a premium, in my opinion.”

The rich often pay ‘whatever it takes’

The ultimate price tag on such homes generally doesn’t matter to their uber-wealthy buyers, said Fridman, who has sold properties owned by celebrities including Marilyn Monroe, Sylvester Stallone, and Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott.

Many view the house as a collector’s item and make an “emotional purchase,” Fridman said.

Sellers can rake in a premium for a particular famous property via an initial pie-in-the-sky asking price or if potential buyers get into a bidding war, experts said.

“They’re one of one,” said Amanda Pendleton, a home trends expert at Zillow. “Some people with means will pay whatever it takes to own that home.”

The listing for the “Home Alone” property, outside Chicago, leans into its collector status, spotlighting the “rare opportunity to own one of the most iconic movie residences in American pop culture.”

An offer is pending on that home and was made within a week of being on the market, said Andrea Gillespie, a spokesperson for Coldwell Banker Real Estate. The sellers’ asking price is more than triple the $1.585 million they paid in 2012.

The listing for John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s residence — the first time it’s been for sale in 53 years — also plays up its former occupants’ fame.

“Anywhere that they lived is going to have some sort of value,” according to Philip Norman, author of the biography “John Lennon: The Life,” recently told The New York Times.

Buyers of the “Full House” home have the option of getting handprints in concrete stones of the show’s cast members, including Bob Saget and John Stamos, according to Architectural Digest.

Infamy sells, too

Infamy can also fetch a higher price, said Arto Poladian, a Redfin luxury real estate agent in Los Angeles.

In 2021, Poladian sold the so-called LaBianca house — the home where Charles Manson’s followers killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in 1969 — for $1.875 million.

The property’s notoriety generated interest and attracted more prospective buyers — “and ultimately with that interest you get a little bit of a higher premium than without it,” Poladian said.

The listing was geared to buyers like “history buffs” or those who wanted to “add their touches to reimagine one of LA’s most unique properties.”

Sometimes, even being in the vicinity of a famous residence can help, he added. For example, in 2018 he sold the house next door to the one used for the filming of the original “The Karate Kid” movie.

“Any type of famous home — or a home next to a famous home — will draw interest from prospective buyers and lookie-loos,” he said.

There’s sometimes a ceiling to what super fans are willing to pay, said Pendleton.

She cited the “Brady Bunch” house as an example: The Studio City, California, home — which was remodeled to look identical to the home on the TV series — sold for about $3.2 million in 2023 after months on the market; it had been listed for $5.5 million.

The publicity attached to certain properties is likely a “turnoff” for some would-be buyers, Pendleton said.

Similarly, a superstar’s home won’t command as much of a premium if it’s not updated and move-in-ready, said Poladian.

For example, Kanye West — the rapper who now goes by Ye — bought a Malibu, California, mega-mansion for $57.3 million in 2021. However, he has struggled to sell the home, which he gutted and left in disrepair; he listed the home last year for $53 million but recently dropped the price to $39 million. (A contractor also sued West in January and a lien was placed on the property, potentially complicating a sale.)

“Kanye West can’t give his house away in Malibu,” said Altman, the Los Angeles real estate agent.

Ultimately, though, a home’s value — whether a sprawling, renowned estate or a run-of-the-mill bungalow — is in the eye of the beholder.

“At the end of the day, a home is worth whatever the person is willing to pay for it,” Pendleton said.

Her mother is American and her father was born and raised in London. Dewey’s parents lived between London and the U.S. before eventually settling in New Jersey, where she grew up. She and her sisters would regularly fly to England’s capital during school breaks and summer vacation to visit their grandmother, who still lives there.

In 2022, the 25-year-old and her fiancé, Harrison Kent, had been living in Philadelphia for two years.

“We wanted to be a little closer to our families but I had always told him, ‘whenever you want to move to London, I’m down,'” the graphic designer tells CNBC Make It. “He had only been once before.”

Around the time of this conversation, Kent began researching schools to get his master’s in furniture design. In November 2022 he was accepted to his dream master’s program, the Kingston University Masters of Product & Furniture Design, in London, and the couple decided to cross the pond.

“It was one of those things that we knew if we don’t do it now we were never going to do it,” Dewey says. “It’s such a privilege to have multiple passports and I didn’t want my 20s to be over and never have actually lived in the U.K. full time.”

Preparations for their transatlantic move began soon after.

The two started having yard sales every weekend in the lead up to their August 2023 move and sold almost all of their belongings, bringing in an estimated $3,000 to help fund their move.

“It was nice that we knew so far in advance because we had a lot of time to do it right,” Dewey says.

But finding their perfect London home while still living in Philadelphia was harder than expected. They would send out inquiries before going to bed, and by the time they woke up had already been informed that the spots were taken.

With their move looming, Dewey and Kent decided to do a short-term rental and continue searching for a more permanent living arrangement from London.

After several months of looking, the couple thought they found their perfect home. But just before they went to tour it, the listing agent informed them it had been taken.

The agent then said he had another space by the water to show them. When they told him a waterfront property was likely out of their budget, he clarified that it was in the water, not on it. Soon, they were on their way to tour a moored houseboat.

Though they were skeptical about living on a boat, especially as the owners of a 2-year-old Dalmatian, Kipper, Dewey and Kent kept their minds open.

“Immediately we both realized that it was nicer than we expected. It has recently been redone, so we were going to be the first people to live in it,” Dewey says. “[It was] a total stroke of luck.”

The 65-ft long widebeam boat features a living room, two bedrooms, full bathroom and a kitchen.

The couple signed a two-year lease in November 2023 at a rate of roughly $2,200 per month. Their upfront costs included a security deposit just over $2,500, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

“We feel like we’re living in a children’s picture book,” Dewey says. “It adds such a fun element to life. I’m already such a huge homebody and I feel like living on the boat has really done me in.”

Living on a boat comes with some unique responsibilities as well, including needing to refill its water tank every few days with tap water supplied by the dock. It’s a trade-off they’re happy to accept in exchange for living somewhere with as much outdoor space as indoor space.

“After work, I’ll bring a little beach chair out on top of the boat and just sit on top of the boat and read,” she says. “Sometimes we’ll have dinner up there.”

Another perk of living in the houseboat is the sense of community and camaraderie amongst residents of the other boats in the area.

“I think the most friendly people in all of London live right on our dock,” she says. “We’re always chatting with our neighbors and everybody is always looking out for each other.”

Although the couple lived in a house in Philadelphia before they moved to London, Dewey says the houseboat feels more spacious and safer than any other place she’s lived in before.

“I have definitely had my share of apartments that I’ve rented where it just wasn’t quite right,” she says. “Here, it feels like home for me, Harry and Kipper.”

The couple has been living aboard their houseboat for over six months. They don’t see themselves leaving anytime soon.

“I think we’re definitely going to try and stay here as long as we can,” she says. “We would leave the boat kicking and screaming if we had to!”

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A spectacular great room with high ceilings is the first thing you see when you walk into the home on Vista Drive.

“It has to be grand. He is a three-time NFL Pro Bowler, Butkus Award winner, Prince George’s County native and, in my opinion, a future Hall of Famer,” Realtor Nikki Nabi said on a tour of the home.

The kitchen has custom-made cabinets, Miele appliances and a central vacuum system to help sweep up crumbs.

Moving through the 9,000-square-foot house, the upper-level primary suite – which is one of two primary suites – has a huge his-and-hers walk-in closet, a spa bath and a sitting room with a wet bar.

The lower level has a bar and a full wine cellar. There are multiple areas to entertain, including a theater where residents and guests can watch football games.

The French Mediterranean-style home has balconies overlooking the 1.2-acre yard. The Bowmans cleared out an adjoining lot, so there’s plenty of room for kids, and plenty of privacy.

The Bowmans bought the home in 2019 and lived there as NaVorro Bowman worked as a defensive analyst for the University of Maryland’s football team. He’s now in California with his family, working for the Los Angeles Chargers.

That’s also the bad news, costing them thousands more in real estate taxes and leaving less for discretionary spending.

“To pay the higher property taxes, it just means we’ve got to take more money out of our investments when it comes time to hit those big bills,” Beverly McAdam said.

She backs a Colorado ballot proposal that could cap the growth of property tax revenue. It’s one of several measures in states this year to limit, cut or offset escalating property taxes in response to complaints.

Over the past five years, single-family home prices have risen about 54% nationally, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

That means higher tax bills for homeowners when governments don’t offset higher real estate values by reducing tax rates. And with offices seeing higher vacancies as people still work from home after the coronavirus pandemic, some commercial property values are declining, putting even more pressure on residential properties to deliver revenues.

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“With assessed values skyrocketing over the past few years,” said Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the nonprofit Tax Foundation, “homeowners are clamoring for relief, and state policymakers are increasingly exploring ways to provide it.”

Colorado, like Alabama and Wyoming, also has a new law that will limit the growth in tax-assessed values for homeowners. Property tax relief will be part of a special legislative session beginning June 18 in Kansas, while Nebraska also could hold a special session to cut property taxes.

Georgia voters will decide in November whether to authorize a new law limiting increases in assessed home values for tax purposes to the rate of inflation, unless local governments or school boards opt out.

Five years ago, Lanell Griffith and her husband paid a little less than $2,700 in property taxes on their Topeka, Kansas, home in a historic neighborhood of tree-lined, brick streets. Their bill last year was more than $3,700.

“The government shouldn’t be able to arbitrarily just increase what they say you owe them without any sort of guardrails on that,” Griffith said.

Kansas lawmakers this year passed three measures that would have reduced the state’s property tax levy for public schools. But each was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly because of concerns about other sections to cut income taxes. The special session will mark a fourth attempt at consensus.

In Vermont, Republican Gov. Phil Scott has vowed to veto a bill that would raise property taxes by an average of nearly 14% to provide more money for public schools. Scott said people “simply cannot afford a historic, double digit property tax increase.”

In many states, property taxes are primarily a function of local governments such as counties, cities, school boards and special districts for libraries, fire departments and water systems. Each entity sets its own property tax rate, which is added to the others to come up with an overall tax bill for property owners.

State legislatures can intervene in a variety of ways. They can establish statewide limits on how much assessed property values can rise, create partial tax exemptions for all homeowners or provide income tax credits to help offset property taxes for certain people, such as those 65 and older.

But any relief carries consequences. Limits on the growth of assessed property values may provide a greater benefit to the wealthy. Exemptions for homes used as primary residences can shift a greater tax burden to rental properties and businesses.

“If you do this too much, you can now start tying the hands of your local government and cutting them off from the ability to raise revenue,” said Richard Auxier, a principal policy associate at the nonprofit Tax Policy Center.

While signing several property tax relief laws this year, Republican Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed one that would have exempted 25% of a home’s value from property taxes. He said it “jeopardized the financial stability of the state and counties.”

In 1982, voters in Muscogee County, Georgia, approved a local ordinance freezing assessed property values for homes used as primary residences. The result: longtime homeowners pay very little, newcomers pay more and businesses face some of the state’s highest property tax rates, said Suzanne Widenhouse, the county’s chief appraiser.

Last year, two similar homes worth around $330,000 had dramatically different tax bills. One, whose assessed value was frozen in the 1980s, owed less than $8. The other, whose assessed value was frozen when purchased about five years ago, owed $3,236, Widenhouse said.

“Anytime you grant an exemption, you create an inequality,” she said.

A Georgia ballot measure would amend the constitution to allow increases in assessed property values to be capped at the rate of inflation. But it wouldn’t undo past increases.

In the eight years since Rob Romeijn bought a ranch-style house on 10 acres (4 hectares) southeast of Atlanta, Rockdale County has raised the assessed value of his property from $127,000 to $230,000, also bumping up his property tax bill, he said.

As a Dutch immigrant with permanent residency, Romeijn can’t vote in elections in Conyers, but he was so unhappy about the increase that he made a sign urging people to vote out Rockdale’s commissioners and protested outside county offices in April.

Colorado also has been at the center of the property tax debate. The state has experienced decades-long growth in new residents, driving up demand for housing. Meanwhile, it has struggled to find a balance between providing tax relief for homeowners and sufficient funding for local governments.

A 1982 constitutional amendment limited residential properties to 45% of Colorado’s total property tax base while also setting a fixed assessment rate for commercial properties. To keep the ratio in balance as home values rose, residential tax assessments were cut, leaving less revenue for essential services such as fire districts.

Colorado voters repealed that constitutional provision in 2020. Since then, assessed home values have risen rapidly and the General Assembly has responded. The latest law, signed in May, is projected to shave over $1 billion annually off future property tax revenue by reducing tax rates and imposing growth limits.

But that’s not enough to satisfy some residents. The conservative group Advance Colorado backed a citizens initiative asking voters in November to cap all property tax revenue growth at 4% per year and is gathering signatures for still another ballot initiative to lower property taxes.

“People are saying this is too much growth; government doesn’t need this much money,” Advance Colorado President Michael Fields said. “People are genuinely scared of losing their houses.”

___

Associated Press writers Jeff Amy, John Hanna and Lisa Rathke contributed to this report.

But it may look a bit different than you remember.

The red brick Georgian home, at 671 N. Lincoln Ave., listed by The Dawn McKenna Group, comes with a price tag $5.25 million — a figure that amounts to a more than 200% price increase from its most recent sell date in 2012. According to the Zillow listing, the home was “fully renovated and expanded in 2018.”

Photos from the listing show the home’s exterior still looks and feel nostalgic to “Home Alone” fans, along with the foyer and entryway staircase.

“The current owners took the utmost care in maintaining the architectural detail and integrity of the home’s most memorable and recognizable spaces,” the listing said.

But a home tour posted to Instagram by The Dawn McKenna Group shows the newly remodeled home is “full of surprises.”

“While much of the home will look familiar, you won’t believe what the sellers have done to transform this famous home,” a caption on the Instagram video read. “Nearly doubling the livable footage and adding a state of the art sport court,” it continued. “See for yourself.”

The video shows iconic clips from the movie, showcasing how certain rooms looked in the 1990 cult classic. It then cuts to what some of those spaces look like now.

For example, the renovated kitchen is a far cry from the red and green, “compartmentalized” space where Buzz once scarfed down a cheese pizza.

“Bye-bye, Mrs. McCallister, hello open kitchen floor plan, and a bonus — they put on this amazing sunroom,” an agent said in the video.

Behind the kitchen islands, a line of floor-to-ceiling cabinets line the walls. “This house is full of surprises,” another agent says, opening one of the cabinet doors into a deep walk-in pantry.

In the movie, the McCallister basement was dark and unfinished. Now, the newly-remodeled basement of the home contains a sport court — 25-feet below ground — with a “true three-point line.”

“This is probably the most amazing sport court I have ever seen,” an agent says in the video.

Finally, film fans may remember Kevin waking up to an empty house after spending a night in the home’s spooky attic. That room has changed, too.

“Bye-bye, scary attic,” one of the agents says, standing in the attic-turned-junior suite that offers “a magnificent treetop escape.”

Other additions to the home include a movie theater, two laundry rooms and a fully-equipped gym, according to the listing.

“From the promise of movie nights and game days to holiday gatherings surrounded by loved ones, this magical family home truly transcends its architectural pedigree,” the listing said. “It’s a chance to own a piece of cinematic history and create lasting memories within its iconic walls.”

If you’re wondering, the current owners purchased the residence for $1,585,000 in March of 2012. While the home isn’t open to the public, some lucky folks did get a chance to stay there in recent years.

Reservations for a one-night stay were available through Airbnb just ahead of Christmas in 2021, and unsurprisingly, they sold out quickly.

Renters were able to enjoy the family house as they knew it – filled with Christmas decorations, booby traps, a candlelit dinner of highly nutritious microwavable macaroni and cheese, Kevin’s dad’s after shave, ’90s junk food, “Chicago’s finest pizza” and more.

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Knighten, 38, was raised in the Chicago suburbs, and Cordier, 45, was raised in London but loved the idea of living in the Windy City after having visited with Knighten over the course of their relationship and two-year marriage.

“We knew we didn’t necessarily want to move back straight away but more as a long-term investment and we could maybe retire there,” Knighten tells CNBC Make It.

The couple lived in the UAE and had just under $40,000 saved.

Knighten and Cordier worked with a real estate agent in the U.S. to scout properties they saw online and started looking for mortgage lenders, too.

Their budget was between $260,000 and $270,000 for a multi-family home in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago. In April 2024, North Lawndale home prices were up 26.6% compared to last year, selling for a median price of $307K, according to Redfin.

In 2019, while their agent worked in Chicago, the couple traveled to Lago d’Iseo, Italy, which they had fallen in love with during a European road trip the year before. Knighten says the pair had daydreamed about what it would be like to live there.

“We start looking up property costs to see if we could potentially afford it in the future,” she says.

During that summer trip, the couple found a house they fell in love with. It was a two-bedroom that needed a new roof and upstairs floor but it was on the market for 25,000 euros or $27,144 USD.

“What we ended up seeing was that we could buy a house outright with the money we had saved for a down payment with a mortgage for a house in Chicago,” Knighten says.

Meanwhile, getting a traditional mortgage in the U.S. was proving difficult for the couple since they were earning money abroad and didn’t receive traditional US-issued income tax documents.

They decided the search for a house in Chicago was over and pursued the Italian property instead.

“It felt too good to be true.”

“It looked like a house you drew when you were a kid with the pitched roof, the door in the center, and the two windows upstairs,” Knighten says. “It was really cute and just steps away from the train, steps away from the lake. It felt too good to be true.”

But the seller’s agent informed the two that there was already an offer in and the house was off the market. Knighten says that news was crushing because they knew it was the “perfect house” for them.

“Two days later, the agent called us and told us the buyers backed out and asked if we still wanted to see it,” Knighten says. “We took a tour; we just loved it but knew that it was going to need a lot of work. We weren’t scared by that because we knew we didn’t want to move in right away.”

Knighten and Cordier’s offer of 23,000 euros or $24,973 was accepted by the seller, with the condition the couple could keep whatever was inside, but the closing could not happen until the summer of 2020.

The seller wanted to wait in an effort to avoid paying an inheritance tax since he had gotten the house after his sister, the original owner, passed away. His sister used the property as a vacation home and it had been in their family for years.

The couple agreed to the deal, put down a 500 euro good faith deposit, and waited patiently to become the new owners of the house.

The COVID-19 pandemic prevented the couple from closing the deal in person, so they had a local friend in Italy act as their power of attorney and handle it for them.

When the couple finally traveled to Italy again in July 2021, almost an entire year after closing, they found the house “exactly how she left it when she left her last vacation.”

“The beds were made, there were nightgowns still hanging in the armoire, and photos on the wall,” Knighten says. “In some ways, it was kind of eerie because it felt like you’re walking into someone’s house, but it was also really beautiful because we felt like we’re connected to the house and the history.”

The couple salvaged as much of the previous owner’s belongings as possible and worked with the seller to send back anything he wanted to keep, including old black-and-white family photos.

Now the real work has begun

Knighten and Cordier decided the first thing they needed to tackle was a new roof. The original estimate was just under $15,000 but that was in the summer of 2019. By the time the couple closed on the house, estimates for the roof had jumped up to $40,000, which was over budget for them.

The couple started renovations on the home in March of this year and are currently living in a two-bedroom apartment a few blocks away for 700 euros a month or $760 while the work gets done.

“We kept saving until we could afford to do any of the work,” Knighten says.

In addition to the new roof, Knighten and Cordier are also planning on additional changes to the house, including moving the kitchen upstairs.

The two are planning for Cordier to do as much of the work himself as possible and are estimating about 100,000 euros or $108,578 in renovation costs.

Knighten and Cordier originally hoped that their house would be ready by the time their apartment lease is up, which is a few weeks from the time this article was published, but Knighten says that won’t be the case.

“Worst case scenario in my head is we move in by Christmas. I’m hoping it is in September, but we will see what happens in the next few months and readjust our expectations.”

For now, the couple is hoping that Cordier’s sister closes on an apartment she’s buying near their Italy home so they can camp out there for a bit.

“I’m feeling good about it. Something will work out,” Knighten says. “All in all, it was worth taking the risk to do the thing that you think or know is going to make you really happy even if you’re not sure how it’s going to pan out in the end. That is probably bad advice but I’m so happy we did this.”

Conversions to USD were done on May 22, 2024, using OANDA conversion rates of 1 euro to 1.08 USD. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

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The average annual wage in New York City is no longer keeping up with the rising costs of living and monthly rent, which is squeezing out workers even in typically more lucrative careers like technology, according to a new report.

Residents are constrained when searching for the limited number of rentals on the market, and soaring prices just add salt to the wound. The citywide median asking rent hiked to $3,474, up nearly 9% from 2022 to 2023, based on a StreetEasy market analysis.

Wages in the city only went up 1% on average in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the average gross annual wage was almost $89,000, the New York State Department of Labor finds.

New York is not alone in facing a rent versus wage gap. Forty-four of the largest U.S. metro areas are experiencing a similar phenomenon, based on Zillow and StreetEasy data.

StreetEasy estimates it would take an annual income of $139,000 to comfortably afford the median asking NYC rent, including the upfront costs when finding the next lease, which is an average of $10,454 for New Yorkers.

The report finds that tech workers, like those in computer or mathematical occupations, make about $135,000 on average — over 50% higher than the average for all workers in the city. However, at that salary, workers would still only be able to afford one in three rentals on the market last year.

This comes after a citywide boost in the tech sector from 2012 to 2021, adding to a quarter of total NYC job growth, says Tech:NYC.

In comparison to the tech world, essential workers, like healthcare support or protective services, were paid average wages under $70,000 in 2023, says the state’s Department of Labor.

Rising costs may play a greater role in population shifts over the last year. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, New York City lost almost 1% of residents, the highest negative shift seen across the tri-state area.

The StreetEasy summary presents a few solutions to the wage and rental woes facing the boroughs, including zoning changes in targeted outer ZIP codes near public transportation.

The report suggests over a million more homes could be built if zoning allowances were to be expanded, with East New York, Flushing, Woodhaven and Astoria being top neighborhoods to try.

The analysis also recommends not requiring new developments to have off-street parking. Current zoning rules demand all new buildings to provide a minimum number of parking spots, except for affordable housing near public transit.

Campo, California is for sale. Not the whole town, but most of it.

Twenty-eight homes and several commercial buildings on 16 acres in the San Diego County town can be yours for $6.6 million.

An investor bought the properties in 2000. According to Top Gun CRE in San Diego, they’re ready to sell.

“It’s certainly unique,” said Nick Hernandez of Top Gun. “We’ve never sold a town before.”

Hernandez said they’re looking for a buyer with a plan.

“Maybe seeking more of a creative, visionary investor who maybe wants to put his touch on a small town and shape the community,” Hernandez explained. “Has some unique ideas as far as how to bring Campo back to life.”

Campo, which sits about an hour east of San Diego near the U.S. border with Mexico, used to be an Army base and home to the famous Buffalo Soldiers, the Army’s first African American cavalry unit.

“It could actually catapult the community,” said Lance Garmo, owner of the Campo Green Store, which is not part of the sale. “[We’re] curious but excited to see that maybe somebody is going to bring back some of the historic sites.”

The nearby Jacumba Hot Springs has been bought and sold twice in the past 15 years. The smaller town of Bankhead Springs just north of Jacumba Hot Springs is also currently for sale for about $2 million.

The Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, filed Monday, alleges “illegal and unconstitutional conduct” by the city “with respect to the house where Marilyn Monroe occasionally lived for a mere six months before she tragically committed suicide 61 years ago.”

The suit alleges that the city violated its own codes and procedures in pushing for the monument designation for the Helena Drive property.

“All of these backroom machinations were in the name of preserving a house which in no way meets any of the criteria for an ‘Historic Cultural Monument,'” the lawsuit states. “That much is bolstered by the fact, among others, that for 60 years through 14 owners and numerous remodels and building permits issued by the city, the city has taken no action regarding the now-alleged ‘historic’ or ‘cultural’ status of the house.”

The suit alleges the city’s action have caused “irreparable” harm to the building’s owners and robbed them of “their vested rights as owners of real property.”

There was no immediate comment from the city.

The plaintiffs in the case — home owners Brinah Milstein and her husband Roy Bank — have owned the structure since July 2023 and subsequently obtained a demolition permit from the city.

After receiving numerous complaints about the planned demolition, City Councilwoman Traci Park announced in September an effort to save the house by initiating a historic-cultural monument application. The application has been working its way through the city process, receiving approval in January from the Cultural Heritage Commission and later from the council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee.

The matter still needs to be heard by the full City Council, which must be done my mid-June.

The lawsuit requests a court order blocking the monument designation and allowing the plaintiffs to move forward with their planned demolition.

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs want to demolish the structure to expand their current home, which is adjacent to the property.

The Broadway icon’s estate in the woodsy, quiet town of Roxbury sold for the full asking price of $3.25 million, according to Klemm Real Estate. It was on the market for less than two weeks.

Sondheim, who brought us Broadway hits including “West Side Story,” “Gypsy,” “Sweeney Todd,” “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” and many more, died in Nov. 2021 at the age of 91.

Before his death, the famed composer lived in the state since 1984. It was learned in late 2023 that it would be hitting the market for the first time in more than 39 years, according to Klemm Real Estate.

The main house was built in 1792 and has been restored and expanded. It has 10 rooms, including three bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms and two fireplaces.

The estate is on more than nine acres and it has a two-car garage, a hot tub and a pool with a one-bedroom pool house.

“As you tour through this classic Connecticut home, you can almost hear the scores to so many iconic Broadway hits. This was Sondheim’s retreat for decades, and there is a welcoming warmth here that will surely embrace the next owners,” Carolyn Klemm, co-listing agent of Klemm Real Estate, said in a news release.

See the full listing here.

Take a look inside the home. All photos are courtesy of Klemm Real Estate & Michael Bowman Photography.

That number has dropped from 36 in just four years, illustrating how rising home prices have tilted the balance of homeownership toward the wealthiest Americans.

Considering that half of the country’s households earn a median of $74,580 or less, these 14 states are some of the few places where middle-income earners can afford a typical home.

To calculate homeownership costs in each U.S. state, Bankrate assumes a 20% down payment, no homeowner association (HOA) fees or mortgage insurance and a 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate of 7.05%. Monthly mortgage payments for each state are based on median sale price data from online broker Redfin.

Here’s a look at the 14 states where homes are most affordable, based on the annual income needed to cover homeownership costs without spending more than 28% on housing.

1. Mississippi: $63,043
2. Ohio: $64,071
3. Arkansas: $64,714
4. Indiana: $65,143
5. Kentucky: $65,186
6. Iowa: $65,314
7. Oklahoma: $65,443
8. Michigan: $66,343
9. Missouri: $66,986
10. Louisiana: $67,886
11. Alabama: $69,514
12. Kansas: $72,343
13. North Dakota: $73,414
14. West Virginia: $74,957

Median-priced homes in these states cost $300,000 or less, a significant discount compared with the U.S. median price of $402,343.

While these 14 states may have cheaper properties available, there are trade-offs to consider, like higher rates of poverty and fewer high-paying jobs compared with the rest of the country. Many of them are among the most rural in the United States, and incomes in rural areas tend to be lower than in large urban cities.

In contrast, you’d need to make $197,057 to afford a median-priced home worth $739,200 in California — the highest amongst all states.

The median income needed to afford a home in the U.S. overall is $110,871 — up from $76,191 in 2020. This is largely due to a longstanding shortage of homes that was exacerbated by supply chain constraints early in the pandemic. Since 2020, median home prices have risen by 27%, while mortgage rates have nearly doubled.

However, price gains were more dramatic in states where there has been long-running demand for homes, like California and New York. Home prices in rural or Rust Belt states like Mississippi or Michigan have not increased as much as others, making them relatively more affordable for middle-class earners.

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According to a report by real estate website StreetEasy, the median asking rent in Manhattan for Feb. 2024 fell 4.6% compared to Feb. 2023. Five neighborhoods in particular fueled this dip, the site found:

What else has been driving the drop in Manhattan’s median rental prices? Slowing demand leads to higher vacancy rates in the borough, according to StreetEasy. In response to that, nearly one in five Manhattan rentals in February offered concessions like at least one month of free rent, an increase of 13% from 2023.

But that’s certainly not the case elsewhere in New York City. In Queens, media asking rent jumped 13.5% from Feb. 2023, StreetEasy found, up to $2,950. With the exception of a few neighborhoods where new developments are common, there is an increasingly limited rental inventory in Queens — triggering an increase in demand. In Feb. 2024, there were almost 4,000 fewer rentals on the market, the site found.

StreetEasy predicted landlords could start raising rents amid tougher competition for apartments. In popular neighborhoods like Long Island City, Astoria and Sunnyside, median asking rent was up 8.3% from 2023, and was more than 10% higher than the borough median.

To find more affordable units, apartment hunters are looking further and further east for deals, targeting places like Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Woodside, StreetEasy found.

In Brooklyn, the hottest markets continue to be along the waterfront, in places like Brooklyn Heights, Williamsburg, and DUMBO. But that hasn’t stopped median asking prices in places from East New York from going up as well, as prices jumped 18% to $2,950.

It comes as the New York City Council voted Tuesday to declare an ongoing housing emergency in the city, which extends the rent stabilization law that was set to expire on April 1. The emergency is defined as a citywide rental housing vacancy of less than five percent.

The latest survey shows a vacancy rate of just 1.4% in the city — the lowest number since 1968, according to the NYC Housing and Vacancy Survey. The last time the survey was conducted back in 2021, that number was at 4.4%.

Most experts consider a healthy vacancy rate to be between 5-8 percent. Extending the rent stabilization law blocks landlords from hitting tenants with sharp rent increases and protects the right to renew a lease.

The policy changes could help spur price competition for agents’ services and lower the cost for sellers who now typically cover the commission for the buyer’s agent, as well as that of their own.

In turn, more homebuyers could face pressure to pay for their agent’s commission out of pocket. That could be a challenge, especially for buyers already stretching financially to make a down payment and cover other upfront costs involved in buying a home.

Still, housing market watchers say it can’t be immediately determined how significantly any changes that potentially shift the cost of hiring an agent to a homebuyer will affect home sales. An adjustment period is likely as buyers, sellers and agents figure out how to navigate what comes next.

“I just think it’s too soon to tell,” said Greg Kling, an associate professor at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business who has taught and written about real estate taxation. “We’re going to either see prices are going up for buyers, or the market is going to correct itself.”

What’s driving the change?

As part of a settlement announced Friday, the National Association of Realtors agreed to make some policy changes in order to resolve multiple class-action lawsuits brought on behalf of home sellers across the U.S.

The trade group agreed to change its rules so that brokers who list a home for sale on any of the databases affiliated with the NAR are no longer allowed to include offers of compensation for a buyer’s agent.

This change is meant to address a central assertion in lawsuits brought against the NAR and several major real estate brokerages: that homeowners are being forced to pay artificially inflated agent commissions when they sell their home.

The trade group also agreed to require agents, or others working with a homebuyer, to enter into a written agreement with them. That is meant to ensure homebuyers know going in what their agent will charge them for their services.

If the court signs off on the settlement, the NAR would implement the rule changes in mid-July. Meanwhile, several real estate brokerage operators, including Anywhere Real Estate and Keller Williams, have reached separate settlement agreements that include provisions for more transparency about agent commissions for homebuyers and sellers.

“The residential real estate marketplace will take some time, perhaps several years, to fully process the implications of this settlement,” said Stephen Brobeck, senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America. “But over time more, agents will feel free to offer different types of compensation and more consumers will comparison shop and negotiate commissions in a more transparent marketplace.”

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What does this mean for homebuyers?

The key potential change centers on who foots the bill for real estate agents who represent homebuyers.

Currently, an agent or broker representing a home seller typically splits a commission — often around 5% to 6% of the home’s sale price — with the agent working on behalf of the homebuyer. Such an arrangement is known in the industry as “cooperative compensation.”

Under the proposed NAR settlement, a broker who represents a seller would no longer be allowed to include a blanket offer of cooperative compensation to a prospective buyer’s agent when they advertise the property on NAR-affiliated Multiple Listings Services, where a majority of U.S. homes are listed for sale. This is meant to remove any incentive from a buyer’s agent to steer their client away from home listings that don’t include a cooperative compensation offer.

However, the proposed rule change leaves it open for individual home sellers to negotiate such an arrangement with a buyer’s agent outside of the MLS platforms, essentially creating a loophole for agents to keep things as they are now.

Homebuyers could also ask the home seller for a concession that includes money to help cover the buyer’s agent compensation.

What happens if a seller doesn’t want to offer to pay the buyer’s agent commission? Homebuyers would be on the hook to shop around for an agent they can afford. They’d also have to sign a contract with an agent before they enlist their services, spelling out how much the agent’s compensation will be.

Having to factor in another expense into their homebuying budget could be challenging for homebuyers without a lot of savings or financial flexibility, making it tougher for them to navigate the housing market.

Still, many variables are at play when it comes to buying or selling a home, not the least of which is how motivated each party is to close the deal.

“If I’m a buyer and I know this seller is not going to reimburse my agent, then I may make a lower offer,” said Kling. “Now, obviously in a hot market, that strategy’s not going to work. But then in a hot market, I would have paid over listing price anyway.”

How might this affect home sellers?

The biggest change for homeowners looking to sell is they could push back against paying for buyer-agent commissions, which could translate into considerable savings.

Consider a seller who agrees to pay a 3% commission for their listing agent — instead of potentially twice that to cover the buyer’s agent, too — and sells their home for February’s national median sale price of $379,100. That homeowner would save roughly $11,373 paying only their agent’s commission.

“The settlement will also encourage more sellers to negotiate the compensation of their listing agents,” said Brobeck.

Still, sellers may still face some pressure to cover buyer-agent commissions.

The NAR built in an exception to its proposed rule change that would allow a buyer’s agent to see offers of cooperative compensation on home listings being advertised by their own brokerage.

That workaround could tempt buyer agents to “steer” clients away from any listings that don’t come with an upfront compensation offer, which could prompt sellers to offer more competitive commissions to be split between their agent and the buyer’s, analysts with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods wrote in a research note Monday.

“So long as steering incentives still exist, home sellers may be compelled to offer supracompetitive commissions to buyer agents in order to avoid steering,” the analysts wrote.

How might this change the real estate industry?

One concern is that by making it easier for sellers to opt out of making a cooperative compensation offer to buyer agents, some buyers will opt against hiring an agent or only doing so toward the end of the process after they’ve gone through most of the home hunt themselves. That could end up weeding out some “lower-performing brokers,” Kling said.

Another scenario is that alternative types of real estate business models will become more popular. This includes using discount brokers that will list a home for a flat fee of $500.

“They don’t offer any compensation to the buyer agent because the buyer agent negotiates their own conditions if they want more,” said Mike Downer, a broker associate with Coldwell Banker Realty in Naples, Florida. “That business model has been around for a long time.”

Instead, home buyers and sellers would be able to negotiate fees with their agents up front. If the $418 million legal agreement is approved by a federal court, consumer advocates predict the ranks of real estate agents will thin, further driving down commission prices.

“For years, anti-competitive rules in the real estate industry have financially harmed millions,” said Benjamin Brown, managing partner at the Cohen Milstein law firm and one of the settlement’s negotiators. “This settlement bring sweeping reforms that will help countless American families.”

The NAR acknowledged the pending settlement in a statement Friday and denied any wrongdoing.

“NAR has worked hard for years to resolve this litigation in a manner that benefits our members and American consumers,” said Nykia Wright, interim CEO of NAR, whose previous chief stepped down late last year amid fallout from a federal lawsuit.

“It has always been our goal to preserve consumer choice and protect our members to the greatest extent possible. This settlement achieves both of those goals,” Wright said in the statement.

Currently, a home seller is essentially locked into paying a brokerage fee for listing their property on a Multiple Listing Service, or MLS — usually 5% or 6% depending on their geographic area. Upon selling, half the fee goes to a listing agent representing the seller, while the buyer’s agent gets the other half.

The practice — which has become standard in the real estate industry in recent decades — led to accusations that some buyers’ agents were steering prospects toward more expensive homes. In November, a federal jury found the NAR and some major brokerages liable for colluding to inflate commission fees, ordering the trade group to pay a historic $1.78 billion in damages.

“It’s a bribe,” Doug Miller, an attorney and longtime consumer advocate in the real estate industry, said of the commission-splitting arrangements. “You’re paying someone to negotiate against you. There’s no good reason for sellers to pay buyer-brokers.”

If the settlement is approved, brokerage commissions would be stripped from MLS sites and opened up to negotiation with sellers, among a series of other changes. Home buyers, too, would also be able to negotiate fees more easily if they choose to sign up with a broker — though experts say the new arrangement may incentivize more buyers to forgo brokers entirely.

The new brokerage-fee changes would begin to take effect within months of the settlement’s approval. A preliminary hearing to approve the deal is slated to take place in coming weeks.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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The doxo report found that 40% of households in the U.S. have to pay a monthly mortgage and that the average monthly payment is $1,402. It was the most expensive common household bill, with Americans spending an average of $885,000,000,000 a year on it.

Doxo used U.S. Census mortgage data, inclusive of taxes and homeowners insurance, to rank the states with the highest and lowest average monthly mortgage payments.

The U.S. state with the highest average monthly mortgage: California

Not only is California the state with the second-highest average rent payment, but it also boasts the highest average monthly mortgage payment, according to doxo’s report.

The average monthly mortgage in the West Coast state is $2,576, which is $1,174 above the national average. The average cost of bills in California is 38.7% above the national average, according to a 2023 doxo report.

These numbers show that California is indeed one of the most expensive states to live in.

The cost of living in California is 38% higher than the national average and housing is 97% higher than the national average, according to RentCafe.

Some of the most expensive cities to live in the state include Sunnyvale, San Jose, and San Francisco. All of these cities have deep ties to the tech industry, which is a big reason for the higher cost of living.

Sunnyvale’s cost of living is 63% higher than the state average and 125% higher than the rest of the U.S. The city is home to tech giants like Google, LinkedIn and Oracle.

10 U.S. states with the highest average monthly mortgage payments

1. California
2. New Jersey
3. Hawaii
4. Massachusetts
5. New York
6. Connecticut
7. New Hampshire
8. Maryland
9. Washington
10. Colorado

New Jersey has the second-highest average monthly mortgage payments — residents of the state pay around $2,460. Driven in part by its proximity to New York City, New Jersey has pretty high home prices compared to other places in the U.S. The median home value in the state is $497,292.

New Jersey is home to two of America’s wealthiest counties, Hunterdon and Somerset, according to SmartAsset. Housing in the state is 30% higher than the national average, while the cost of living is 11% higher.

The U.S. state with the lowest average monthly mortgage: West Virginia

West Virginia has the lowest average monthly mortgage — the average payment is $961, according to doxo. Residents of the state also pay the lowest average monthly rent.

The most expensive city in the state is Clarksburg, where the cost of living is 5% higher than the state average. The cheapest major city in West Virginia is Charleston, with the cost of living 5% lower than the state average and 14% lower than the national average, according to RentCafe.

West Virginia is poor in personal income and overall economic development. according to Britannica. The median household income in the U.S. is $74,580, while in West Virginia, it is $55,217, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

10 U.S. states with the lowest average monthly mortgage

1. West Virginia
2. Arkansas
3. Alabama
4. Indiana
5. Kentucky
6. Mississippi
7. Oklahoma
8. Ohio
9. New Mexico
10. Iowa

Arkansas ranked as the No. 2 state with the lowest average monthly mortgages. Households pay an average of $1,022 a month, according to doxo. The state also has the second-lowest average monthly rent payment in the U.S.

While Arkansas has a lower mortgage rate than other places in the U.S., the sales tax is higher.

According to SmartAsset, Arkansas is also considered a tax-friendly state. The state does not tax Social Security retirement benefits and property taxes are among the lowest in the U.S.

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Data out from the popular real estate listing site StreetEasy is highlighting a healthy list of neighborhoods favorable to home buyers right now.

What makes a good neighborhood? StreetEasy said their top neighborhoods have the most frequent price cuts for buyers, largest gaps between asking price and sale price, and greatest increase in days on market compared to a year ago.

“StreetEasy data shows there are neighborhoods across the city and at every price point where buyers are likely to have the upper hand right now,” the real estate company said last week.

Big Apple buyers, StreetEasy says, can expect more wiggle room to negotiate. They also said buyers should feel less pressure to fork over more money than they are comfortable paying.

Top 5 Buyer Neighborhoods With Median Asking Price > $1 Million

• Greenwich Village
• East Village
• Upper East Side
• DUMBO
• Bushwick

As of January, three neighborhoods (Upper East Side, East Village, and Greenwich Village) have median asking prices from $1.4 to $2 million. The current citywide average is just under $1.1 million.

Greenwich Village homes may generally come with higher prices tags — the average asking price is just shy of $2 million — the neighborhood boasts a surprising statistic. The Manhattan hotspot sees more than 12% of listings drops their price in an effort to entice buyers.

Meanwhile, in a village not so far away, average prices may look more appealing to certain buys. With an average asking price around $1.4 million, the East Village has home generally lingering on the market a little while longer — reflecting a 1-in-10 chance buyers may find a reduced price.

Top 5 Buyer Neighborhoods With Median Asking Price < $1 Million

• Brighton Beach
• Bay Ridge
• Sheepshead Bay
• Midtown East
• Flushing

Neighborhoods like Sheepshead Bay, StreetEasy points out, have a lower average asking price than others. The medium for the southern Brooklyn neighborhood sits around $565,000 and a “typical home” sells for under the initial asking price.

In Flushing, the only Queens neighborhood to make the list, the real market is slightly more competitive. StreetEasy says an influx of new homes has helped tick the average price up. Still, the borough generally has more affordable options than Manhattan and Brooklyn.

One takeaway for buyers the site wants to point out — mortgage rates should stay below last year’s record highs.

Feinstein and her late husband, Richard C. Blum, purchased the French Renaissance revival-style home in 2001. The 1.8-acre estate in the Spring Valley area has three bedrooms in the main house, an additional bedroom above the carriage house, a three-car garage and a one-bedroom apartment.

It has an oversized pool, a pool cabana and changing rooms near a rear garden.

“This is one of the most special properties I’ve ever listed in my career. It’s very hard to find in D.C.,” Ben Roth of Washington Fine Properties told News4.  

One of the favorite rooms of the late senator was a breakfast room off the kitchen, where she used to enjoy looking out at the trees. “She really enjoyed that room every day,” Roth said. 

The home’s Red Room is where Feinstein is believed to have often worked. There is another room, The Great Room, with a wood-burning fireplace that leads into a garden room that overlooks the pool. “It’s a really, really comfortable room,” Roth said.

“There is a famous story in a couple about a time Senator Clinton and Senator Obama meeting here [the Great Room] Senator Feinstein invited them over so that they could have a separate meeting, as we entered into the 2008 election cycle,” Roth said. 

According to Roth, the president of American University resided in the home years before Feinstein and Blum purchased the property.

“I think what really attracted them to the property is the privacy, the land and the way you can entertain within the property. You know, everything flows inside,” Roth said. 

Roth said the luxury real estate market tends to follow political cycles, with rising demand as we get closer to the November presidential election. 

Feinstein made history as San Francisco’s first female mayor and served in Congress for over 30 years. She died on Sept. 29, 2023, at age 90. In addition to her D.C. home, Feinstein owned properties in California, Aspen, Tahoe and Hawaii. 

You’d never have known it from Barton’s Instagram account. At the time, in 2017, she was a freelance photographer — gaining followers by posting images of their living space that made their home life look aspirational.

She and Herrmann, a software engineer, realized they could bottle up her aesthetic into pre-made photo filters and sell them. Her followers could make their lives look Instagram-worthy — no fancy cameras or editing programs required.

That idea is now Tezza, a Los Angeles-based company that makes collage kits, apparel and its claim-to-fame photo editing app. The business, which the husband-and-wife duo run as co-CEOs, brought in $26.5 million in sales last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

Tezza has been profitable almost since its inception, the founders say, due to its lean business model. The editing features are time-consuming to make, but once they’re done, they bring in relatively passive revenue, giving Herrmann and Barton time and funds to create more features and expand Tezza into a larger lifestyle brand.

“There’s a way to be making money while you sleep,” Barton, 32, tells CNBC Make It.

A ‘naïve’ trial-and-error process

Barton used the name Tezza for her side hustles while attending the University of Utah. She worked as a wedding photographer and content creator for brands like Urban Outfitters, helping her build a following before influencing was considered a full-time career.

She and Herrmann got married, then moved to New York in 2016. Barton wanted to combine her side hustles into something that helped non-professional creatives explore new kinds of art, but didn’t know where to start.

Together, the couple tried selling books, and invested in a denim jacket line that never officially launched. As those early business ventures struggled, they noticed that lots of people were engaging with social media posts of Barton’s life, including a collage wall of photographs and artwork above their bed.

In response, they started designing and selling photo collage kits — made up of printed quote cards, artwork and photography — so people could decorate their homes like Barton and Herrmann’s studio.

The collage kits went viral over the next year, but they were costly and time-consuming, and the physical packages took up a lot of space in their $2,800-per-month studio apartment.

“We just naively thought, ‘People are into this, [so] we’ll make them and they’ll keep flying off the shelves,” Herrmann, 31, says. “But with a physical product, we had to buy inventory, we had to fulfill orders and ship them out. We knew if we kept growing, we’d eventually need a warehouse.”

‘Done is better than perfect’

One day, Barton realized something: Her followers didn’t just like the content of her photos. They liked how the photos looked. With their pre-owned cameras and editing tools, the couple didn’t have to spend any money to build a set of pre-made filters available for purchase on Adobe Lightroom.

After selling the filters through Lightroom for 15 months, Barton and Herrmann launched the Tezza app — with bright red, chunky fonts to stand out from its clean-cut competitors — in June 2018.

For four years, the couple and a single assistant were responsible for Tezza’s product design, social media presence and marketing. Today, the company currently has 14 employees, including Barton and Herrmann.

Tezza is best known as a photo editing app, currently ranking between competitors Lightroom and VSCO on Apple’s app store. Barton and Herrmann want to expand the brand into physical spaces, they say: They design and sell apparel, for example, and launched a physical magazine during New York’s fall fashion week last year.

But the app is still the company’s main source of income. Its free version offers a limited number of filters and editing tools, and users who want more pay either $5.99 or $9.99 per month for tiered access to Tezza’s full photo and video editing suite. That includes new filters which Barton and Herrmann continue to develop today.

Together, they make a good team, they say: Barton’s perfectionist streak from her freelance photography days balances out against Herrmann’s mantra that “done is better than perfect.”

“You learn so much [more] by just getting stuff out,” Barton says. “Being on social media, people will just tell you what they like and don’t like. Then, you can improve as you go and let go of the fear of launching something.”

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The annual report analyzed the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas and the final result is a list with half of the top metros in California.

“These markets generally fall into two camps: affordable metros in the Midwest and Northeast, and high-priced Western metros,” Hannah Jones, Realtor.com’s Senior Economic Research Analyst, told Newsweek.

The Midwest and Northeast markets on the list are expected to stay popular this year because they offer more affordable options than other places in the U.S.

“These areas promise more bang for your buck and desirable quality of life amenities,” Jones added. Though affordability is still an issue for many.

Realtor.com explains that while sales and prices are expected to increase from last year, they will remain below pre-pandemic levels.

No. 1 U.S. metro area to buy a house in 2024: Toledo

Toledo, Ohio is the best city in the U.S. to buy a house in 2024, according to Realtor.com.

The sale price of homes currently on the market is expected to climb by 14% year-over-year, while the median sale price of existing homes set to go on the market in 2024 is expected to jump by 8.3% year-over-year.

The average Toledo home value is $113,033, up 5.6% over the past year, according to Zillow,

The Ohio city is a long-time hub for the auto-manufacturing and glass industries, and is home to Jeep headquarters.

10 best U.S. metro areas to buy a house in 2024

1. Toledo, OH
2. Oxnard/Thousand Oaks/ Ventura, CA
3. Rochester, NY
4. San Diego/Chula Vista/Carlsbad, CA
5. Riverside/San Bernardino/Ontario, CA
6. Bakersfield, CA
7. Springfield, MA
8. Worcester, MA-CT
9. Grand Rapid/Kentwood, MI
10. Los Angeles/Long Beach/Anaheim, CA

The No. 2 best place in the U.S. to buy a house is Oxnard/Thousand Oaks/Ventura, California.

The California metropolitan area is expected to see existing home sales climb by 18% year-over-year. The median sale price of existing homes is expected to jump by 3.3%, according to the report.

The average Oxnard/Thousand Oaks/Ventura home value is $833,491, up 3.0% over the past year, according to Zillow.

Considered part of the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, Oxnard, Thousand Oaks, and Ventura offer residents access to miles of uncrowded beaches and quality housing.

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StreetEasy on Tuesday released its 2024 Neighborhoods to Watch list, ranking communities based on search traffic to the website among buyers and renters from 2022 to 2023.

This year, according to StreetEasy’s research, Queens, which saw rental and buying real estate records broken in 2023, dominates the list. Attributing that meteoric rise to a boom in new developments in recent years, and affordability, StreetEasy predicts Manhattan will start to regain its popularity, especially in spots like SoHo and the Upper East Side.

10 to watch in 2024

1. Ridgewood

Named the fourth-coolest neighborhood on the planet in a 2022 Time Out survey, Ridgewood, a Queens neighborhood northeast of Bushwick, Brooklyn, comes in No. 1. Buyer and renter searches in Ridgewood jumped 10.7% from 2022 to 2023, reflecting its growing popularity as an alternative to nearby Bushwick and Williamsburg. The median asking rent in Ridgewood was $3,000 in 2023: 31% lower than $4,400 in Williamsburg, and 8% lower than $3,250 in Bushwick. The bar and restaurant scene is also quite impressive, along with the neighborhood’s abundant galleries and bookstores.

2. Hunters Point (Long Island City)

Coming in at No. 2 is Hunters Point, a sub-neighborhood in the southern part of Long Island City, Queens. According to StreetEasy, many of the properties are new condo buildings, where the $4,200 median asking rent is more in line with Manhattan than other parts of Queens. Gantry Plaza State Park, a 12-acre green space along the East River, also sweetens the pot with its breathtaking views of Manhattan.

“Searches in Hunters Point rose 9% year-over-year, suggesting buyers and renters are drawn to the neighborhood’s amenity-rich condos, waterfront location, and proximity to Manhattan — a commute as quick as one stop on the E, F, or 7 train,” StreetEasy says.

3. Hudson Square (SoHo)

This growing sub-neighborhood of SoHo saw searches increase 8% from 2022 to 2023. Located in the western part of SoHo between the West Village and Tribeca, Hudson Square was officially added to the StreetEasy neighborhood database in 2017, after a rezoning in 2013 led to rapid development in the area.

StreetEasy writes, “In just the past year, Hudson Square’s median asking price ballooned by 20.7% to nearly $3.5 million, while its median rent rose by 7.2% to $7,500, making it the most expensive neighborhood on our list. A slew of luxury condo and rental buildings, many constructed within the past five years, are propping up the neighborhood’s prices. Large employers such as Google and Disney have also set up shop in Hudson Square, further attracting residents and developers. Notable spots old and new include the legendary Ear Inn, the SoHo Playhouse, Pier 40 at Hudson River Park, and the towering, five-star Dominick Hotel. Apart from shiny new condos and office spaces, Hudson Square also contains the Charlton–King–Vandam Historic District, home to the city’s largest concentration of Federal-style and Greek Revival rowhouses built in the early 19th century.”

4. Jackson Heights

Queens takes another top five spot in Jackson Heights, which saw buyer and renter searches on StreetEasy increase 5.4%. It’s one of the globe’s most diverse neighborhoods, in terms of population, restaurants and more, and offers better bang for your buck. StreetEasy reports the median asking price is under $400,000. Plus, the commute is short.

Another plus, according to StreetEasy, “In the heart of the neighborhood, residents can enjoy the 34th Avenue Open Street, a 1.3-mile stretch of car-free space (the longest in the city!) with community events all year round. Travers Park, renovated in 2020, offers a spacious lawn and play areas for all age groups. Buyers can expect co-ops with ornate pre-war architecture in and around the neighborhood’s historic district, as well as single or multi-family homes with potential rental income. The median asking rent in Jackson Heights in 2023 was $2,286 — the second-lowest median rent on the list and 15% below the borough median of $2,700.”

5. Sunset Park

Sunset Park is the highest-ranked Brooklyn neighborhood on this year’s list, coming in at No. 5 overall with a 4.7% annual rise in searches. Located between Bay Ridge, Borough Park, and Greenwood, this waterfront neighborhood had a median asking rent of just $2,400 in 2023 — 27% below the borough median — making it a relatively affordable option for renters, according to StreetEasy. Incredible views of the Manhattan skyline from Sunset Park, the waterfront Bush Terminal Park and a bustling local Chinatown scene are other features that make it desirable.

According to StreetEasy, these days, the area is most known for Industry City, a 35-acre, 16-building complex of office and industrial space, in addition to shops, restaurants, and bars — the result of a $450 million redevelopment beginning in the 2010s. Though Industry City is technically located in adjacent Greenwood (No. 8 on our list), it’s widely associated with Sunset Park given the proximity and blurring boundary lines of the two neighborhoods. Other highlights include a local Chinatown (the fastest-growing Chinatown in Brooklyn), the waterfront Bush Terminal Park, and the neighborhood’s namesake park with killer views of the Manhattan skyline.

Rounding out the list are Kew Gardens, Queens (No. 6), Woodside, Queens (7), Greenwood, Brooklyn (8), Flatbush, Brooklyn (9) and Carnegie Hill, Upper East Side. Learn more about each of those neighborhoods here.

According to property records, Hill bought the mansion for $6.9 million back in May 2022. The property is located in a gated community of Southwest Ranches, a suburban town 15 miles southwest of Fort Lauderdale and about 22 miles northwest of Miami.

The 9,300-square-foot European-inspired-styled home features seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms and boasts stellar amenities, including a game room, recording studio, movie room and a massive pool.

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A video posted on Hill’s YouTube channel in June 2022 shows him giving a tour of the property, showing off the mini golf course, bounce house and a reportedly NBA regulation basketball court.

“This house right here is definitely one of best I’ve ever stayed in in my life and probably one of the best I’ve seen,” Hill said.

The cause of Wednesday’s fire was under investigation. Hill’s family was inside the house but was safe and uninjured.

Fire officials said the blaze was contained to a room but there was smoke and water damage throughout the house.

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The Upper West Side townhouse where MaCaulay Culkin’s character Kevin McCallister beat up the “Sticky Bandits” in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” is now up for sale, according to Zillow. The 4-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom home on West 95th between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West dates back to 1900, the listing states, and looks quite a bit different than it was portrayed in the 1992 Christmas classic.

In the film, the house owned by Kevin’s uncle is gutted and under heavy renovations. But today, the 4,776-square-foot home is completely updated with seemingly new furnishings, pictures on the Zillow listing show.

Now, all this does not come even remotely cheap. The listing price for the townhouse was $6.7 million, according to the Vandenberg real estate agency.

And that does not come with any gun-rigged doors, gasoline-filled toilets or swinging paint cans inside.

In 2019, Jesse Wig, Adam Colucci and Dan Spanovich bought an abandoned high school in Homestead, Pennslyvania. The trio bought Bowtie High for $100,000 and converted it into a 31-unit apartment building.

During the renovation of Bowtie High, the school across the street went up for sale, so the partners jumped into a second venture together and bought the Schwab School in for $90,000 in October 2020.

“My partners and I really enjoy taking these buildings from nothing into something,” Spanovich tells CNBC Make It. “Schwab was a building that a lot of people in the community had looked at and had come to the conclusion that it just couldn’t be done. That challenge is really what drives my partners and I.”

Before the trio purchased the building, it was a manual training school named after Charles M. Schwab, an American steel magnate born and raised in Pennsylvania. The Schwab Vocational School closed in 1980, and the building has been abandoned on and off since then, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The trio started the renovation of the Schwab building in April 2022. Spanovich says that the school was in much worse shape than Bowtie High. The project took 18 months to complete.

“When we first entered the building, there were trees growing on the first floor and water had leaked down from the top floor,” Spanovich says. “It was in deplorable condition and had much more structural work that needed to be done.”

The renovation included changing all the windows and converting the top floor of the building — the school’s gym and auditorium — into eight two-story apartments.

Wig, Colucci, and Spanovich went into the project with a budget of $3.2 million and, in the end, spent about $4.5 million renovating the Schwab School. That amount includes a $3.25 million mortgage and $1.25 million of the trio’s own money.

They were able to earn $5,000 of it back by selling an old pickup truck they found in the basement of the abandoned building.

Just like with Bowtie High, the trio wanted to take advantage of any state and federal tax credits available to them. If their application for federal tax credits is approved, the partners will receive around $800,000.

On the state level, the Pennsylvania state tax credits are a lottery system and the partners are patiently waiting for the results.

After more than a year of work, the converted school is now a 33-apartment building with five two-bedroom units and 28 one-bedroom units.

Rent in the building ranges from $950 to $1,450 for one bedroom and $1,550 to $1,950 for the two-bedroom apartments.

Since leasing started this spring, the building is at 85% occupancy and turning a profit, Spanovich says.

Because Bowtie High and the Schwab School are across the street, the two are sister buildings.

Residents can take advantage of the amenities in both spaces, which include a double-decker garage, a rooftop deck, a basketball court and a gym.

With their second project together now complete, Spanovich says there are currently no plans for the trio to take on another one. “For the time being, the band is on sort of a hiatus,” he says.

“Something will happen, we just don’t know when.”

Wig has since bought another school in Homestead and Spanovich has done the same in a different area of the state.

Spanovich and Colucci purchased a former brewery together and are considering turning the space into apartments.

“The best part about these is bringing these old buildings back to life,” Spanovich says.

“The feeling that you get when you walk into this building, knowing what it looked like before and knowing that people said it just couldn’t be done, and seeing life in the building… It’s the best feeling in the world.”

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Gen Z and millennials are “hacking” the housing market as high prices and interest rates make affordability difficult.

The term “house hacking” refers to the practice of renting out a portion of your home or an entire property for an additional stream of income.

Almost 4 in 10, 39%, of recent homebuyers say the practice represents a “very” or “extremely” important opportunity, according to a new report by housing market site Zillow. That share is up eight percentage points in the past two years.

Younger generations are especially keen on the idea. In Zillow’s survey, more than half of millennial, 55%, and Gen Z home buyers, 51%, expressed positive views on house hacking.

Zillow polled more than 6,500 recent homebuyers between April 2023 and July 2023. Respondents were adults who moved to a new primary residence they purchased in the past two years.

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The additional income from house hacking can “help make those dreams of homeownership penciled into reality, given that there are so many affordability constraints on the current market,” said Manny Garcia, senior population scientist at Zillow. 

The median sale price for a house in the U.S. was $413,874 in October, up 3.5% from a year ago, according to a report by real estate site Redfin.

The average rate for 30-year mortgages hit 8% in October, the highest level seen in 23 years, according to Bankrate. To compare, rates bottomed out slightly below 3% in January 2021.

While renting out portions of a newly owned property can help offset higher costs of a home, potential buyers will need to make a few considerations beforehand.

‘You need to earn six figures to afford a starter home’

As home prices and interest rates have risen, potential homebuyers need a salary of $114,627 to afford a median-priced house in the U.S., a recent report by Redfin found. Redfin’s analysis used the median home price of $420,000 in August.

“In many places, you need to earn six figures to afford a starter home, so it makes sense for young people who are seeing how expensive homeownership is to want options,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin. 

With few small starter homes available, a millennial or Gen Z buyer may have to jump on a more expensive home than they would have wanted, Fairweather said.

“Having the option to rent or have a roommate is important in an environment where there just aren’t that many small homes for sale,” she said. 

House hacking may help those homeowners by providing them additional income for expenses or even help cover the mortgage.

More apartment buildings are available

The opportunity to house hack may be short lived. In some markets, new apartment buildings are under construction that will have available units next year, especially smaller, one bedrooms. 

Rental market inflation, which had been stubbornly high for much of 2023, has cooled due to new inventory, pushing the rental vacancy rate up to 6.6% in the third quarter, the highest level since the first quarter of 2021, according to Redfin data. 

“We’ve already seen rent prices stabilize, especially for single occupancy rentals,” Fairweather said. It’s going to be harder to rent out a room as more rentals become affordable, she added.

Despite the growth in available apartments, the U.S. is facing a “massive shortage of housing, especially affordable housing options,” said Zillow’s Garcia. 

“If you’re pricing your home competitively, renting out can be a reliable source of income because there’s no shortage of people looking for a place to live,” he said. 

What to consider before ‘house hacking’

While renting out a portion of your home can serve as an additional income, interested buyers would still need to gather a sufficient down payment and proof of income to show they can already afford the monthly payments.

“If you’re going to rely on rental income in order to qualify, you’ll have a problem,” said Melissa Cohn, mortgage banker and regional vice president of William Raveis Mortgage.

“They need to prove they can afford the mortgage without the rent,” she said.

Banks won’t consider potential rental income and they will require the buyer to be able to qualify for the financing without the support of potential rental income, she said.

There is another risk to buying a bigger house with the intention of renting out part of it: You could wind up stuck with an expensive mortgage and a room you can’t rent out.

If renting out part of your home — or the entire property — is optimal for you, do your research on what the current rate is for your type of home. Consult with rental managers who can help draft leases and give you a good estimate on the going rate in your area, said Garcia. 

“There’s a lot of homework to be done to make sure that you’re pricing correctly when you’re posting your unit for rent,” Garcia said. 

Additionally, keep in mind that there is a big chance the house you are considering may be subject to local ordinances on renting or homeowners association regulations.

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Now in its place stands The Wonder Lofts, a luxury residential building with 83 loft-style condominiums. The name is a fitting homage to the building’s previous life.

The development team includes Prism Capital Partners, Angelo Gordon and Parkwood Development. The project also included work from a local New Jersey firm, MVMK Architecture + Design and Workshop/APD, a New York City-based interior design studio.

The Wonder Lofts includes two- to five-bedroom apartments with about 1,200 square feet to 2,700 square feet of living space. The starting price for these units range between $1.899 million and $2.399 million.

Since units in the building became available for sale in May 2021, 72 apartments have been sold and 11 are still available.

Robert Fourniadis, senior vice president – residential of Prism Capital Partners, tells CNBC Make It that not having any studios or one-bedrooms in the building was a conscious choice. The team wanted buyers who wanted to put down roots in the New Jersey city.

“We decided to go for a different part of the market,” Fourniadis says. “It’s a one-of-a-kind lifestyle experience unlike anything else you can find up and down the Gold Coast.”

There is one apartment in the building that stands out. Developers describe the penthouse unit as “the cherry on top of a wedding cake” — and it’s currently on the market for $3,499,000.

The 3-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom apartment was designed with enough space for a dining area, an eat-in kitchen and a 1,895 square-foot terrace. It has massive windows on three sides, allowing you to see views from the Palisades in New Jersey to midtown Manhattan in New York City.

“One of the things we wanted to do is bring the outdoor in, so it’s wrapped in glass but still private since you sit on top of the building,” Daniel P. Winschuh, managing director at Parkwood Development, says. “You’ve got these great exposures and it’s an easy transition from indoor to outdoor living.”

The penthouse comes with a slew of luxury amenities

The building has an outdoor lounge with an infinity-edge swimming pool overlooking parts of Manhattan, a bar below the restored iconic water tower, a billiards room, an entertainment kitchen, a children’s art center, a playroom, a gym and a fully equipped studio for Pilates and yoga.

If that doesn’t sound like enough, the building has a two-story lobby; a concierge; a pet grooming area; an onsite, covered parking garage; a screening room; rooftop cabanas; a laundry room; and bike storage.

Winschuh says he and the team worked with the city to keep certain parts of the building and the history of the Wonder Bread Factory intact while making modifications for residential living.

“The city really wanted to maintain it and felt that it [the building] was part of their heritage and part of the fabric of who Hoboken is,” Winschuh says.

The Wonder Lofts retained the factory’s original archways, high ceilings, 80-foot-tall chimney stack and large windows.

Because of the unique layout of the original building, no two units are alike. The apartments were each designed with private outdoor terraces, walk-in closets, large kitchen islands, separate laundry rooms, workspaces and abundant storage.

“While we have this beautiful historic building, we wanted to make sure the living experience was contemporary,” Winschuh says. “So it has all the modern amenities and furnishings to provide an elevated lifestyle.”

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A private island in the San Francisco Bay hit the real estate market this month for $25 million. 

While that amount of money may buy you a nice piece of luxury real estate in the Bay Area, Red Rock Island currently has no structures, electricity or running water. 

The 5.5-acre island is located near the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, just north of San Francisco. 

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The piece of land is the only privately owned island in the San Francisco Bay. The island spans across three Bay Area counties, located where Marin, San Francisco and Contra Costa counties meet.

Prospective buyers will find a beach on the east side of the island and a rocky shoreline to the west and south. 

“This extraordinary property offers unrivaled natural beauty, historical significance, and endless potential for the discerning buyer seeking a truly unique and prestigious trophy investment,” the listing reads.

The island was previously for sale in 2015 for $5 million, the Associated Press reported. 

Christie’s International Real Estate, which is listing the island, noted this is the first time the property has been listed on the MLS, despite previous unofficial efforts to sell.

The island was purchased in 1964 for just under $50,000 by David Glickman, who transferred ownership to the father of Brock Durning, who is currently selling the property.

The real estate company said Durning lives in Alaska and hasn’t been to the island in 22 years. He hopes to use the money from the island’s sale to care for his aging mother, according to the real estate agency.

Red Rock Island was used in the 19th century for mining manganese, the red mineral that gave the island its reddish color and name. 

While Red Rock Island is the only private island for sale in the San Francisco Bay, this isn’t the first time an island in the region was up for grabs.

Earlier this year, an island in Solano County’s Grizzly Bay was listed for $75 million. The property near Suisun City, named Point Bunker, spans 50-acres.

In May 2008, after two years of saving as much as possible, he sold all of his possessions, including a three-bedroom townhouse in Redmond, Washington and embarked on a two-year sabbatical to sail the world.

“[I thought to myself] after two years, I’m going to be ready to come back and know exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life, and I just never came back,” Trautman tells CNBC Make It.

Trautman purchased a 53-foot sailboat called the SV Delos for $398,000 with a $81,000 down payment. It has three cabins and two bathrooms. He made his final payment on the boat in 2019.

When Trautman set sail, he had two years of savings, or about $48,000. It ran out three different times, he says. He maxed out his credit cards, cashed out his 401K and took odd jobs while traveling the world to survive, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

Then, in 2011, while docked in New Zealand, he met his now wife, Karin. The two started filming their adventures on the boat together and launched their YouTube Channel, Sailing SV Delos.

“It was not supposed to be a full-time job. It was just going to sustain us and help fund the trip a little bit. And now it’s all we do,” Trautman says.

The couple uses the money they make from their YouTube channel and crowdfunding to sustain their lifestyle.

Living on a sailboat does have its challenges

The sailboat has a cabin in the back that serves as Trautman’s and his wife’s bedroom, a cabin in the front of the vessel for his daughter, and a third cabin for guests The boat also has a kitchen area with a convection oven, dishwasher and toaster.

“We have many modern appliances and conveniences that you might find in your own house. Everything’s just kind of on a smaller scale,” Trautman says.

Though the SV Delos boasts three refrigerators that allow the family to store a lot of meat or fish, a big problem is fresh fruit and vegetables. The couple can only keep enough to last a few weeks before they have to go back to land for more. Which is a lot harder than it seems.

“We live and die by the weather out here, so the weather determines everything we do,” Trautman says. “This life is often uncomfortable. It’s way more work than living in a house.”

During a typical shopping trip in town, the couple spent about $500 on groceries that should last them between several weeks and months, depending on what’s perishable and what’s not. In addition to groceries, the couple spends about $1,900 a month on boat insurance, maintenance, fuel and utilities. They also pay $250 a month for satellite Wi-Fi.

Since he started traveling the world by boat, Trautman has visited over 45 countries and has racked up 70,000 ocean miles.

The couple briefly moved back to living on land when Karin was seven months pregnant. They moved to Sweden, where Karin’s family lives and where Sierra was born. When Sierra turned four months old, the now family of three returned to life on the sailboat.

“It was a huge change to our lifestyle, but very rewarding. We can sit on the back of the boat and see the sharks, the rays, the puffer fish, the dolphins and whales,” Trautman said. “She’s able to see all these things for real instead of just in a book.” 

To stay connected with their family members on land, Trautman says they have their loved ones visit them when they are docked. For example, his parents came to see them in the Caribbean and Karin’s family visited them in the Philippines.

Now that Sierra is four years old, Trautman says they plan on staying in French Polynesia for the next year but are considering moving back to Sweden full-time so their daughter can grow up around Karin’s culture and family.

“This trip changed my DNA at the core where I’m a different person than I was when I started,” Trautman says. “I have a different view on priorities and what’s important in my life. The time that I have to spend with friends and family and loved ones is what matters.”

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New to the list is an unnamed buyer, who just purchased the most expensive home ever sold in San Diego County for a cool $44.1 million, according to the San Diego County Assessor’s office.

The sale of the home at 2940 Sandy Lane, Del Mar, broke the county’s previous record, the 2020 sale of another Del Mar home to Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his then-wife, Melinda, for $43 million, County Clerk Jordan Marks said. Brian Guiltinan and his team brokered the sale and represented the buyer.

“Brian and the Guiltinan Group broke their own record with the Sandy Lane residential purchase in the City of Del Mar for a record-setting $44.1 million, making it the highest residential home purchase in San Diego County history,” Marks said.

The home was sold to Sandy LN, LLC of Delaware, according to the grand deed approved on Oct. 31, likely to obscure the identity of the buyer.

In approving the deed, Marks recognized the Guiltinan Group with a certificate for “San Diego County’s Highest Residential Sale.”

“I’m thrilled to be part of this landmark sale,” Guiltinan said. “It not only underlines the enduring charm of Del Mar’s oceanfront properties but the real significance to this property is the fact it’s over an acre on the sand and one of only a few along the Coastline in California and the largest in Del Mar on the sand.”

The Sandy Lane home is reportedly just a handful of properties away from the home sold to the Gates’ in 2020. NBC 7 has not been able to independently verify the address of the Gates’ Del Mar mansion.

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However, there are 15 major U.S. cities where starter homes can be found for under $230,000, on average, according to a recent analysis by painting services company Five Star Painting. That’s far less than $431,000 — the median price for a home in the U.S., according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.

Starter homes commonly refer to relatively modest houses that are affordable for first-time homebuyers, or more generally, homebuyers with lower incomes. In this context, the study defines a starter home as a single-family home, townhouse or condo that is 1,850 square feet or less. Mobile homes, land lots and multi-family home listings were excluded.

Assuming a 10% down payment, buyers would need incomes around $56,500, excluding other debts, to afford a $230,000 home, according to online realtor Zillow’s affordability calculator. Of course, home prices vary by region, so buyers earning less than that could potentially afford a starter home in certain places.

Based on Redfin real estate listings of the 50 largest U.S. cities, the following 15 markets had the lowest average starter home price, as of August 2023.

1. Detroit: $83,500
2. Cleveland: $109,650
3. Memphis, Tennessee: $142,450
4. Milwaukee: $142,900
5. St. Louis: $149,500
6. Hartford, Connecticut: $164,474
7. Birmingham, Alabama: $166,055
8. Buffalo, New York: $179,900
9. Kansas City, Missouri: $187,950
10. Louisville, Kentucky: $199,615
11. Baltimore: $202,289
12. Indianapolis: $211,517
13. Pittsburgh: $214,589
14. Cincinnati, Ohio: $219,900
15. Oklahoma City: $227,705

Why certain regions are more affordable

Detroit’s real estate market has recovered somewhat since the city declared bankruptcy 10 years ago, but home prices remain well below the U.S. median.

A few reasons contribute to lower homes prices in Detroit, including a declining population and relatively high number of distressed home sales, which is when an owner is forced to sell their home, usually because they can’t afford the mortgage payments. 

Like Detroit, Cleveland is a rust-belt city with a longstanding decline in population. As with most U.S. cities in the last three years, home prices in Cleveland have been on the rise, but they still remain well below the U.S. median.

Generally speaking, the most affordable homes are found in smaller cities that aren’t major coastal hubs. This includes Midwestern cities like Indianapolis, but also Southern cities like Birmingham, Alabama.

In contrast, starter homes in San Francisco cost a median of $999,000, according to the study, making it the least affordable place to become a homeowner. At that price, it’s not really a starter home at all, since homebuyers earning the U.S. median income of $74,580 wouldn’t be able to afford it without significant cash savings.

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Real estate listings website StreetEasy said that more than one in three sellers in the five boroughs were taking their homes off the market without finding a buyer, the survey conducted by The Harris Poll found. Sellers were also more likely to get stressed about putting a home on the market than most other major life events, like planning a wedding (76% said selling a home was more stressful), finding a job (70%) or getting a root canal (65%).

Researchers said buyers can be turned off if the asking price is even slightly higher than comparable listings, according to the survey, which also found that homes are less less likely to sell the longer they sit on the market.

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Chances of selling also drop if the owners try to sell it themselves, without the help of a realtor, the survey found.

There are a myriad of reasons why a seller may remove a listing before the home sold that have little to nothing to do with how it performed on the market, StreetEasy stated. It may have to do with how tricky the city’s market dynamics are, deciding not to sell after all, or other personal reasons.

NYC real estate has never never been an easy landscape: Homes in the five boroughs take nearly six times longer to sell on average, with the median house spending 89 days on the market before entering a contract, the survey stated. That’s compared to the national average of just 15 days.

Homes in the city are also considerably more expensive than the rest of the country: The median asking price for a NYC home was just under $1.1 million in Sept. 2023, according to StreetEasy, which is more than triple the national average. That means any home that is considered well-priced has intense competition — giving sellers the upper hand, as they are more likely to receive offers close to the asking price. Homes sold in September received more than 96% of the initial asking price, according to the Harris Poll.

Given the demand for housing in the city and the low inventory, many sellers are able to hold firm in their pricing rather than quickly reduce, the survey found — especially in Manhattan, where just 15% of sellers lowered their prices, the survey found.

There’s a new plan to turn Manhattan’s famed Flatiron Building from office space into residential condos, according to the New York Times.

The landmark building has sat mostly empty since 2019. Earlier this year, it was the subject of a multi-million dollar auction that gained attention after the initial bidder allegedly failed to cough up the $19 million deposit necessary to keep the building.

Earlier in October, the Brodsky Organization bought a stake in the historic building, recognizable by its triangle shape, and announced the plans with the co-owners.

According to the report, it will be able to house about 40 residences. But don’t expect anybody to be moving in soon: Due to the necessary renovations and approvals from the city, it’s likely there won’t be any residents for another three years.

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said the transformation of the 22-story building, which dates back to 1902, is something “we need to see much more of,” calling it a “great way to put vacant office space to positive use.”

A real estate listing in New Jersey has a one-of-a-kind feature, which comes just in time for Halloween and at the height of the spooky season.

The newly renovated home in Delaware Township, in Hunterdon County, is a former church that dates back to 1829, when it was the Locktown Christian Church, according to the video included in the listing on the Sotheby’s Realty website. It is now listed as a single-family home with modern upgrades.

It comes with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a large great room with high ceilings that appears to have formerly been the church’s main congregation area. It also has “endless views of preserved farmland,” along with more than an acre of property.

And on that sizeable parcel of land? Just your very own cemetery dating back to the 19th century on two sides of the home. Any possible buyer will need to be OK with sharing, because they’ll be sharing the property with the former congregants in their eternal rest.

The listing says that “care of the sacred grounds will be the responsibility of the homeowner,” so they’ll get to know their new neighbors pretty well.

“On a scenic country road, you would never know charming river towns and Flemington were so close by,” the listing reads. “Perfect for artists, writers, musicians or simply those wishing to escape to rural peace and quiet. Live in a one-of-a-kind space and become the steward of this piece of history, this home can truly be your sanctuary. Bring your vision!”

The house is listed for $650,000, according to Sotheby’s.

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Cesar Pina had been released on $1 million dollar bond with electronic monitoring after pleading not guilty to federal charges of bilking investors out of millions of dollars in the real estate venture. On Wednesday, he went on a several-minute YouTube ramble and talked about DJ Envy — a move that has just sparked more controversy.

“They call me Cesar Madoff, it’s crazy,” Pina said.

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The lengthy social media post often criticized the investors who have claimed he defrauded them. Pina — who promoted seminars and his real estate prowess on the Breakfast Club, hosted by business partner, DJ Envy — is accused in an alleged widespread real estate scheme that focused on flipping distressed New Jersey properties, many of which were in Paterson.

After the I-Team interviewed several investors, Envy went on the air to deny any involvement.

Envy’s attorney previously told NBC New York his client was a victim, too, investing $500,000 in a Paterson project with Pina.

“He is just like any other victim of the alleged scam,” said attorney Massimo D’Angelo.

But Pina vehemently denied Envy was any sort of victim, saying the two were “partners” in just a few real estate ventures.

“His defense, that DJ Envy is a victim, that’s the dumbest s–t I ever heard in my life. Me and him were partners in real estate seminars, we were partners in a couple of real estate transactions. That’s it, he’s not a victim,” Envy said in the online video.

D’Angelo said that the comments support’s Envy’s claim of innocence, saying “In his mea culpa video clip, Cesar Pina admits to taking money from investors without providing any returns and persistently apologizes to those investors, including DJ Envy…Cesar Pina certainly falls on his own sword.”

Pina also tried to own up to some of his shortfalls, but did not admit any sort of guilt.

“Even though now I’m going through some s–t I got to deal with, I am a f—–g man first. I am responsible…and if I hurt in any way that made their lives difficult, I apologize,” he said.

Cesar’s response infuriated many investors — including Andre Ransome, who bought in for $200,000. He is suing Pina, just one of several lawsuits that have been filed against both Cesar and Envy.

“Give people back their money and stop playing with people’s lives,” said Ransome, adding that he — like so many — invested because of DJ Envy’s seeming approval of Cesar.

“There’s so many layers why Envy was covering up and covert with the operation, it’s obvious,” he told News 4.

Jose Rodriquez, who invested in real estate platform Flip 2 Dao with Cesar and Envy, said he flagged Envy last summer through texts that there were financial issues.

“As of August of 2022, he knew there was something up with Cesar not paying his investors,” said Rodriguez. “So for him to say he didn’t know Cesar was up to something, it’s a lie.”

Envy has not been charged and is seeking to have all the lawsuits against him dismissed. NBC New York obtained a recent letter from Pina’s attorney proposing partial monetary settlements with some investors.

As home prices and interest rates rise, would-be home buyers need a salary of $114,627 to afford a median-priced house in the U.S., according to a recent report by real estate site Redfin.

If you want to buy in one of the most expensive metro areas of the U.S., you’ll need to earn even more: in the top 10 cities, more than $200,000, or close to it, researchers estimate. And buying in the priciest two metros would require salaries of more than $400,000. Redfin analyzed median monthly mortgage payments in August 2023 and August 2022.

To put those figures into perspective, the median U.S. household income was $75,000 in 2022, according to the report. 

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Metros where homebuyers need to earn the most

San Francisco and San Jose, California, are the top two metros that require the highest salaries, of $404,332 and $402,287, respectively, according to Redfin.

“The Bay Area has consistently been one of the most expensive markets in the country,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin.

Three more California metros — Anaheim, Oakland and San Diego — round out the top five, requiring interested buyers to earn between $240,000 to $300,000 annually.

The median income in these cities is high, but so are real estate prices. Higher interest rates have increased the cost to borrow, so buyers will need to show significant income to get a mortgage.

Why the New York metro area is low on the list

While the borough of Manhattan in New York may have the highest cost of living among U.S. cities, according to the Council for Community and Economic Research's Cost of Living Index, the New York metro area as a whole ranks ninth on Redfin's list.

That's because the metro area goes beyond Manhattan and the city's four other boroughs, extending into nearby counties. 

"Even though Manhattan is like really expensive, once you get to the outlying areas [in] the New York metro area, it actually becomes quite affordable," said Fairweather.

To be sure, interested homebuyers in the region still need to earn six figures annually to afford a home — about $197,734, Redfin estimates. 

All-cash purchases price out first-time homebuyers

Earning a high salary isn't enough in some competitive markets. Buyers may find themselves competing against veteran homeowners who can make cash offers.

Some home buyers are using their home equity to buy new homes in lower-priced areas instead of financing, to avoid an 8% mortgage rate, said Fairweather.

"That might be driving prices up and affordability down," she said.

The share of first-time home buyers dipped to 27% in the month of September, down from 29% in August, according to the Realtors Confidence Index Survey. Over the same period, all-cash buyers bumped to 29% from 27%.

Historically, first-time home buyers would make up around 40% of the housing market, said Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist and vice president of research at the National Association of Realtors.

"Seeing it at 27% speaks to the affordability and inventory challenges first-time homebuyers are facing," said Lautz.

All-cash home buyers are largely older consumers who have housing equity and are able to make housing trades without financing new mortgages, added Lautz.

Additionally, while some all-cash buyers are local to the areas in which they're buying, long distance movers are more likely to pay in full.

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A self-sustaining private island just an hour from New York City is up for auction. The five-acre Columbia Island, located in the Long Island Sound, is about a five-minute boat ride from New Rochelle in Westchester County.

On the island is a four-bedroom, two-bath self-sustaining house with solar rooftop panels for electricity, and a water filtrations system. A concrete seawall protects the island when storms pass through.

The no-reserve digital auction for the home ends Oct. 18, with the highest bidder winning the home.

So how much might you have to bid in order to claim the seaworthy abode? For perspective, the island home was once on the market for $13 million.

Check out photos of the property below:

The “Roar” singer and her partner, Hollywood actor Orlando Bloom, are caught up in a legal battle with Carl Westcott, the 84-year-old founder of 1-800-Flowers. Perry’s business manager, Bernie Gudvi, acted as the singer’s agent when she and Bloom purchased Westcott’s $15 million mansion in Montecito, California.

According to court documents obtained by NBC News, Westcott filed a lawsuit against Gudvi in Los Angeles Superior Court stating that he was not of sound mind when he agreed to sell his home in 2020.

However, Perry and her manager won’t back down from the deal.

Now all the parties are embroiled in a contentious court case that’s inspired an act called The PERRY Act, which aims to protect seniors from bad real estate transactions. (Note: TODAY.com has found that the website for The PERRY Act is mainly accessible through mobile devices.) The PERRY Act has not gone through any legislative process but does have the endorsement of more than 30 politicians.

NBC News has reached out to Perry for comment but has not heard back.

Here’s what we know about the real estate battle and the act it inspired.

Perry is battling Carl Westcott, founder of 1-800-Flowers, over the purchase of his home

Perry’s legal battle started in July 2020 when their manager, Bernie Gudvi, attempted to purchase a mansion on their behalf for $15 million from Carl Westcott, the now 84-year-old founder of 1-800-Flowers.

Westcott’s lawyers say he was of ‘unsound mind’ when he agreed to the deal

Westcott’s lawyers explained in court documents that the elderly Westcott was of “unsound mind” when he agreed to the deal with Perry’s manager in July 2020.

The complaint says that, Westcott, who suffers with Huntington’s disease, was on opiate pain medication following a six-hour back surgery.

Soon after, when Westcott felt “mentally clear again,” he tried to back out of the deal. But Perry and her manager were “not willing to walk away” from the purchase, Wescott’s lawyers stated in court documents.

Perry’s agent’s team says Westcott was ‘competent’ enough to sell his home

Gudvi’s lawyers argue that Westcott, who had purchased the home only weeks before making the deal in July 2020, was “competent” and eager to sell his home.

“He was competent when he hired an experienced real estate broker, vetted the brokerage commission rate, arranged showings of the Property, entertained multiple offers, sought alternative houses, and ultimately negotiated a highly lucrative sale,” Gudvi’s lawyers said in a May 2022 court filing seeking to dismiss Westcott’s case.

Perry’s agent is countersuing for more than $5 million

The “California Gurls” singer’s agent is countersuing Westcott for millions in damages.

Court documents state that Gudvi is seeking $3.21 million for “loss of use of the property,” as well as an additional $2.7 million in damages caused by her “(1) holding off on selling her residence at the time and thus continuing to pay the mortgage; and (2) renting a comparable property in the area once she did sell her residence because she could not move into the subject property due to Westcott’s actions.”

Westcott’s family members are now backing The PERRY Act

As the two parties continue to fight for the home, Wescott’s family members are backing a campaign for a new real estate act called the Protecting Elder Realty for Retirement Years, or The PERRY Act.

“The Katy PERRY Act addresses the risks of elder financial abuse, especially as it relates to property and real estate sales and transfers,” a website for the act says.

“The Act establishes a 72 hour cool-down period during which either party involved in a contract for conveyance of a personal residence, in which one party is over the age of 75, can rescind the agreement without penalty,” it added.

The website includes the names and testimonies of more than 30 bipartisan state and local politicians across the U.S. who back the act.

Chart Westcott, son of Carl Westcott, said he would like to see the PERRY Act protect other seniors who end up in undesirable business deals.

“We hope lawmakers will adopt protections for seniors in real estate transfers so that what happened to my father will never happen to anyone else’s aging parents or grandparents ever again,” the younger Westcott said in a statement.

TODAY.com reached out to The PERRY Act’s organizers to see if there are plans to formally introduce it as legislation.

Perry has been in other battles with seniors over real estate purchases in the past

The case is not the first time Perry has become embroiled in a legal battle over real estate with senior citizens.

In 2105, the 13-time Grammy nominee purchased a former Catholic convent in Los Angeles for $15 million, despite objections from the elderly nuns who once lived there.

Though the nuns wanted to sell the 22,000-square-foot property to a developer, a judge ruled in Perry’s favor, explaining that it was the Catholic Church who owned the convent and not the nuns.

During a court appearance for a related legal hearing, an 89-year-old nun who was involved in the case collapsed and died, Reuters reported at the time.

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A recent study from Moving Feedback, a platform for finding the best movers, analyzed Zillow data of homes that sold at higher and lower prices than their original listing across U.S. metro areas.

“This study offers a great insight into where buyers are making a good amount selling and where might not be the best area to invest in buying and selling homes currently,” Harrison Gough, an expert from Moving Feedback, stated in a press release.

5 U.S. cities where homes are selling above asking price

1. Vallejo, Calif.
2. San Francisco, Calif.
3. Rochester, N.Y.
4. San Jose, Calif.
5. Ithaca, N.Y.

Vallejo, California, is the metro area with the highest percentage of homes sold over the asking price.

Homes in Vallejo, on average, sell at 1.97% over the asking. On average, homes in this area are listed for $544,648, according to Zillow, but can be sold for nearly $40,000 more.

Vallejo is the second-largest city in the North Bay area and a San Francisco Bay Area sub-region. It’s just north of Berkeley and Oakland.

Just an hour south of Vallejo is San Francisco — the No. 2 city on the list.

Homes in San Francisco are sold on average at 1.03% more than the original list price and have an average home value of $1,271,322, down 12.0% over the past year, according to Zillow.

San Francisco is the second most densely populated large U.S. city after New York City. The city is also home to companies like Airbnb, Salesforce, Uber, and Wells Fargo.

Rochester, New York took third place on the list of cities where homes are going for above asking. On average, homes in the city are selling 1.11% over the original asking price, Zillow states.

The average Rochester home value is $239,688, up 7.0% over the past year.

Rochester, New York, is known as a science, research, development, and technology, because it’s home to the University of Rochester and the founding place of companies like Xerox, Western Union, Bausch & Lomb, Wegmans, and more.

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The financial site determined the states netting the most young professionals, ages 26 to 35, who earn at least $200,000 per year in adjusted gross income, based on the most recent publicly available IRS numbers from 2021.

That year, some 3,391 high-earning young people moved to Florida; 1,216 left, leaving the state with a net migration of 2,175 wealthy young people, as determined by SmartAsset.

In second place, Texas saw the second-largest wave of young and wealthy newcomers with 4,048 moving in over the course of a year. (California boasts the biggest influx in the U.S. with nearly 5,000 new taxpayers of this demographic.) However, the Lone Star State also saw a large outflow of young wealthy people leaving (over 2,000 taxpayers), resulting in a net migration of 1,909.

And in third-place New Jersey, while wealthy people of all ages generally left the state at a high rate, it also netted 1,048 new rich young professionals in the same year. “This was the most dramatic reversal from the aggregate trends,” Jaclyn DeJohn, SmartAsset’s managing editor of economic analysis, wrote in the report.

Here’s where young Americans pulling in at least $200,000 per year are moving:

States like Florida and Texas stand out to young wealthy people for a number of reasons, DeJohn tells CNBC Make It. They're home to newer tech hot spots like Austin and Miami, where opportunities can "attract those with niche or exceptional skills and experience looking to further develop their careers." Warm weather and zero income tax in both states are a selling point, too.

New Jersey, meanwhile, "offers close proximity to the career, social and entertainment opportunities of New York City, with the potential to save money while living a suburban lifestyle." That can be "a best-of-both-worlds type situation" for young people, DeJohn says, whereas older residents may already be retired or have less to gain from the job market.

Plus, New Jersey's "high real estate taxes contribute heavily to a very competitive public school system, which also is of much more use to young families versus retirees," she adds.

New York and California have the highest count of young high earners of any state "by a wide margin," DeJohn says, and also boast some of the highest influxes of young rich people in the U.S.

Almost 4,000 young wealthy taxpayers moved to New York in 2021, while nearly 5,000 called California their new home; however, both states lost more than 9,000 people of the same demographic, putting them at the bottom of the list for the young and the rich.

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An attorney for Epstein’s estate, Daniel Weiner, confirmed Tuesday that the ranch had been sold for an undisclosed price, and the proceeds would be used to administer the estate and pay creditors. The property was listed in 2021 for $27.5 million. That price was later dropped to $18 million.

Weiner told Albuquerque television station KRQE that the estate would disclose the sales price in its next quarterly accounting that will be filed with the probate court in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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Records kept by the Santa Fe County assessor list the new owner as San Rafael Ranch LLC, which registered with the secretary of state’s office in late July, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.

Epstein was found dead in August 2019 in his Manhattan jail cell, where he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Federal watchdogs have said negligence, misconduct and job failures had enabled him to take his own life.

In New Mexico, Epstein built a 26,700-square-foot mansion with a sprawling courtyard and a living room roughly the size of the average American home. Nearby was a private airstrip with a hangar and helipad. The property also included a ranch office, a firehouse and a seven-bay heated garage.

Epstein purchased the Zorro Ranch in 1993 from former Democratic Gov. Bruce King.

While Epstein never faced charges in New Mexico, the state attorney general’s office in 2019 confirmed that it was investigating and had interviewed possible victims who visited the ranch south of Santa Fe.

The home in Pontiac, Mich., located about 30 miles outside of Detroit, was listed this week for just $1.

That’s not a typo.

The agent, Christopher Hubel, calls it “the world’s cheapest listing” and says the two-bedroom, one-bathroom, 724-square-foot ranch could become “a masterpiece that will make Chip and Joanna green with envy,” referring to “Fixer Upper” stars Chip and Joanna Gaines.

“Priced at a mind-boggling $1 (yes, you read that right), this home is not just a house—it’s a ticket to the real estate adventure of a lifetime,” the listing states. “Step inside and experience the thrilling rollercoaster of emotions as you discover every nook and cranny that’s begging for your creative touch.”

Beyond the price and images of the home’s interior (see photos below), the listing itself is also getting attention for its witty writing.

“The roof might have seen better days, but hey, it’s not leaking yet—it’s just keeping you on your toes, providing an unexpected shower of excitement when you least expect it,” it reads.

The description goes on to note what it calls the “unique features” of the home, including an “avant-garde ‘floor hole’ art installation conveniently located next to the furnace.”

“Who needs a traditional open-concept layout when you can have an open floor plan thanks to an authentic, unfiltered glimpse into the crawl space?” the listing reads.

And then there’s the landscaping.

“Imagine a garden so wild, even Mother Nature would raise an eyebrow,” the listing reads. “The overgrown shrubbery and exotic weeds lend an air of mystery, inviting local critters for an impromptu garden party.”

Offers are due on the home by Aug. 23.

“Whether you’re dreaming of flipping for glory or embarking on a lucrative leasing venture, this home’s potential is as limitless as your imagination,” the listing states. “So, if you’re a visionary, a risk-taker, or simply someone who thrives on life’s little curveballs, this home is calling your name. Buckle up for a journey filled with twists, turns, and a whole lot of character. Don’t just buy a house—buy an experience.”

The Tuscan-style mega villa that sits high atop Malibu has just been put back on the market with a $44.5 million price tag.

The residence, known as Malibu Rocky Oaks, sits on 37 acres at an elevation of 2,000 feet in the Santa Monica Mountains. At that altitude, under certain weather conditions, the house often sits above the clouds.

“If you have a God complex, this is the house for you,” listing agent Shawn Elliott of Nest Seekers International told CNBC on a recent tour of the property.

The property also includes a 10-acre vineyard with more than 10,000 grape vines sprouting across the estate’s sun-soaked hillside.

“To me, this is like the eighth wonder of the world,” Elliott said.

But Elliott, who is the latest in a long list of brokers that has tried to sell the estate, admits it hasn’t been easy to price it to sell. In fact, prior to Elliott coming on board, public records show the home has been on and off the market for about 14 years at a wide range of prices. Back in 2009, it was first listed for $65 million, the home’s all-time high asking price. By 2013, the asking price dropped to $36 million, the lowest list price so far. 

Last August, the on-again-off-again listing came back on the market, with a $49.5 million asking price. But after just five months with no takers, it was once again pulled off the market. This week, almost exactly a year later, it debuts again with a new price tag and a broker who is looking to finally nail the number and close the deal. 

“We’re doing a $5 million price reduction because I really think that’s going to be the number that’s going to drive buyers,” said Elliott.

At 9,000 square feet, the home’s new asking price puts the price per square foot just under $5,000, or almost three and a half times more than the average price per square foot achieved in Malibu’s second quarter, which was just under $1,500, but still well below the almost $7,500 average price per square foot achieved for the town’s beachfront properties, according to the Elliman Report.

Real estate comps are tough to come by for the high-altitude 37-acre estate, with a 9,000 square foot residence and its own vineyard that currently produces 15,000 bottles of wine a year according to Elliott.

“That generates about $300,000 a year,” Elliott told CNBC. 

Its size alone is an outlier in Malibu where the average home sold in the second quarter was just 3,200 square feet with a median sales price of just over $4.4 million, down almost 2% over last year.

Even the pricier beachfront properties that have sold recently pale in comparison with an average size of just over 3,000 square feet and a median price of $10.5 million — that’s up 13.9% over last year according to the Elliman Report.

Public records show the estate was purchased back in 2005 for $3.5 million by entrepreneur and real estate investor Howard Leight Sr. Construction was completed on the giant Tuscan manor, designed by architect Bob Easton in 2009. Leight made his fortune in the hearing protection product industry and sold his eponymous company for a reported $125 million.   

The French limestone-clad villa’s more recent history includes being featured on reality TV and film. The Kardashians visited in 2014 for an episode of their show on E!, the reality show “The Bachelorette” was shot there in 2013 and in the same year, the high-end real estate was featured in the film, “The Hangover Part III.” 

Today, Leight’s son, Howard Leight Jr., is the face of the villa-vineyard combo and its Instagram account. The property is currently made available for rent by the night and for events. Elliott told CNBC the going rate for an overnight stay during the high season is $15,000, or $105,000 per week, but the estate is also marketed on Airbnb where depending on dates, the rates can drop below $2,500 a night.

Here’s a look around the Malibu Rocky Oaks Estate.

The dining room opens to outdoor stone terraces on two sides and arches in a stone wall lead to the great room.

The primary suite includes vaulted ceilings and two balconies, plus a wraparound terrace.

The primary suite’s third interior balcony overlooks the great room where 35-foot ceilings are clad in walnut wood.

The villa spans three levels with five bedrooms and five bathrooms.

The commercial-grade kitchen includes stainless-steel appliances, stone countertops and hardwood floors with an arched window that can open to the dining room.

Grapevines can be seen on the hillside just below the infinity pool. The most popular varietals of the vineyard’s 10 grapes are cabernet, merlot, syrah and chardonnay.

Congress passed the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act in 2000. It allows the government to auction or give away “federally-owned historic light stations that have been declared excess to the needs of the responsible agency.”

“I thought a lighthouse would be a great opportunity to combine a summer home and my love of historic preservation,” Consaul tells CNBC Make It.

Consaul had previously restored a historic home and the idea of taking on a lighthouse sounded fascinating.

The Fairport Harbor West Lighthouse in Ohio became available at auction and Consaul started bidding in 2009. She landed the winning bid of $71,010 in 2011.

Built in 1925, the lighthouse has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, three floors, and is almost 3,000 square feet. It was abandoned in the late 1940s and Consaul is the first person to live in the lighthouse since then.

Consaul lives in the lighthouse from May to October and it sits empty when she’s at her primary home outside of Washington D.C.

When Consaul took possession of the structure that had been abandoned for over 70 years, it needed a lot of work. All of the windows were broken, plaster was falling off the walls, and it “needed painting, desperately,” she says.

To purchase the lighthouse and to pay for the initial renovations, Consaul used a home equity loan of $200,000, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

Consaul started renovating in the summer of 2012, and over 10 years later, the project is almost done. “The renovation process has been long and arduous,” she says.

The property is a half mile from the nearest parking lot in Headlands Beach State Park, so big appliances like the stove and refrigerator needed to be transported by boat and then delivered by crane onto the platform of the lighthouse.

Since buying the lighthouse, Consaul estimates she has spent over $300,000 renovating it.

Most of that money went towards adding an eat-in kitchen, state-of-the-art water treatment equipment, rewiring all of the electrical, plumbing, redoing the windows, and refurbishing the wooden floors.

Other than the extensive work the lighthouse needed, Consaul says her biggest challenge so far is that the lighthouse is completely off the grid. She depends on her gasoline-powered generator, solar power, and wind power.

Despite going over her initial $200,000 renovation budget, for Consaul the time and effort has been worth it. “This was a great challenge, a great opportunity, and I loved every minute of it,” she says.

Though Consaul owns the lighthouse itself, the land it sits on belongs to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which means she had to pay $2,500 for a 25-year lease.

Fairport Harbor West Lighthouse is still a working lighthouse and is used as an aide to navigation, so Consaul has the responsibility of working with the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Weather Service, and the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office when necessary.

The lighthouse’s beacon is still maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard. The light turns on every night at dusk and goes off at dawn.

When Consaul bought the lighthouse, she knew that it was also a beacon for her new community. It’s why she has hosted open houses to celebrate the lighthouse’s birthday, June 9, nearly every year since 2012.

“One thing that was very important to me when I bought this lighthouse was that I understood that this was part of this community of Fairport Harbor,” she says.

As long as she owns the lighthouse, Consaul will continue offering private tours and said that if she lives out the 25-year lease, she plans to renew.

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It’s a tale of two property owners: A developer who paid $350,000 for the land in Oct. 2022 and was building a four-bedroom home, which was set to sell for just under $1.5 million. And then there’s the man who says he’s owned the property on Sky Top Terrace in Fairfield for decades, and never sold it to a developer or anyone at all.

In a lawsuit filed in July, Daniel Kenigsberg — who lives on Long Island — says he owns the property and claims a fraudulent deed was given to a lawyer who had power of attorney for a Daniel Kenigsberg of South Africa. The lawsuit states that the true owner has never lived in South Africa.

The property in Fairfield was undeveloped for years.

“Kids used to love to walk by and hang out. For them it was a little forest,” said neighbor Bob Bove. “You hear these things happen, but not next to you.”

The Fairfield Police Department told NBC New York that their detective bureau is actively investigating how the mix-up may have happened. Construction has since been halted, while the building site draws curious onlookers.

“People just keep driving by. They wanna see what’s going on. Take a look at the house. And it just causes traffic,” said Adriana Bove.

“I just hope everyone involved gets what they need because it seems there are two victims in this case,” said neighbor Chris Beaver.

The defendants in the case, including the developer and the attorney, had no comment.

Correction: Due to an editing error, a previous version of the story incorrectly stated that the developer purchased the property in Oct. 2023. The land was purchased in Oct. 2022.

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