You use it every day, but do you fully appreciate what the REALTOR® membership mark signifies? From its earliest use, “REALTOR®” has been seen as a way to distinguish ethical practitioners.

REALTORS® aren’t just agents. They’re professional members of the National Association of REALTORS® and subscribe to its strict code of ethics. This is the REALTOR® difference for home buyers.

If you’re wondering what agents do to earn their paycheck, we’ve compiled a list of things they do when you’re not watching (or should be doing—if they’re not, maybe you need a different agent!)

Real estate is a big deal. For most Americans, a home is the most expensive purchase they’ll make in their lifetime. It’s a serious transaction with significant financial and emotional ramifications for the parties involved, and having proper representation is critical.

Putting a price tag on a home you’re trying to sell is a tricky thing. For one, it’s your home, crammed full of memories, hopes, and dreams—and all that stuff can cloud your thinking and lead you toward the wrong price.

Once you’ve decided to sell your home, you need a trusted guide by your side: a Realtor, of course! Here we’ll teach you how to find an essential partner in pulling off this most important of all transactions.

If you’re looking to sell your home during prime house-shopping season this spring, you’d better get cracking now. After all, it’s not as easy as slapping an ad on Craigslist

By popular demand, I’m back to take a deeper dive into the math to illustrate—clearly and simply—how owning a home produces wealth over time.

Buying a home can be emotional, but negotiating the price shouldn’t be. The key to saving money when purchasing a home is sticking to a plan during the turbulence of high-stakes negotiations.

Home not selling? That could happen for a number of reasons you can’t control, like a unique home layout or having one of the few homes in the neighborhood without a garage. There is one factor you can control: your home price.

You’ve asked friends to recommend great contractors, picked your favorite, checked references — and maybe even conducted an online background check on his business. So you know you’ve found a top-notch guy for your home improvement project.

Just because you can rent a sander doesn’t mean you should. Even if your friends did dub you “Jackie-Of-All-Trades” after that amazing bathroom re-do last spring, you still might not have the stuff it takes to refinish your floors.

Do you really need to pay good money to have your air ducts cleaned? The short answer is “probably not.” But before you call up dad to chant “I told you so,” it’s important to understand why you probably don’t need to do it

Jealous of your neighbors’ new master bath? Who wouldn’t be? Actually, ... — resisting the urge to keep up with the Joneses makes you the smarter neighbor.

Just how large a house really is may depend on whom you ask, The Wall Street Journal reports. That’s because appraisers, developers, builders, real estate professionals, tax assessors, and architects all measure spaces differently.

First-time sellers who have never contended with buyer demands may not initially understand how neutralizing their home or adding small upgrades can make their property more competitive on the market.

Your sellers may have "nose blindness." The term refers to the process of adapting to the smells around you and becoming so desensitized to them that you learn to ignore them or become less sensitive to them

When you lose a listing, do you ever see the seller again? Many real estate professionals quickly move on after the business is lost, forgetting all about the former client they tried to help. Do you know what that tells the seller?

Small homes do exist, but not many really small ones. Most lenders, in fact, will only finance homes that are no smaller than 40 to 80 percent of the size of a comparable, nearby home.

The sale and purchase of a home is one of the most significant events that any person will experience in his or her lifetime. It is more than the simple purchase of housing, for it includes the hopes, dreams, aspirations, and economic destiny of those involved

The number of Generation X home buyers is increasing thanks to an improving economy, multiple years of strong job growth and a notable increase in home values.

​Buying a home is difficult, but try selling your home and buying another at the same time. On a level of difficulty, this is the gymnastic balance beam of homeownership.

Helping LGBT people combat housing discrimination doesn’t make you immune from it.

Buying a home is a complicated process. It’s usually the biggest financial transaction of a person’s life, and often involves taking out a mortgage to pay for the new digs.

Philip and Denise Powell lost their home in 2011 after Philip’s hours as a pastor were cut in half and Denise was sidelined by a surgery. But they were determined to become homeowners again, so they rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

Owning a home means you can blow out a wall to create a more spacious kitchen or paint your bedroom a flaming fuchsia — things that are certainly deposit-forfeiting and likely eviction-motivating offenses in rental land.

The marital home is many couples’ most valuable asset, so deciding what to do with it during divorce can be difficult. You and your soon-to-be ex have two basic options: sell the home, or one of you stays in it.

Virtual reality is no longer associated with just gaming. The real estate industry is adopting this evolving technology to help you buy and sell your home in ways never before possible.

Ask millennials to write down a list of their plans, and it’s likely to be chock-full of career accomplishments and vacation experiences. Graduating, getting a great job, getting married, starting a family, buying a home and traveling are likely to be high on the list.

Buying a house is emotional, and your agent can help level the field by bringing a more rational approach to the transaction. Here’s how the two of you can work together to get the best possible deal.

If you’re considering purchasing a home, you’ve likely already considered how much you have available for a down payment, what an ideal mortgage payment would be, and how much home you can actually afford based on your monthly income.

Writing a heartfelt letter to the sellers of a Chicago home helped one buyer stand out in a sea of other interested parties.

As Millennials find better-paying jobs, start families and begin searching for their first homes, they’re encountering an unfortunate reality: Just as they’re finally ready to buy, the housing market has the fewest homes available for sale on record.

At a time of super-strict underwriting standards, record-high credit-score requirements and hard-wired debt-to-income cutoffs, has the process of applying and qualifying gone a little over the top?

"We can expect further growth in new home sales throughout the year, spurred on by employment gains and a rise in household formations,"

Rising populations and a growth in the job market likely will release a pent-up demand in housing over the next 10 years,

Spring and summer seasons always dominate the home selling market, but with our area being one that is so transient, it would be a mistake to overlook the fall.

First comes love, then comes the mortgage, then comes the wedding? It may seem unconventional for a couple to purchase a home together before making the trek down the aisle

Traditionally, the business of renting single-family homes has been a local mom and pop operation. But that landscape changed as investors, with no community ties whatsoever, purchased properties in bulk.

There is a lot of help for those looking to find tenants. A Realtor, real estate agent or rental management company can all work with you to find a renter for your rental home.

In fact, even with housing costs on the rise and steep closing costs and other taxes on buying a home, in most areas of the country it is more affordable to own a home than it is to rent one.

When the bubble burst, FHA dramatically cut condo loans. But condos play an essential role for first-time buyers, creating a ripple effect for move-up buyers, home values, and local economies.

While there are laws to protect buyers from discrimination by lenders, you still should be aware of your home buyer rights—especially if you think a lender may be ignoring them.

Spring brings out home buyers en masse. But in these waning days of winter, many home sellers are still hibernating. Well, it’s time to wake up! Although technically the peak home-buying period is still a few months away, the time to get your home in shape to sell is right now.

Many Americans start to think about their housing needs this time of year. For some people spring aligns with the school calendar, given the time it takes to find the right home, arrange financing and move in time for the next academic year.

If you're in the market to buy a home, your down payment is probably top of mind. However, it’s important to understand all your options, particularly if you’ve heard the rule of thumb that you shouldn't pursue homeownership unless you can put 20 percent down.

Home pricing is more of a science than an art, but many homeowners price with their heartstrings instead of cold, hard data. Here’s why crunching the numbers is always the better route to an accurate home price

After months of hanging out indoors and staring at your four walls, you might be ready for an interior-design change but lack the budget for major projects. Luckily, freshening up your home doesn’t require a wad of cash as much as it requires a touch of creativity.

When you embark on the home-buying process, your heart is filled with all the dreams in the world. It’s really easy to get caught up in the “I have to have ___________, so I’ll cut back somewhere else ”