Money Management

The housing market may be cooling in some parts of the country, but not all. Take a look at eight markets where homes continue to sell at lightning speed. 

To say that the housing market has been hot over the past few years would be a gross understatement. With far more potential home buyers than home sellers, the sellers have the upper hand. In some markets, that is changing. But according to Redfin, homes in these eight markets continue to sell within days.

Where homes are the selling fastest

You’ll notice that hot markets are geographically scattered. We can’t just say it’s homes on the East Coast or West Coast selling like hotcakes. The cities are spread out, as though someone drew a line from one coast to the other, right through the middle of the country.

The reason homes in some markets are selling faster than others may be due to several factors, including:

Number of homes on the market: When there’s more demand than supply, homes tend to sell quickly.Area economy: One needs to look no further than Detroit to recognize what happens when a primary industry leaves town. When an area’s economy is in shambles, the housing market suffers.Condition of the home: While nearly any home will eventually sell in a superheated market, move-in ready houses will always sell faster, particularly if they are appropriately priced.

How to sell your home faster

According to the True Group, fast-selling homes sell for more money. And who doesn’t want that? If you’re looking to move soon and you want to sell at top dollar, you might want to keep these tips in mind.

Pump up the curb appeal

There’s nothing like a first impression. If a buyer appreciates what they see from the street, that’s like love at first sight. Real estate agents say curb appeal is the No. 1 factor affecting how long your home will linger on the market.

Make it move-in ready

A move-in ready home is clean, organized, and free of extra furnishings that make rooms appear smaller. It’s also free of family photos or personalized items that remind buyers you live there. What you hope for is a buyer who immediately imagines themself living in the house. Buyers want to believe they can move in one day, spend a couple of days putting their belongings away, and return to life as usual. They don’t want to empty their bank account making updates and repairs.

Think about schools

Even if you don’t have kids in school, the school district you live in matters. Homes in highly rated school districts sell faster and at a higher price than homes in less desirable districts. A Realtor.com survey found that 78% of buyers are willing to compromise on the features of a home as long as it’s located near a good school. If a buyer is going to take out a mortgage, they want to believe they’re making a good investment.

Stage like a pro

There are at least two ways to stage a home: You can hire a company to do it for you, or you can do it yourself. Even during “normal” times, a staged home spends 73% less time on the market than non-staged homes. Simply put, staging makes the most of the space and makes it easy for buyers to imagine themselves living there.

Price it appropriately

Right now, anyone selling a move-in ready house can pretty much name their price. Still, overpricing your home in any market will scare off potential buyers. If the price is fair, you’re far more likely to have multiple offers and competitive bidding.

This wild market will likely calm down at some point, which will be good news for home buyers. But whether the market is red-hot, average, or cooling down, you have it within your power to walk away with top-dollar.

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We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.Citigroup is an advertising partner of The Ascent, a Motley Fool company. Dana George has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Subscription fees could be eating up your paycheck without you realizing it. Read on to learn more. 

Money has gotten tight for a lot of people these days due to inflation. So if your credit card bills are higher than usual, it may be because you’re spending more money to buy groceries, use electricity, and put a roof over your head.

But another reason for those sky-high credit card bills may be that you’re paying for services you don’t use and don’t even realize you have. A recent report from C+R Research found that 42% of Americans have forgotten about a recurring subscription and, as a result, kept paying for one they weren’t using.

Not only that, but Americans seem to be grossly underestimating their subscription costs. Consumers thought they were spending an average of $86 a month on subscription services in the aforementioned report. But after doing more digging, the average monthly spend on subscriptions came to more like $219. Yikes.

If you’re having a hard enough time paying your bills, then it definitely makes sense to see if you’re paying for subscriptions you don’t use. Canceling them could free up a world of cash.

It’s time for a subscription audit

It’s easy enough to sign up for a free trial of a streaming service only to forget to cancel it once your initial two weeks or 30 days run out. But at a time when everything is costing more due to inflation and so many people are raiding their savings accounts just to stay afloat, it’s not good to be paying for services you aren’t getting use out of.

As such, take some time to comb through your credit card bills from the past year and see what subscriptions you’re signed up for. The reason it’s good to look back on 12 months’ worth of statements is that some of your subscriptions might renew annually. So it may be that you signed up for something you’ve since forgotten about a year ago and didn’t realize it because you paid in one fell swoop. That might give you the heads-up to cancel before your credit card is billed again.

Once you’ve made your list of subscriptions you’re paying for, cancel those you aren’t using immediately. From there, assess the ones you knew about.

It may be that you were aware that you’ve been paying for Netflix. But if you can’t remember the last time you watched it for more than an hour in the course of a month, then it’s probably something you can do without.

Plus, it could pay to see if there’s a better subscription service out there than one you’re paying for. You might find a way to get access to content at a lower cost, for example.

Don’t waste your money

A lot of subscription services let you cancel and then reactivate as you wish. Since there’s generally no penalty for going this route, it pays to err on the side of canceling services you’re not sure you need or want. But either way, definitely break the pattern of paying for services you never use. That’s akin to tossing your money in the trash.

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Even the rich and famous can — and do — make financial mistakes. Here’s how actor Nicolas Cage handled his own. 

It’s easy to think of celebrities as being above the worries of us regular folks. But if there’s one thing Hollywood has shown us, it’s that anyone can have personal finance struggles — even when they make millions of dollars a year.

Take actor Nicolas Cage. Given the immensity of his career, one might assume he’s never had to worry about money. But it turns out Cage had not only gone through his fortune — he was actually around $6 million in debt.

But it’s not for the reasons that the media might want you to think. According to Cage, it wasn’t splurging on exotic pets — or even exotic cars — that got him into trouble.

“I was over-invested in real estate,” he told Sharyn Alfonsi during a 60 minutes interview. “It’s not because I spent $80 on an octopus. The real estate market crashed, and I couldn’t get out in time.”

Refusing to bow to bankruptcy

Facing $6 million in debt, many people would likely start to contemplate filing for bankruptcy. But in Cage’s mind, that wasn’t really an option: “One thing I wasn’t going to do was file for bankruptcy,” he said.

While bankruptcy can be a good tool for people with no other option, it makes perfect sense that Cage would want to avoid it at all costs. The consequences can be brutal — and long-lasting. You can lose all of your assets, including your home. You may even need to sell off more sentimental valuables, like family jewelry or other heirlooms.

And that’s before we talk about the credit problems. A bankruptcy can absolutely destroy your credit score, which makes getting any kind of credit after bankruptcy a giant headache. Even if you manage to get credit to start rebuilding, it can take up to a decade for a bankruptcy to fall off your credit report.

RELATED: Best Credit Cards After Bankruptcy

Any movie in a storm

With bankruptcy off the table, the solution to all of Cage’s debt was the same as it would be for anyone else:

Reduce expensesIncrease income

He made a number of changes to help lower his expenses, including moving to Las Vegas. Nevada is one of the nine states that don’t have state income taxes. This means more of what he made was available to pay off his debt.

Cage also took on more work — a lot more. And it wasn’t always the glamorous blockbusters we’re all used to him headlining. But while taking on the occasional B-list movie may have earned him some internet mockery, Cage gets the last laugh. He has paid off all of his creditors and is enjoying being debt free.

For those of us who can’t pull in six- or seven-figure movie deals, the road to debt freedom can be much longer. But while Cage may have had more opportunity, it was his determination that arguably saw him through.

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Emergency savings can protect you from inflation. Read on to see if you can settle for less savings now that inflation isn’t as high. 

In June 2022, year over year inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) reached an astounding 9.1%. Back then, many Americans had to rack up debt on their credit cards just to stay afloat, and understandably so.

Thankfully, inflation has been easing notably in 2022. In March, annual inflation came in at 5% as per that month’s CPI. And April’s CPI measured annual inflation at 4.9%.

Meanwhile, a lot of people have no doubt been raiding their emergency savings to cope with inflation. But now that inflation has cooled off a bit, do you need as robust an emergency fund? Or are you okay to take some of the money you’ve been socking away out of your savings account and spend it?

It still pays to have more savings than less

The purpose of an emergency fund is to have cash reserves to tap when unexpected bills arise. Now normally, when we think about dipping into an emergency fund, it’s usually in the context of having to cover a sudden home repair, a string of medical bills, or general bills due to having lost a job.

But it’s fair to put inflation into the “unplanned expense” category. That’s because the higher living costs we’ve experienced since the latter part of 2021 weren’t something anyone could plan for.

Now that inflation levels are cooling, you may not need to add to your savings so much. But does that mean that you should spend some of your existing emergency fund? Not at all.

Let’s say you have enough money in savings to cover four months of essential expenses. You may not need to add to your savings, giving you more leeway to spend your incoming paychecks. But that doesn’t mean you should go and take a $500 withdrawal from your emergency fund to do things like dine out or buy electronics.

At a minimum, you should have a large enough emergency fund to cover three months of essential living costs. If you have more than that, you’re in good shape. But that doesn’t mean you should dip into your cash reserves, because you never know when you might need that money.

It’s not just about inflation

Up until last year, most of us probably wouldn’t have thought about dipping into our emergency savings to cope with inflation — namely, because inflation wasn’t such a big issue. Even if inflation levels continue to drop, the reality is that you never know when you might lose your job, have your car fail, or encounter another expense your regular paycheck can’t cover.

You don’t necessarily need to have multiple years’ worth of expenses in your emergency fund. But it’s also not a bad idea to save up enough cash to cover six to 12 months’ worth of bills. So not only should you not raid your savings due to lower levels of inflation, but you may even want to consider adding to your emergency fund for further protection against life’s many unknowns.

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We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Consumers have more streaming service options than ever. Learn about some Netflix alternatives that cost less and offer lots of quality content. 

Netflix is the most popular streaming service in the world, with over 230 million subscribers. It’s also one of the more expensive options, with a standard plan costing $15.49 per month. Unlike many other providers, it also doesn’t offer yearly plans at a discount. If you’re willing to watch Netflix with ads, you can get it for $6.49 per month.

Or, you can try another streaming service. Netflix isn’t the only game in town, and there are plenty of cheaper alternatives that have content worth checking out.

1. AppleTV+

Price:

$6.99 per month$69.99 per year

AppleTV+ is more affordable than most major streaming services. It also has a much smaller content library, but it’s been working on expanding that, and it has produced several popular shows. Ted Lasso is its biggest hit, and other notable titles include Severance, For All Mankind, and Pachinko.

2. Peacock

Price:

Premium: $4.99 per month, $49.99 per yearPremium Plus: $9.99 per month, $99.99 per year

Peacock used to be one of the top free streaming services, until it got rid of its free tier this year. It still won’t make too much of a dent in your personal finances. Peacock has a large and diverse lineup of content, with popular shows like Poker Face and Yellowstone, and beloved films like Cocaine Bear (beloved by me, at least).

3. Prime Video

Price:

$8.99 per month (Prime Video only)$14.99 per month (Prime membership)$139 per year (Prime membership)

Prime Video is included with a Prime membership, so lots of people will already have access to it through that. You can subscribe to Prime Video as a standalone streaming service for a lower price, but a full Prime membership is normally the better choice for all the benefits it offers. Content can be hit or miss, but Prime Video has a fairly substantial library. It has also basically conquered the Dad TV market, with shows like Reacher, Jack Ryan, and The Terminal List.

4. Paramount+

Price:

Essential: $4.99 per month, $49.99 per yearPremium: $9.99 per month, $99.99 per year

Paramount+ offers an Essential plan with limited ads and a Premium plan with no ads. It’s also in the process of a rebrand after merging with Showtime. Later this year, it’s going to rebrand to Paramount+ with Showtime, at which point the price will increase to $5.99 per month for the Essential plan and $11.99 per month for the premium plan. You’ll already find some Showtime originals on Paramount+, including Yellowjackets, and it has popular series of its own, including The Offer and Star Trek: Picard.

5. Tubi

Price:

Free

It doesn’t get any cheaper than free. Tubi is ad-supported and claims it has the largest library of any free streaming service, offering over 50,000 titles and more than 200 live TV channels. That includes a mix of recent and older content. Some of the more notable titles currently available on Tubi are Goodfellas, 300, and The Help.

6. Shudder

Price:

$5.99 per month$56.99 per year

Shudder is arguably the best choice for horror fans. While most streaming services offer all types of movies and shows, Shudder is unique in that it focuses on horrors and thrillers. You’ll find a very diverse selection of horror movies on Shudder, including highly rated foreign films, such as Possession, Martyrs, and The Babadook.

7. STARZ

Price:

$8.99 per month$74.99 per year

STARZ is another affordable streaming service, and it frequently has special offers available that allow you to try it out for a much lower price. It’s not exactly full of hit shows, but it does have a good movie selection, which includes Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Alien, and Children of Men.

If you haven’t been finding much to watch on Netflix lately, or you want to save some money on your monthly credit card bill, give one of the options above a try. You can browse their libraries before you commit, and many of them also offer free trials, as well.

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We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.Lyle Daly has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple and Netflix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Loaded up on credit card debt? Read on to see how to break that cycle. 

If you owe a balance on one or more credit cards, you’re in good company. During the first quarter of 2023, U.S. credit card balances reached an astounding $917 billion, according to TransUnion. That’s a 19.2% increase from a year prior, when total U.S. credit card balances sat at $769 billion.

Of course, the problem with carrying a credit card balance is that the longer you do, the more interest you stand to accumulate. And losing all of that money to interest could stop you from meeting other financial goals, whether it’s buying a home or being able to save for retirement.

Plus, carrying a higher credit card balance could cause damage to your credit score, making it harder to borrow money when you need to. And to be clear, you can make your minimum credit card payment on time every month and still end up having your credit score take a hit if your balances are such that you’re using a large percentage of your total credit limit at once.

That’s why it’s not only important to try to whittle down your credit card debt as soon as possible, but also to consider whether credit cards are a tool you should use in the future.

Is it time to rethink your spending?

If you owe a large amount of money on your credit cards, then you may have to accept the fact that the only way you’re really going to get out of debt is to make serious spending changes. This may not be necessary if you owe, say, $600. But if you owe $6,000, and you generally don’t have any money left over at the end of the month after paying your bills, then consider it a wake-up call to make some serious cuts.

That could mean selling your car and dealing with public transportation to unload your auto loan payments and car insurance premiums. It could also mean moving to a smaller apartment or getting a roommate. And if you’re spending money every month on things like streaming services and social events but have a massive pile of credit card debt in your name, well, those things might have to go, too — at least until your balance is largely whittled away.

Should you stop using credit cards altogether?

If this isn’t the first time you’ve landed in credit card debt, and you have a hard time limiting your spending, then you may be better off tucking those credit cards away for the time being and paying for purchases in cash instead. In doing so, you will give up perks like cash back and reward points. But in exchange, you might avoid adding to your pile of debt and making your financial situation worse.

This doesn’t mean you should rush to cancel your cards, though. Doing so could damage your credit score. Instead, try to cut your spending so you can pay off your balances, and from there, reevaluate.

All told, it’s not surprising to see that U.S. credit card balances climbed this past year. Inflation has driven living costs up, forcing many people to rely on credit cards more heavily. But you should still do whatever you can to eliminate your balance, or at least lower it, as soon as you can.

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We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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