Compass CEO Robert Reffkin sent an email to staff on Thursday morning informing employees of the latest staff reduction, marking the third round of layoffs in eight months.

This week’s properties are a four-bedroom contemporary house in Irvington, N.Y., and a three-bedroom waterfront house Waterford, Conn.

This week’s properties are in Prospect Heights, the East Village and South Street Seaport.

Areas known for skiing and other winter activities can offer hearty investment returns, but they’re often offset by higher purchase prices.

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Planning a home design project can be overwhelming, especially for homeowners who have no idea where to start. Luckily, there are a number of home design apps that can help ease some of the pressure.

“Home design apps allow users to experiment with different design options and see how they will look in their space,” says Artem Kropovinsky, founder of Arsight, an interior design studio based in New York City. “This can be a helpful way to try out different ideas and see what works best before committing to any changes.”

Cost-effective and convenient, home design apps come in handy if you’re someone with a busy schedule. Whether you’re looking to create floor plans, visualize home renovations, or experiment with color schemes, these apps offer quick and useful tools to help bring projects to fruition.

Design apps “can also be helpful resources for finding inspiration and ideas for home improvement projects,” says Kropovinsky.

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“You still see the hope in their eyes.”

When Atlanta-based real estate agent Maura Neill agreed to sell a home this fall, she knew she faced an uphill battle. For one, the housing market had cooled significantly. But worse, these home sellers weren’t quite willing to accept this new reality and drop their price.

Several months earlier, these sellers had listed their house with another agent for $525,000. When this failed to bring in an offer, the sellers reduced the price to $499,000. Still no bites.

Neill suggested the sellers drop the price again to $450,000, but they “fought” her recommendation. Neill then suggested the sellers get a second opinion through a pre-listing appraisal. They reluctantly agreed but thought it was a bit “fishy” that the appraiser’s suggested bottom line came in precisely at Neill’s suggested price of $450,000.

In part two of this two-part series, Bernice Ross interviews mega-producers who focus on giving back to their communities in a big way.

Inman, the company behind the coveted Innovator Awards, announced on Thursday a significantly expanded slate of 2023 awards to be revealed on a rolling basis throughout the year.

When disaster strikes, the connections we’ve built in the course of our daily work can prove invaluable in the recovery effort and beyond. Marcus Larrea shares how his team helped their community recover from Hurricane Ian.

Cold. Warm. Dormant. Hot. Whatever state your 2023 leads are in, rest assured that sending them relevant, segmented email should be on the top of your resolution list come January 1.

Executive Chris Heller shares his best advice for budgeting for your new career in real estate. Saving smart is the key to positioning your career for sustainability in any market.

After a few years on the East Side, a longtime renter decided to shield herself from rising housing costs by putting her savings to work. Which of these Forest Hills studios did she buy?

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Think you need a big budget and top-notch taste to achieve a well-designed home?

On the contrary, the days of having museum-level interiors are waning, and a new approach is gaining momentum.

Meet the anti-decorating trend that’s the brainchild of Monica Khemsurov and Jill Singer, founders of Sight Unseen and authors of their debut book, “How To Live With Objects.”

The basic premise will feel like a breath of fresh air to anyone who is intimidated by stuffy and unrealistic design principles that place a high bar on pristine home decor.

As prices and transaction volume both fell in Manhattan's market at large year over year, luxury properties priced at or above $10 million still managed to perform well to close out 2022.

Realtor.com

Psst … want a sneak peek at what’s in store for reality TV stars Tarek and Heather Rae El Moussa on their new show, “The Flipping El Moussas”?

Look no further than this $2,895,000 home in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles.

The listing notes that it’s “another beautiful home meticulously remodeled and designed by Tarek and Heather El Moussa from HGTV.”

The home can be spotted in the trailer for the series.

Mortgage rates remain well below 2022 highs as the spring homebuying season approaches, according to a weekly lender survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

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Fast furniture is much like fast food: Both give you what you want when you want it, quickly and cheaply. But in the end, you might not always feel so great about your fast furniture choices (not to mention the supersized fries).

Take heart, you’re not alone when it comes to buying fast furniture. Sales of desks, chairs, and patio equipment jumped by more than $4 billion from 2019 to 2021. American shoppers took advantage of the inexpensive desks and bookcases to help make their quarantine spaces and newly devised home offices more palatable.

But it turns out, the majority of fast furniture won’t last a year, studies show. So maybe it’s time to slow down when it comes to what furniture you buy. Here are all the pros and cons of fast furniture.

What exactly is fast furniture?

Fast furniture is almost disposable furniture, usually made from low-cost composite materials and cheap fasteners.

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Earthship homes are usually located in the desert spaces of New Mexico, but we’ve found a rare example of this eco-friendly residence in Southern California.

While these dwellings are often rustic and rough around the edges, an upscale model in West Hills has touched down on the market for $1,495,000.

“This property is kind of like the architectural equivalent of farm-to-table [cooking],” says listing agent Marc Hernandez, with Compass. “It’s all about using what you’ve got … and using as little footprint as possible to get to the table.”

This 3,607-square-foot home was completed in 2002 and designed by architect Michael Reynolds, who developed the earthship style and founded the design-building firm Earthship Biotecture.

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It’s not often that property brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott meet someone as passionate about home design as them, but they seem fairly impressed by Drew Barrymore on the latest “Celebrity IOU.”

In the episode “Drew Barrymore’s Renovation Surprise,” the brothers agree to help Barrymore do an indoor-outdoor remodel of the kitchen, dining area, and deck for Barrymore’s best friend and makeup artist, Deb. The two single moms have been working together and supporting each other for 20 years.

Jonathan and Drew have five weeks to remodel Deb’s South Pasadena, CA, home, and Barrymore will take time out of her busy talk-show schedule to help. Plus, given Barrymore redecorated her own house and has her own furniture line, the Scott brothers say she might be one of the most well-versed people they’ve ever worked with.

Behold the combined design power of Barrymore with the brothers, plus the many lessons they pass along that might work wonders around your own abode, too.

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The numbers: Mortgage applications fell by 13.2% to close off the last two weeks of 2022.

Mortgage applications are now at the lowest level in 27 years.

The real-estate market is slow during the holiday season, so that weighed on the market composite index, a measure of mortgage application volume, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said on Wednesday.