- This is Real Estate today, the number one real estate show in America, brought to you by the National Association of Realtors and its realtor members in your neighborhood. - Welcome to Real Estate Today. Hi there. I'm Melissa Tracy and we're so glad you're joining us for today's show because it's the month of May and that means it's national moving month, the busiest time of year for movers and shakers across the country.
But let's face it, with moving come stress on today's show, we're tapping into the minds of top real estate pros, the agents and relocation experts who've seen it all and they're ready to bring you stress saving tips for your next big move that's coming up. But first, let's go to the Real estate today newsroom with Bill Thompson. Hi Bill. - Hi Melissa. That 90 day truce in the US China Trade War is helping ease nervousness in the housing industry.
The National Association of Home Builders estimates that 27% of imported materials come from China housing Wire lead analyst Logan Mo says, - We still have very high tariffs. We withdrew money from the economy. We've been firing federal workers. There's all these variables that are still in play, but just for today, the worst case scenario for the economy that it looks like we're gonna do multiple deals and there are some deescalation with China.
- Now, where tariffs are more complex is in consumer sentiment, says realtor.com. Senior economist Joel Burner. - You know the only thing that really pins up the housing market is the labor market. So if people are afraid of losing their jobs, it's going to impact the housing market's, gonna bring down housing values and going to slow home sales even more than they already have been. - Burner spoke on Yahoo Finance, the somewhat cloudy skies hanging over the housing market so far this spring.
Maybe about to get brighter. Altos Research President Mike Simonson likes the outlook - Year to date through the first week of May. We count 3% fewer total sales than in 2024. But in May and June the yearly comparisons get easy because last year at this time was really dry due to the highest mortgage rates of the year. So the next bunch of weeks should report home sales growth each week. - Simonson spoke in an altos video. Melissa, back to you.
- Thanks Bill. Selling your house is a stressful part that kicks off a lot of moves. What can you do to ease the process? Ever heard of a pre-inspection real estate broker, Kara? Amir says it can be a smart move for home sellers. She's joining us next to talk more about that. Kara is a real estate broker with Coldwell Banker's Vanguard Realty based in Florida's Ponte Vera Beach.
Kara is also a licensed real estate professional in California working in two of the fastest paced housing markets in the country. Kara, welcome to Real Estate today. - Thanks Melissa. It's great to be here. - So it's a popular time of year to list a home first sale. So let's talk about how to get moving in the home selling process. What's the first step homeowners should take when preparing to sell during the busier times of year?
- So as much as prep for sale is very important and all of the, you know, decluttering and painting and landscaping, there's one thing that sellers need to do before they do anything else. And that is get a pre-listing inspection. It's better for you as a seller to get a grip on your home's condition, on your time and your terms before going to market. - This is interesting. So bringing the home inspector in earlier into that process.
'cause usually sellers tend to wait until after they have an offer and then the buyer brings their inspector in. So you're saying bring that inspector in before you even list to do a checkup on the home. - It's a very proactive versus reactive approach, especially in today's market where we're dealing with the higher interest rates, the insurance, the inflation, it's a lot more expensive for a buyer to buy a home. And so buyers don't wanna buy the money pit.
They can't afford it, especially with the cost today, you know this is not 2021 with interest rates that were 3% and it so buyers are really evaluating properties very carefully. And if it's you know, gonna be too expensive with too many things to repair and replace, we'll walk away - Now we wanna help get home sellers moving today, but even after an offer, some deals can still fall through. What are the most common issues that could delay a home sale? - Well there's a few.
One being inspections like we just talked about. That's why getting a pre-listing inspection is so important because I think it will help derail a lot of the surprise and shock that might happen from inspections for both the buyer and the seller. 'cause working through repair issues can take a lot of time and trying to resolve things.
So inspections, financing for some people, you know, depending on the kind of loan there can be, you know, some gotchas or sometimes an underwriter comes back and wants the buyer to put more money down or pay off some debt and that might not go over so well. Appraisals have always been an area where the property may not appraise at the contract sales price. Now there's a difference the buyer and seller have to try to renegotiate and work it out. Or maybe everybody walks away.
Maybe a buyer doesn't wanna have to come out of pocket with additional funds. So certainly those are some things that can derail the deal - So much to consider. So the warmer months are always a busier time of year for the real estate market. Are there advantages to buying a home now versus later in the year when things are slower? - There definitely is because the spring is the time when everybody's starting to make their plans and a lot of moving is timed around the end of the school year.
So this is the time of year that we see a lot of properties coming on the market. And you tend to have more choices now than versus toward the fall or the end of the year. - How can a real estate agent help a buyer navigate this this time of year? - Well, preparation meets success equals opportunity, right? So you have to really coach your buyer clients on strategy.
Strategy is very important for the market you're in because like I was saying, all markets are local so what's going on, you know, in one city is very different from another one and even different parts of town. So really depending on the area that you're interested in buying the price point and what you're trying to find, an agent needs to counsel you with the specifics of that area.
They need to advise you, you know, what's the supply and demand like how quickly are properties turning, what's the percentage of asking price these properties are selling for? So you know how you know going in that hey, if something comes on the market, I can't wait, I'm gonna have to go in with a strong offer. You know, what's the strategy? - Go and educate. And are there any mistakes that you notice home buyers tend to make during these peak moving times?
- I think putting the cart before the horse. Take a step back and plan. Don't jump into the pool you want to, you know, first step, talk to a lender. You've gotta get your financial house in order. You need to understand what can I afford with what I have to work with, you know, what does my credit look like? What are my assets and income? What's my debt to income ratio? What payment am I comfortable in? And then that will drive everything else. But until you have that, you're just guessing.
- Well Kira, I really want to thank you for being on the show today to talk about how to get moving in the real estate market. Thank you Kira. - Thanks Melissa. It was great to be here. As always, - We are taking on moves in real estate. The average cost of a move in 2025 is about $3,000. But that can vary quite a bit depending on how far you're going and how much you own.
Whether you're moving across town or across the country, we've got expert advice to help you do it smart, safer and maybe even cheaper. Joining us on real estate today is an expert on moving. Robert Esposito, the author of the book, nobody Move Without Reading this. Robert is also the founder of relocator services based in Long Island, New York. Robert, welcome to Real Estate today. - Thank you. Thank you for having me. - We're so glad you're joining us today.
So what's the very first thing someone should do when they know a move is coming up, even if it's months away? - The very first thing according to like the emotional side I always say is I say you would be a hero if you tell clients to video the home before calling anyone in. 'cause they'll probably come a day where they would pay anything to have that. And that goes for like mom's house that you might've been born in or the house you raised your children in.
On a practical sense, I would say start planning immediately and coming up with a complete game plan where you strategically write things down. - What's your advice for people trying to decide between a DIY move and hiring a full service moving company? - Are you actually able to, I mean past the college phase and even at that level, DIY, it's much harder than you think it is, you know, and even in the book I talk about like how is it such a top stressor?
You kind of think about it like rent a truck, DIY, but it's actually a lot more to that. So - Now professional movers can obviously be more expensive. So I would assume a lot of people love that DIY just because they're cutting costs. But you're saying it's not always worth it in the end, - It's not worth it in the end.
If there's fragile stuff, the actual stress that you're gonna go through, it might be worth it in some areas like with certain specific areas of your house, but as a complete hole, it's probably not worth it. - Now moving can be expensive. Are there any cost cutting strategies that don't compromise the quality or safety of the move? - Absolutely. A lot of times people will think, hey, we're gonna do the garage or we're gonna do the backyard.
But those might be easy for the movers 'cause they do it every day and they're fast things like 50% of the contents might not equate to 50% of the job reduction, whereas 10% like taking TVs off the wall or packaging or creating fragile items might actually be 50% of the cost.
So if you're able to do those things like assembling or dissembling or handling fragile items that maybe you could just put in your back seat and it'll be extremely safe as the only thing in your backseat that might be much more cost effective than doing a lot of contents And by R you think, oh, that might be a lot less money. It doesn't equate that way. And also color coding organization is the most important thing.
And not only is that a cost saver, like our care packages come with color coding stickers, you also eliminate the need to be a foreman the day of the job and you're already dealing with all this stress and then now you have to be asked every single item where it goes by color coding it, you can eliminate 80, 90% of that work. - You've been very vocal about shady moving practices. How can consumers protect themselves? - One check to make sure they're licensed with their state.
Every state licenses movers differently. And then there's also the federal motor carrier that licenses for cross country moves or state to state moves. Another thing I would say is communication is the biggest thing. Some of them rightfully so, there are the shady ones and you need to do your due diligence because cheap isn't always, sometimes expen cheap is expensive.
But on the flip side, movers are a different trade because you're not estimating stable figures, you're estimating most of the time half the job at best. And you know, I always joke like I bet you wouldn't want the job of guessing how many times your spouse will want the sofa repositioned because somebody could ask for something to be moved 10 times and time is money when it comes to moving. - What are the most overlooked items
or tasks people forget about during a move? What - Are the pets need? What do the kids need? Where are the chargers? Where are the remotes? Where is the, you know, last minute snacks that you need to stay fueled on, moving day, things of that nature. And then making sure what is supposed to stay for the new owners stays and what's not supposed to stay doesn't. - That's a big one in real estate. So your book blends the logistics of moving with psychology. Moving is stressful.
What do people most often underestimate about the emotional side of moving? - I think they underestimate the actual effect the items will have on them in grudging up old or uncovered feelings of grief that haven't been dealt with yet. - So as you're going through things and packing them up, it brings back all these memories.
- Correct. Or like the smell of your child's blanket in the crib or things of that nature that you know, instantly trick your brain into, you know, remembering a time or a place or a person. - You know, another one a lot of people point to is moving with children. Do you have any advice on what parents can do to help their kids better prepare for the moving process?
- My advice for them to help them adjust is to focus on the positives, the new friends, the new sports, the new events or activities they can do and keep them as occupied and as part of the processes possible. Write a letter to the old home but in a new home, pick out your color, paint on the wall or you know, whatever you can engage them in to make them part of the process going forward, we'll push them forward.
- That's good advice. I always think back of my child when he was three years old and the movers came to pack everything up and he was screaming, don't take my toys. - Exactly. - Maybe preparing them, Hey the movers are gonna be coming in and this is what's gonna happen. You know, I also hear you're working on a journal for movers asking them to reflect on what their home means to them. What are some of those questions you ask homeowners to reflect on about their home?
- And a journal goes from past to present to future and it makes you think of, you know, the traditions you started in this home, the ones you wanna carry on to your next home. What brought you there, what goals did you have? At what point did this house become your home somewhere you ran to for comfort and salvation when the world was crazy?
All things like that we talk about in the journal and we don't really write about it, we're just sparking you to write about it so you can have that for yourself and your family. - I love that idea. So often we think of scrapbooking the memories of our kids and vacations, but you can also take that same idea and make a scrapbook for the homes you've lived in. - Exactly. - Robert, I really wanna thank you for being on our show today and talking about easing the stress of moves. Thank you Robert.
- Thank you. - And now it's time for hot or not our weekly quiz about what's trending in home design all for the sake of increasing your home's appeal. So today let's head outside and take on our first trend and that's spray painting your lawn green. What do you think? Is it hot or not? It's not. So if the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, well your neighbor may have a dirty little secret and it's not their fancy sprinkler system.
They might just be painting their lawn green. That's right. Lawn painting. The quick fix for drought damaged turf golf courses and stadiums have been doing this for years, but now homeowners are joining the club, they're motivated by water restrictions, annoying dead patches. And let's be honest, dying your lawn is cheaper than having it receded or ripping out a dead lawn entirely.
Sure this grass paint is technically non-toxic, biodegradable and safe for pets and kids, but it takes 24 to 72 hours to dry In that time. You need to keep the pets kids and curious neighbors off the lawn or your dog may be freshly dyed green to the likes of the incredible Hulk. Also something to know with this, the spray doesn't always hold up well in heavy rain. Now another thing with this, remember you still are painting dead grass. This isn't solving lawn problems.
No amount of emerald green spray paint can fix compacted soil shade issues or neglected lawn care. All that said, I'll be honest, I'm intrigued by this idea. Let's say you've got a patch of grass that needs a touchup before a special event or the dog keeps browning up that same area and it stands out against the rest of your perfectly manicured turf. Go for it. Grab the green spray, why not?
But you may also consider more long-term solutions by limiting the amount of your water loving turf areas. Also using native grasses or even artificial turf in some cases because in the end, if you just reach for the spray can again and again realize you are not really fooling anyone. You can't truly fake your lawn's health in the long run and your dirty little green secret might just be exposed once that heavy rain comes. Let's take on another aspect of the home.
And that's this idea making the rounds called no mo May. What do you think? Is that hot or not? Not there's been a real outdoor movement growing in recent years called No Mo May, but it's hit a bit of a snag. Despite its eco-friendly intentions, it's now ruffling feathers with neighbors and homeowner associations. So for this season and for those reasons, we're giving it a knot. Now don't get me wrong, the ideas certainly sounds hot on paper an entire month without mowing the lawn.
And it's not about being lazy. But strategic supporters of no mow may say it's all about helping the planet and protecting early season pollinators like bees and butterflies, let the grass and wild flowers grow in return. You're doing the environment a lot of good. But here's the twist, some scientists are saying that letting your lawn go wild might not actually help Pollinators all that much tall, dense grass can crowd out the very flowers bees need.
Plus it only provides a brief buffet for insects just for one month and then it's back to mowing as usual. Worse yet, the original study that helped launch this entire movement has since been retracted. Researchers instead are recommending some alternatives like planting native species such as nectar rich white clover, and even wild strawberries and hay. There's even a low mo may option where you mow a month instead of weekly to keep your lawn tidy while also helping pollinators.
You can embrace the trend, do less, but do it smarter. Add pollinator friendly plants, mow a little less, let nature thrive, but do it without ticking off your neighbors or collecting citations from your homeowners association. For more home design and remodeling inspiration, check out house logic.com. Up next, we're taking a look at some of the best places to call home. That's right, the areas with bragging rights, earning a spot on Liv Ability's. Best Places to Live List for 2025.
Joining us to learn more about these trendy cities to call home is Amanda Ellis, editor in chief of Livability Media and the lead on this year's Best Places to Live List. Amanda, welcome to Real Estate Today. - Hello, thanks so much for having me. - We're so glad you're joining us today. So, which cities topped livability 2025 Best Places to live list? - Yes, this is one of my favorite things to talk about.
We have moved more towards celebrating all 100 of these places, whether your ranking would put you at number one or number 100, right. But that being said, I will let you in on some, not necessarily secrets here, but our top scoring cities. If you do look at the scores, some of those were Flower Mount Texas, Carmel, Indiana, Sugarland, Texas, Naperville, Illinois, and Roswell, Georgia. Those would technically be our five highest scoring cities this year.
If you do look at this as a, as a ranking versus just a list of 100 amazing places. - That's great. So tell us what makes a city one of the best places to live in 2025? - A lot of things, but as far as this list, we do use a rather intense, if I do say so myself, data-driven process and algorithm to come up with these. So what that looks like is we pull more than a hundred data points on all the cities that we look at for this list we focus on small to medium sized cities.
So that population that we use for this is 70 5K to 500 K. So all the cities that fall in that range are the ones that we pull data on. Those data points are divided into eight different categories and those are designed to take into account pretty much anything you would think of when evaluating whether a place is a good place to live. So amend these and things to do economy, education, environment, health, housing, and cost of living. And the other one is safety and transportation.
- So research from the National Association of Realtors has shown that more people are motivated to move in order to be closer to friends and family or for affordability, not necessarily jobs like has been the case in the past. Do your rankings illustrate this shift in priorities? Are you noticing that - As far as the bigger trend? We definitely see people waiting that quality of life piece equally to that career piece, right?
They're both really important, but if you had a job opportunity somewhere, unless you were really desperate, you're probably not gonna go somewhere that you don't think you would enjoy living. Right. And in some of our other research we've looked at, you know, asking people like, how did you end up where you're, where you're living? And the number came in, I believe around 20% of people in that survey said that they had ended up in their current city for a job, which is a decent number.
But then you think about the other 80% all had other reasons. - Amanda's summer is just around the corner and I am dreaming of a beach town. What are some of the best beach towns that appeared on livability list this year? - We've got a good handful of places with some solid coastal proximity, a couple of those. So we saw Wilmington, North Carolina come up this year, Charleston, South Carolina, everybody loves Charleston. I talked about Greenville, North Carolina a little bit.
They're not too far away from some coastal access. Tampa, Florida was on the list. So we definitely have some fun ones and we do see in our research that people appreciate that coastal proximity and mountain proximity to. - Sounds great. So did you have any cities top livability, best places to live list for some unexpected reasons, maybe places people don't usually think of as trending.
- So one that I always think is interesting, it's not their first time on the list, but Hoover, Alabama is sort of a suburb of Birmingham and Birmingham is very cool and also has some really cool suburbs like that that if you haven't spent a lot of time there, you know, might not be top of mind, but that was one that was cool to see. Definitely. - Any newcomers on this year's list? - Greenville, North Carolina was a cool one that was great to see.
Show up, Auburn, Alabama, Athens, Georgia was another one that showed up this year, Gainesville, Florida. And when I was looking at that, I had jotted down a couple of my favorite newcomer cities and I thought those are all college towns. So it was interesting that we kind of saw that in common of some of those newcomer places. And we know that college towns have a lot of amenities that everybody enjoys, even if you're not a student, right?
And statistically they tend to be a little bit more diverse, a little bit more affluent. And of course education levels a lot of times are a little bit higher than some other places, so they have a lot to offer. It was an interesting common thread between them - And they tend to have very lively housing markets - Too. That's true. - Do you think the big city spotlight has faded a bit and are those smaller and midsize towns gaining a lot more attention?
- I think so, and I think it's for several different reasons. I think that nowadays, I think most smaller and medium sized cities offer most of what people want and need, right? And in a lot of ways it's kind of easier to enjoy them. And a lot of smaller and medium sized cities too are still within like a few hours drive of a larger metro if there is something that you feel like you just really need that you don't have immediate access to.
And I also think there's a lot more intentional effort in more recent years in those communities promoting themselves in a really intentional way to get on the radar of, again, we talked about talent attraction and to get on the radar of those people that they want to reach. So I definitely think there is. And the large metros, I mean we all, you know, know a lot about kind of what their challenges are and what makes them so fun to visit, right?
But as far as living there, yeah, I think day to day there's just a lot of challenges in some of those really large metros that are a little bit reduced in some of our smaller or more medium sized cities. And there's so many great ones across the country. - So for people planning a move this year, what advice would you give them for researching a new city? - So selfishly, I do have to start by calling out our site as a whole livability.com. That's kind of our whole shtick.
We're built out to be a comprehensive relocation resource. And I would also say this more intentional approach to talent attraction. And that a lot of communities are actively doing a lot to try to get your attention. And so I think kind of looking at what some of those are, there are a lot of incentives out there. You know, could any of those be somewhere you'd be interested in and and benefit you?
You know, we're seeing some cash offers, some home down payment assistance, you know, things to do with getting property. So I think that's definitely something to think about. Or even just programming that communities have around helping you get to know people and build community and think about are there benefits there that you can tap into? I think would also be a really good strategy, especially if you're looking at the country as a whole and thinking about, hmm, where do I wanna go next?
- That's great advice. Well, Amanda, I really wanna thank you for joining us today to talk about livability best places to live list. Thank you, Amanda. - Thank you. Thanks so much for having us. This was fun and one of my favorite topics - And that wraps up our show for today. We hope you picked up plenty of tips to help you feel right at home this national moving month. Whether your next move takes you to the city or the suburbs, your best place might be just around the corner.
So wherever you land, we wish you a smooth journey, happy memories, and we hope you'll take real estate today along for the ride into your next chapter. Until then, from all of us here at Real Estate Today, thanks for listening and happy National Moving Month, - A brand new show every Friday. And when you subscribe, you'll never miss an episode. The Real Estate Today Podcast because knowledge is power, realtors are members of the National Association of Realtors.