Homes are selling quickly and that has caused a problem for many home sellers. With housing inventories at record lows and buyer competition strong, home sellers are finding it difficult to purchase a new home to move in to before they must leave their existing home. Some sellers are even declining offers on their current home because they can’t find a place to move to, or they’re exploring other options like short-term housing or asking for leaseback options.

Nearly 60% of homes are going under contract within just two weeks, according to housing data from Redfin. Forty-six percent are sold in seven days or less.

“One of the toughest aspects of selling a home in a hot market is what’s next after the home sells,” Matt Van Winkle, owner of RE/MAX Northwest in Seattle, told Money.com. “Timing a purchase and sale is incredibly difficult in most markets but especially when most sellers won’t accept an offer contingent on the sale of the buyer’s home.”

Many home sellers in this situation are asking for a leaseback or rent-back agreement after closing to allow them to stay longer to find a new home. This allows the seller to lease the home from the buyer for a set amount of time and pay the new buyer a daily, weekly, or monthly rate. Some buyers are waiving those extra fees to sellers in leaseback agreements to win a bidding war when they first negotiate an offer.

It’s increasingly becoming a trend, Gordy Marks with RE/MAX Northwest in Seattle, told Money.com. “I’d say a third of the current contracts being written have a rent-back of some length—usually free to the seller,” Mark said. “If the buyer doesn’t want to give the seller a rent-back, they just won’t get their offer accepted.”

But these leaseback agreements can raise potential home warranty and insurance issues that both the seller-tenant and new buyer need to be aware of and ensure they’re both covered for whoever is living in the property.

Other options that sellers are exploring are moving in with friends or family or even renting a short-term furnished unit, like with monthlong setups through Airbnb, VRBO, or other similar property. They also may find more options from a traditional rental property with short-term or month-to-month leases. Home sellers can place their furniture in storage with a moving company—usually averaging about $60 to $225 per month—and then are living out of a suitcase until they find a new home.

The DIY industry has been booming since the pandemic as more homeowners tackle house projects while sheltering in. But some projects may be doomed to fail.

Homeowners report spending an average of $184.13 to fix their failed DIY house projects, according to a new survey from Cinch Home Services, a home warranty company. Certain DIY projects may be more prone to end in mistakes: For example, one in five attempted bathroom DIY projects ended in failure.

Cinch Home Services surveyed more than 1,000 consumers about their recent DIY experiences—about 90% had taken on a DIY home project during the pandemic.

Millennials are the most likely to be confident in their DIY home expertise—however, they’re also the highest age group to report the largest number of DIY fails, according to the Cinch Home Services survey. Millennials reported spending an average of $220.50 to fix their failed DIY projects compared with $127.10 baby boomers spent on any of their own mishaps.

Homeowners are turning to other sources before they tackle a DIY house project. For example, the most common way to learn DIY skills was from video tutorials, a friend or family member, or online articles.

These are the most common DIY fails, according to the survey:

Competition in the housing market is fierce and it’s prompting home prices to rise quickly, but that doesn’t appear to be deterring some home buyers. A slim majority of 53% of Americans believe it’s still a good time to buy, according to a new Gallup survey of about 1,000 U.S. adults released this week.

Yet, consumers realize they’re going to pay more for a home nowadays. Seventy-one percent of Americans believe that home prices are going to increase over the next year in their local market, the highest reading since Gallup began tracking such data. A year earlier, only 40% of consumers believed home prices were going to rise, although that was taken last April shortly after the COVID-19 outbreak ignited across the U.S.

Still, while many Americans believe it’s a good time to buy, they are showing they have a lot of questions over the rapid run-up in the housing market. A record number of consumers reportedly are searching on Google to find out whether real estate is set for another housing crash that would be similar to the one sparked during the Great Recession. Find out why most leading housing economists believe that is not the case: ‘This Isn’t a Bubble’

Americans who believe it’s a good time to buy are placing more weight on the long-term value of homeownership. Forty-one percent of survey respondents chose real estate as the best investment, up from 35% a year ago. Stocks were rated as the next best long-term investment, but still at a distant 26% in comparison to housing.

Over the past 12 months, extreme weather—which has ranged from heat waves to forest fires to unexpected frigid temperatures—has caused not only caused damage to homes but also prompted higher electricity bills for a growing number of homeowners nationwide, according to a new study from Sense, a home energy management resource.

In a survey of more than 1,100 homeowners, Sense researchers found that nearly half—or 48%—of owners are looking for ways to reduce electricity consumption to help cut those higher costs from climate change. For example, some homeowners are taking steps to better maintain or upgrade their HVAC system, adding insulation, or upgrading their windows.

Weather disaster events in 2020 led to $95 billion in damages, more than double the 41-year average of $45.7 billion, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 2020 saw a record number of named Atlantic storms and large wildfires recorded in California. What’s more, Tornado Alley residents in the Midwest and South saw a record-breaking number of storms along with frigid temperatures last year.

Homeowners located in Tornado Alley—an area that stretches from northern Texas to South Dakota—reported the largest impact from extreme weather in 2020 compared to other regions in the U.S. Seventy-six percent of homeowners in that region reported personally experiencing extreme weather—compared to 53% in other areas of the country. Also, 59% of homeowners reported seeing higher utility bills or their home’s damage compared to 36% of the rest of the country, according to the Sense study.

As a result of such costly damages and high alert weather patterns, more than half—54%—of all homeowners surveyed reported being concerned about climate change due to extreme weather.

Looking for Ways to Reduce Energy Use

Nearly half of homeowners looked for ways to reduce their home’s electricity consumption or took steps to improve the efficiency of their heating and cooling systems. But Sense researchers said that many homeowners also overlooked some more practical solutions, too. Here are a few retrofits that could make a difference, according to Sense:

• Vampire power zapped by consumer electronics and other devices that stay on continuously in the home can account for 23% of the average home’s electricity bill. But only 44% of homeowners surveyed say they turn off consumer electronics when not in use. Also, consumers could put electronics on smart strips with timers to help save electricity costs too.
• Only 12% of homeowners replaced their HVAC system with a heat pump, which Sense researchers note is a much more efficient approach than conventional systems. Sense experts note that heat pumps will be a key technology to adapt homes to climate change.
• Eleven percent of homeowners reported using their utility’s free app or a home energy monitor to track their energy usage. The apps or monitors allow owners to get more insights into exactly what’s using most of the energy in the home so that they can then take steps to address it.
• Just under one-third—or 29%—of homeowners installed smart thermostats in the past year. “Technology advances like smart thermostats and smart-home energy monitors will also help consumers to manage their home energy more efficiently while making their homes more reliable,” Sense researchers noted in the study.
• Twenty-seven percent of homeowners added insulation or upgraded windows, and 29% maintained their HVAC system to help better try to curb annual energy consumption. About half of an average household’s annual energy usage goes to energy sources for space heating or air conditioning, according to the Energy Information Administration. “Tightening the home’s envelope and making HVAC systems more efficient can have a substantial impact on home energy usage,” Sense researchers note.
• Removing smaller energy wasters can also make a difference, such as by replacing incandescent lightbulbs in ceiling fixtures with more energy-efficient LEDs.

As the industry is finding itself up against a tight inventory and the market so competitive, brokerages are offering incentives for clients to work with them.

Realogy hopes to attract more prospects with a new client incentive for customers who might be interested in a “vaxication” as well as a home. Combining the interests in a new home with many people’s desires for an overdue vacation, Realogy launched its Miles from Home Realty Rewards program with American Airlines. The Miles from Home program offers members of American Airlines AAdvantage loyalty program an opportunity to earn 2,000 AAdvantage miles for every $10,000 of the sale or purchase price of a home.

Realogy hopes the program will provide another source to generate more leads to its affiliated agents and brokers. Realogy’s brands include Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, Sotheby’s International Realty, and others.

The miles program is a relaunch of a program that Realogy offered in 1996. “We are strategically relaunching the Miles from Home Realty Rewards Program with American Airlines … to make the most of consumers’ growing appetite for travel and to connect even more highly-interested home buyers and sellers with Realogy-affiliated brokers and agents,” says Katrina Halmkamp, president and CEO of Realogy Leads Group.

Some brokerages are tying their incentives directly to the community. For example, Realty ONE Group launched a program this year, ONE Tree, ONE World, pledging to plant one tree for every home bought or sold by its real estate professionals in 2021. The goal is to plant 111,111 trees. “ONE Tree, ONE World gives us an opportunity to make a direct and significant impact on our communities around the world in more than 111,111 ways,” says Kuba Jewgieniew, CEO and founder of Realty ONE Group.

The median existing-home price for a single-family home in March jumped to a record high of $334,500, according to data from the National Association of REALTORS®. Meanwhile, the median sales price of a newly built home was $330,800, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

New homes are traditionally more expensive than used homes. The scenario in which existing homes sell for more than a new home hasn’t occurred in more than 15 years, CNBC reports.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean existing homes are more expensive, economists say.

“On a per-square-foot basis, within comparable markets, a new home is still priced higher than an existing home,” Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, told CNBC.

Available housing in the existing-home sector lately may be skewing toward the higher price brackets. For example, the number of existing homes that sold in March priced between $100,000 and $250,000 fell by 10% compared with a year earlier. On the other hand, the number of homes priced between $750,000 and $1 million that sold increased by 82% compared with a year earlier, according to NAR data.

New-home construction is increasingly drawing more first-time home buyers, and some builders are starting to build slightly more entry-level homes to meet demand. First-time buyers were responsible for 43% of new-home sales in February, according to the National Association of Home Builders, higher than the 31% of existing-home sales first-time buyers purchased.

Regardless, the higher price tags for existing or new homes haven’t deterred home buyers.

“Consumers are facing much higher home prices, rising mortgage rates, and falling affordability; however, buyers are still actively in the market,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of REALTORS®.

The U.S. housing market is on a hot streak with double-digit annual gains in home prices, bidding wars, and surging buyer demand. That type of soaring housing market is prompting more “bubble” fears in some corners, but economists say the housing market isn’t getting overinflated.

“We have strong conviction that we are not experiencing a bubble in U.S. housing,” Vishwanath Tirupattur, a Morgan Stanley strategist, wrote in a note to clients this week.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of REALTORS®, agrees. He told Axios last month: “This is not a bubble. It is simply lack of supply.”

The rapid rise in prices may be concerning to home shoppers, however. The median selling price for a home is up $35,000 compared to a year ago, which is the fastest-paced increase since 2006, Tirupattur said.

But this isn’t 2006. Housing inventories are low, credit remains tight, and lenders aren’t issuing risky loans at rates like they did back then. Product risk—such as from mortgages with introductory periods, teaser rates, or balloon payments—comprised about 40% of the mortgage market between 2004 to 2006. More recently, those factors are now at only 2% of the mortgage market, according to Morgan Stanley.

Also, the housing market has a record low number of homes available for sale. At the end of March, there were 1.07 million homes available for sale, according to NAR data. For comparison, during the housing bubble, in July 2007, there were more than four times that—4 million homes available for sale.

Still, while home prices won’t keep climbing at the current pace. They aren’t expected to fall either, economists say.

“We are not at all suggesting that home price appreciation will maintain its current torrid pace,” Tirupattur writes. “Home prices will continue to rise, but more gradually.”