The commercial real estate market is seeing prices rise as investors place bets on a return to the workforce and travel, even more quickly than they had expected. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued new guidance that says vaccinated Americans no longer need to wear masks or observe social distancing in many cases. That may bring workers back to the office sooner than anticipated and prompt more Americans to travel once again too.

“The CDC’s new guidance will send a strong message to all businesses and their employees that a full return to the office and other indoor settings will be achieved safely and effectively,” James Whelan, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said in a recent statement.

Pension funds and private equity firms are already spending record sums on buildings, particularly for office buildings and hotels, The Wall Street Journal reports. Commercial real estate prices have increased 7% since July, which is helping to make up for more than half of its pandemic losses.

Inflation, however, has become a growing concern in the financial community. That may prompt even more investors to turn to commercial properties with leases that include rent increases to keep pace. “People view it as inflation-protected,” Eric Rosenthal, managing partner at Machine Investment Group, a real estate investment firm, told The Wall Street Journal.

Ahead of what could be a return to normal life, some investors are targeting places that were hit hardest by the economic crisis during the pandemic. For example, in San Francisco, the share of office space available for lease is at the highest on record, according to CBRE data.

Following the CDC’s updated guidance last week, some offices decided to speed up their return timelines. For example, Blackstone, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs among others reportedly announced returns to the office, possibly even by next month. Sabre Corp., a Dallas-area travel technology firm, said the updated guidance will likely accelerate its return-to-office plans this fall and allow them to open more desks on certain floors.

“Anything that makes people feel comfortable to come into work is positive for the landlord business,” Eric Meyer, principal of real estate investment company Meyer Equities in New York, told The Real Deal. “If the CDC is saying it’s safe, and people are on the same page with that, it certainly helps.”

Still, some employers may delay or prolong a return to the workplace. Some companies had announced plans to bring workers back around Labor Day; The Wall Street Journal said that, with a tight job market, some CEOs may be concerned about upsetting their workers or preempting plans based on their prior guidance.

Property taxes can vary considerably based on where you live. Homeowners in some metro areas pay thousands of dollars more per year than owners elsewhere. Home shoppers will want to factor in these added costs when they buy to avoid unexpected tax surprises.

For example, the median real estate tax in Las Vegas—the lowest of the 50 largest metros analyzed—is about $7,700 cheaper than in New York, where property taxes are highest, according to a new analysis from LendingTree. Las Vegas and Birmingham, Ala., are the only two metro areas in the study that had median real estate taxes that were less than $1,000 a year—at $696 and $892, respectively.

On the other hand, homeowners in New York and San Jose, Calif., pay the highest real estate taxes nationwide, at a median of $8,400 and $7,051 respectively.

Demand for homes in some of the lowest-cost neighborhoods in the country is surging in the red-hot housing market, prompting neighborhood revitalization projects to spread.

U.S. ZIP codes where the median home price is less than $100,000 have posted a 42% jump in home values in the past three years, according to an analysis by CoreLogic and The Wall Street Journal. That’s double the increase in ZIP codes where the median price was between $150,000 and $200,000 and triple the hike in areas with prices $300,000 and up, according to the analysis.

The higher home prices are helping to revive local economies in places like Detroit and Cleveland, where there are pockets of homes that aren’t even eligible for financing, the Journal reports. In Detroit’s cheapest ZIP codes, where the median sales price was $45,500 in early 2018, home prices have surged 113%, according to CoreLogic. The Detroit Land Bank Authority, which manages thousands of vacant properties, sold 1,091 homes in the first three months of the year and decided not to demolish about 300 other homes due to the increase in demand.

Investors and first-time home buyers are helping to lift the bottom end of the housing market, the Journal reports. Still, housing experts warn that rising prices could ultimately keep more potential buyers out of the market.

Home buyers are facing relentless competition in the housing market, driven by low mortgage rates and inventory. According to the latest REALTORS® Confidence Index, based on real estate transactions nationwide in March, practitioners report an average of five offers on their most recent listing.

In a separate report by Redfin published in April, 72% of the brokerage’s agents faced competition when submitting an offer for their clients—up from 66.7% in March. “Bidding wars are intensifying,” says Kristin Lopez, a Redfin real estate pro in Boise, Idaho. “In March, we were seeing three or four offers on a home. Now, we’re sometimes seeing more than 20.”

Earlier this spring, a home in Dallas drew 97 offers. “The list price is the starting point,” Mark Wolfe, broker-owner of RE/MAX DFW Associates, told the Dallas Business Journal about the competition. Bidding wars have grown so common that nearly half of homes on the market are being sold for more than their list price, according to Redfin.

What’s more, bidding wars are the most common reason house hunters who have been searching for at least three months haven’t been able to buy a home. Forty-five percent of longtime house hunters say they continue to lose out in bidding wars, which is higher than those who say they can’t find an affordable home (32%), according to a recent analysis from the National Association of Home Builders.

Buyers are facing some of the steepest competition for housing in Salt Lake City, where 83.5% of offers written by Redfin real estate professionals reportedly faced competition. San Diego and Spokane, Wash., closely followed at 83.3% each, as well as Boise at 81.8% and Phoenix at 80.5%.

Holly Meyer Lucas, a team leader of Meyer Lucas at Compass in South Florida, came up with an idea for bringing home bidding wars to Zoom to “open the playing field” for sellers and buyers. She believes it could provide more transparency in multiple offer situations if all bidders could meet over video conference to present and discuss.

Meyer Lucas shared her Zoom bidding wars idea recently with FOX-29 WPTV News. But she’s still looking for a seller willing to participate.

After recently hosting a charity event with a live auction, she had the idea of a roundtable Zoom bidding war for selling a home. Each buyer would be with their agent on the video call, along with other interested parties, too, as the agents discuss pricing and options.

“The way I see this is buyers can participate. They can be on the phone, but they’ll be muted,” Meyer Lucas says. “We’ll open it up for questions, where the buyers’ agents can ask the questions like, ‘How old is the roof? Are there impact windows?’ So that we get all the answers out in the open.”

The current market frenzy has Meyer Lucas concerned. Some buyers are subjecting themselves to risky contracts by waiving contingencies just to try to win bidding wars. Other buyers may get outbid for a home they wanted but not know why they lost out.

“We absolutely are going to do this,” Meyer Lucas told WFLX.com. “If it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work. Whether or not other agents will play ball is a great question. The few that I’ve talked to have said for sure, they will participate. There are going to be some … agents who might push back.”

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.