This week’s fire at Paris’ Cathedral of Notre Dame is bringing a realization that historic buildings may be prone to such tragedies. The fire spread through the wooden attic, bringing down its 300-foot spire and engulfing two-thirds of the roof, and occurred over just an hour.Building the cathedral attic required the wood of more than 1,300 trees. Attics tend to be dry spaces and, when dust and debris accumulate, they can be even more flammab
As sea levels rise, architects are brainstorming ways to make homes more resilient to flooding. A floating unit is being singled out as a living solution for coastal areas.Oceanix, a nonprofit that designs and builds floating cities, and the MIT Center for Ocean Engineering are showing off a futuristic concept of a floating city. The floating communities can expand, contract, and combine to form cities in prefabricated hexagonal islands of 4
Many homeowners may be one leaky or burst pipe away from a financial crisis.Nearly 20 percent of homeowners admit they have no money put aside for an emergency home repair, according to a survey of more than 1,400 homeowners by HomeServe USA. Yet more than half of the respondents say they’ve had a home repair emergency in the last 12 months.“Part of that can be attributed to the fact that the median age of a home is about 40 years, so th
April 11 marks National Pet Day, and it’s time to find a pet to appreciate, if not your own.After all, pets have a big say in real estate. Eighty-one percent of Americans say animal-related considerations play a role when deciding on their next living situation, according to a 2017 report from the National Association of REALTORS®. Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed said they would not give up their animal because of housing restr
Austin, Texas, once again topped U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Places to Live in the USA” list for 2019. The Texas capital has topped the list for the past three years.Austin, known as the “Live Music Capital of the World,” scored highest on desirability for its music venues and local bands, as well as its food scene and accessibility to outdoor activities (it boasts more than 250 parks). It also has become a major tech hub
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) -- a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration -- was designed to capture images of a black hole.Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.This breakthrough was announced in a series of
The housing market showed signs of slowing in March compared to a year ago, even as some “unexpected hot spots emerged,” realtor.com® notes in its latest housing report. Each month, realtor.com® releases its “hottest metro” list based on where homes are selling the fastest and the markets seeing some of the biggest online listings traffic at its site.In March, several Ohio markets known for affordability topped realtor.com®’s list. T
DIY home improvement jobs can end in disaster. And even when they don’t, projects can become time-consuming and costly. Botched DIY home improvement jobs can also lead to quarreling among loved ones, shows a new survey from Porch.com, a home improvement website. Porch.com surveyed more than 1,000 homeowners to discover the biggest sources of tension and mistakes during home improvement projects.A third of homeowners say they tackle house projec
Hispanics are fueling homeownership growth in the U.S. They represented 62.7 percent of the increase in the U.S. net homeownership rate from 2008 to 2018, 81 percent of the U.S. labor force growth, and 32 percent of U.S. household formations, according to the 2018 State of Hispanic Homeownership Report, released Tuesday.“Hispanic household growth continues to outpace that of the overall U.S. household growth and is anticipated to do so for the
More consumers are flipping homes again, but investors are acting differently than they did during the housing boom. Short-term investors are focusing more on adding value than speculating on prices, according to a new report from CoreLogic, a real estate data firm. CoreLogic defines a home flip as the purchase of a property with the intent to sell within a two-year period for profit.The U.S. flipping rate was 10.9 percent of all home sales in th
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