Home Guru

Outgassing. If you don’t know what it is, as I didn’t until recently, it might sound like one of those little slips that all humans occasionally have–only outside. But it’s more serious than that. With its unfortunate name, outgassing, sometimes

Ah, the ways of nature and how we roll with them on our own properties can be challenging indeed. I recently read an article online warning of nine plants we should never have on our properties because of their invasive

Just as my wife and I were congratulating ourselves for having created the most beautiful kitchen ever, eschewing white appliances for brushed steel and polished black, complemented by warm wood and state-of-the-art surfaces, we heard the bad news. The new

You’ve not likely seen a real estate column like this where a realtor acknowledges being in a quandary about why a house hasn’t sold when it should have long ago, and ponders why, generally, some houses get snapped up right

A note from Bill:  From time to time, I pick out snippets from my columns that readers tell me they enjoyed. These little absurdities are included in my upcoming book, “Musings of The Home Guru: Observations and Advice about Buying,

Am I terminally weird or does everybody like surrounding themselves at home with highly personal items that remind, motivate and inspire us to achieve personal and professional goals? As a realtor who writes, I know that when a house is

Besides serving as a way to find where you live, can the name of your street influence the perception of your home and its value? The thought occurred to me once when I read a newspaper report about a complaint

You can’t always believe what you see, hear or read. That’s true even if it appears in The New York Times, is supported by research by the new professional designation of “experts in happiness” and associated with the Harvard Business

Okay, so gutters and drains may at first blush seem like a boring subject with no room for my usual bent toward humor. But it’s something well worth considering if you want to avoid some very unsexy problems in your

Do you remember the story of Chicken Little, the fable in which the central phrase is “The sky is falling?” Normally we apply the phrase to people who manage to incite an unreasonable fear in others. Recently, I was told