Backyard Chicken Ownership Hit Record Highs After Years of Soaring Egg Prices, and Industry Data Shows Demand Still Hasn’t Slowed Even as Prices Finally Drop

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A brown backyard hen foraging in a sunlit green pasture with other chickens in the background

Nearly one in five Tractor Supply customers now own chickens, and the retailer sold roughly 10.5 million chicks during its 2024 spring “Chick Days” event alone, according to reporting on the company’s own sales data and customer figures. About 11 million Americans currently keep backyard chickens, a roughly 28% increase since 2023 based on industry … Read more

Homeowners Are Cutting Back on Renovation Spending This Year, Angi’s Own Data Shows, but One Project Category Keeps Growing Anyway Despite the Pullback

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Front entrance of a house under renovation with tools and materials scattered around

Just 35% of homeowners who hired a professional in the past year took on an actual renovation, compared with 63% who paid for maintenance and 58% who paid for repairs, according to Angi’s own 2026 State of Home Spending Pulse report. That gap is the whole story of home spending in 2026: discretionary upgrades are … Read more

Top Interior Designers Say Vintage Furniture Is Now Outselling Brand-New Pieces in High-End Homes, According to a Fresh Industry-Wide Survey

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Living room styled with vintage wooden furniture and an ornamental rug, reflecting the rise in antique furniture demand

Designers are furnishing high-end homes with more secondhand pieces than at any point in five years, and the shift is showing up in the numbers. In 1stDibs’ newly released 2026 Designer Trends Survey, 36% of everything sourced for client projects in 2025 was vintage or antique, the highest share the marketplace has recorded since 2021, … Read more

Starter Homes Under $300,000 Have Nearly Disappeared From the Market Entirely, NAR’s Own Data Shows, and First-Time Buyers Are Paying the Price for It

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Small suburban starter home for sale on a sunny day

In June 2019, more than half of all homes listed for sale in the United States were priced under $350,000. Today, according to Realtor.com’s own inventory data, that share has fallen to just 37.6%, and the country has roughly 300,000 fewer entry-level listings than it did seven years ago. The National Association of Realtors’ own … Read more

Kids’ Products Are Being Recalled at a Faster Pace This Year Than Last, CPSC’s Own Data Shows, and Nursery Gear Is Quietly Driving Most of the Increase

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An empty white crib in a softly decorated nursery

The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced 420 recalls in 2025, the highest annual total since 2007 and a jump from 305 the year before, according to U.S. PIRG Education Fund’s analysis of the CPSC’s own recall data. More than a quarter of those recalls involved products made for kids, and nursery and sleep gear is … Read more

Realtors Are Forecasting a 14% Jump in Existing-Home Sales for 2026, and Economists Say It Could Finally Break the Market’s Two-Year Slump

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Two-story brick suburban house with landscaped front yard in daylight

Fourteen percent. That’s the jump in existing-home sales the National Association of Realtors projected for 2026 when its chief economist Lawrence Yun stood up at the group’s annual forecast summit in November 2025 and called it “the year that we will see a measurable increase in sales,” according to NAR’s own forecast announcement. The number … Read more

Fire Prevention Week Is Almost Here, and NFPA’s Own Data Shows Nearly Three in Five Home Fire Deaths Happen in Homes With No Working Smoke Alarm at All

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fireman walking in front of brown brick house

Three of every five home fire deaths happen in homes with no smoke alarm at all, or with alarms present but not working, according to the National Fire Protection Association’s own analysis of U.S. home fires. The breakdown is stark: 37% of victims died in homes with zero smoke alarms, and another 23% died in … Read more

Zillow Just Named the Metro Areas Where Home Buyers Finally Have the Upper Hand Heading Into 2026, and a Few of Them Might Genuinely Surprise You

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Elegant suburban home with driveway at sunset showcasing modern architecture.

Indianapolis just beat out 49 other major U.S. metros to claim the top spot on Zillow Research’s own 2026 ranking of the best markets for home buyers, with a typical home value of $283,040 and forecasted annual appreciation of 2.9%. That’s not a market most people picture when they hear “hot housing market” — and … Read more

Palm-Sized Joro Spiders Are Ballooning on Silk Threads Into New States This Fall, and Entomologists Say There’s Almost No Realistic Way Left to Stop Their Spread Now

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barn spider on cobweb closeup photography

Joro spiders now have confirmed, breeding populations in at least five states beyond Georgia — North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and Maryland — with isolated sightings already logged in Virginia and Pennsylvania, according to the University of Georgia’s own College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences field report. Peak spider-spotting season runs September through October, … Read more

Pediatricians Are Rolling Out New RSV and COVID Vaccine Guidance This Fall, and It’s Noticeably Different From What Parents Heard Just Last Year

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a young child is being examined by a doctor

The American Academy of Pediatrics has released updated RSV and COVID-19 immunization guidance for the 2026-2027 respiratory virus season, and for the first time in recent memory, it didn’t come through the CDC’s own vaccine advisory process. The AAP’s own policy statements, published alongside matching recommendations from the American Academy of Family Physicians and the … Read more