Data Just Revealed the Single Best Week Left This Fall to List a House for Sale, and Sellers Who Miss It Tend to Pay for It in Lower Final Offers

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gray wooden house

Home sellers who wait too long into fall are already leaving money on the table, and the data shows exactly how much. ATTOM Data Solutions’ 2026 seller-premium analysis, built on 52 million home sales going back to 2015, shows October as the single worst month of the year to close a deal, with September only … Read more

CDC Surveillance Data Shows Respiratory Illness Is Already Climbing Among Kids Just Weeks Into the New School Year, a Seasonal Signal Right on Schedule

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A caring moment of a woman checking a sick child's temperature on a cozy green couch indoors.

The CDC’s own respiratory illness data channel, updated September 4, 2026, shows rhinovirus and enterovirus activity “increasing nationally” just weeks after classrooms reopened, alongside rising COVID-19 activity in several regions. Overall acute respiratory illness nationwide is still rated “very low” on the CDC’s five-level scale, but the agency’s own tracking already shows the seasonal climb … Read more

Your Washing Machine’s Rubber Door Gasket Is Dirtier Than Your Toilet Seat, Microbiology Research Shows, and Almost Nobody Ever Bothers to Clean It

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pink and green plastic container

The rubber gasket lining your front-load washer’s door is one of the dirtiest spots in the entire house, and most people never touch it with a cleaning product. A 2025 peer-reviewed microbiology study published in Frontiers in Microbiology found bacterial loads on front-load door seals averaging 6.5 log10 CFU per swab, a measurement that translates … Read more

There’s an Exact Outdoor Temperature That Sends Mice Racing Indoors Looking for Shelter, Pest Control Data Shows, and It’s Warmer Than Most People Think

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brown rodent on brown dried leaves

Most homeowners picture mice moving indoors once the first hard freeze hits. Pest control professionals say that clock starts ticking much earlier: once outdoor temperatures fall and hold below roughly 50 degrees Fahrenheit, rodents begin actively migrating toward buildings, well before winter actually arrives. That’s still sweater weather for most people, which is exactly why … Read more

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