When you want to get your house on the market and sell it quickly, it's got to be in tiptop condition. This means making necessary repairs, as well as cleaning, staging, and possibly even making a few cosmetic upgrades that will make your property attractive to a wide range of buyers to ensure your home brings top dollar in fast fashion.

Whether you’re a first-time homebuyer or a seasoned seller, the process of buying or selling a

home is challenging, and sometimes stressful. The good news is you don’t have to do it alone.

With the right agent by your side, the homebuying journey - from house hunting to signing the

contract - can be thrilling. After all, you want to work with a professional who advocates on your

behalf, sells your home for top dollar, or helps you find the perfect home for the best price. But

what makes a good agent? A good real estate professional is someone who is personable,

knowledgeable, trustworthy, and has the resources and tools to get the job done.

So, what qualities should you look for in a good real estate agent? Sometimes finding the

perfect match is more difficult than anticipated. To guide buyers and sellers on the path towards

working with the right real estate agent, Redfin asked us and other top Partner Agents to share

our expertise and weigh in on the top qualities to look for in a real estate agent. Check out what

we had to say!

Previously considered a luxury, a home office is a new must-have as many people embrace a flexible work schedule. With space going at a premium in most homes, converting the garage into a home office comes as a no-brainer. This can give you the much-needed workspace.

Preparing your home for a sale can be as exhausting as it is exciting. There is much to do, and adding kids to the mix can create more than a few extra challenges. Thankfully, there are ways you can be prepared, even for last-minute viewings. With the right preparation, you and your family can ready your home for anything. Whether it's decluttering or cleaning for a sudden viewing, working together gets things done faster. This may be a stressful time, but it can bring a family closer.

If you need to sell your home quickly, it’s important to make eye-catching improvements that accentuate your home’s best features. That means making upgrades inside and out that entice buyers and leave them with a lasting and memorable first impression that makes your property stand out.

In some parts of the country, houses can sit on the market for months before they’re snatched up by someone eager to move in. That’s not good, especially if you want to get started on your new life elsewhere. To make sure this doesn’t happen, you need to get plenty of people interested in your piece of paradise so someone will want to commit to a contract quickly. It’s not necessarily easy, but it’s definitely doable if you follow these tips.

One of the best things you can do for your home and property is improving your landscaping. After all, not only does it look great but it can add a significant amount to your home value.

About to remodel that old kitchen? Unless you’re cool with treating the hardest working room in your house like a museum exhibit, resist the temptation to buy the cheapest or shiniest materials available and go for durable options that can stand up to regular abuse.

Trust us: Although it may be tough to leave that raised, tempered glass bar top (ooo!) in the showroom, repairing its first (and second, and third) chip will get old. Very fast.

Picking the right materials is easy if you do your homework. “There are amazing products out there,” says Jeffrey Holloway, a certified kitchen designer and owner of Holloway Home Improvement Center in Marmora, N.J. “You’re looking at price point, sanitation, how easy it is to clean the product, its durability and maintenance.”

Keeping those all-important features in mind, here are some materials to avoidduring your next kitchen project.

Mold is a household nuisance that often creates a musty odor. Although it's not a difficult task to remove some common types of mold with towels and a spray bottle of bleach, mold can cause health problems and destroy building material. Similar to smoke or water damage, serious mold removal requires a professional.

7 Home Hacks That Make Maintenance Easier

These tricks make tackling prickly household chores easier.

According to some studies, as many as 21,000 people a year die from lung cancer linked to radon gas. This substance is not something to take lightly. One in ten homes nationwide has elevated levels of the gas indoors.

The Appalachian region is known to have significantly higher levels than this. The gas is a radioactive element that’s invisible, odorless, and tasteless. Fortunately, it’s easy to test for it, and there are effective ways to vent it out of the house.

Buyer’s regret is real and painful. The bigger the purchase, the higher the stakes.  Buying the wrong home can be catastrophic. Ideally, we wouldn’t make these kinds of mistakes...

Thankfully, there was a recent Zillow survey of 2,000 recent first time home buyers we can learn from them and avoid catastrophe with a little forethought. Here are some key steps to a happier new chapter....

 New homeowners may have heard that winterization is important, but in the hubbub of your first year living in a home you own (finally!), it can be easy to overlook the need to prepare for the cold weather ahead. After all, it's just not something renters deal with; prepping pipes for winter (http://www.houselogic.com/home-advice/plumbing/prevent-freezing-pipes/) is often the landlord's job.

 Ideally, you should winterize your pipes in the fall, before winter seriously sets in. But if you've forgotten and all of a sudden you're in the middle of a deep freeze, there's still time to prevent disaster.