LOS ANGELES -- Walking into the sunlit accessory dwelling unit just steps from his family's home in Culver City, Adrian Perez places his hands on the wall of his bedroom and smiles broadly.

"Adrian likes to touch everything," explains his mother, Andrea Villicana. "When the ADU was completed, he knocked on all the walls and tested the acoustics...Read more

To unveil one of the grandest penthouses ever to be built in Los Angeles, its developers threw a little dinner party.

Two dozen of L.A.’s top real estate agents — the sunglasses-indoors kind who regularly appear on reality television — were tended to by a cadre of young women in identical cream outfits, hired for the evening to serve as �...Read more

During the day, Mel Vezina supervises and mentors high school boys who live on campus at the California School for the Deaf in Fremont.

At night, he sleeps in his van.

One year ago, after working for more than a decade at the school, and living out of his van, Vezina saved enough money to buy a house in Sacramento with the help of a roommate. ...Read more

SALIDA, Colorado — Blocked from sleeping in vehicles parked within municipal boundaries, workers in profit-minded Colorado mountain towns now must seek “safe outdoor space” — in Walmart lots, forests or newly designated areas with Wi-Fi and access to bathrooms.

But homeowners oppose these SOS zones in Salida and Breckenridge as “band-...Read more

Retail traders who lurk in forums like Reddit’s WallStreetBets are back to betting against Wall Street pros and the Federal Reserve as rallies for meme stocks like Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. show shades of last year’s mania.

The home-good retailer nearly tripled at one point during its nine-day winning streak...Read more

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Lucille Brooks was stunned when she picked up the phone before Christmas two years ago and learned a nursing home was suing her.

“I thought this was crazy,” recalled Brooks, 74, a retiree who lives with her husband in a modest home in the Rochester suburbs. Brooks’ brother had been a resident of the nursing home. But ...Read more

CHICAGO — Developer Sterling Bay is set to begin construction of Chicago’s first mass timber building, a nine-story, apartment tower in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. If approved by City Council, the $50 million development may kick off widespread use of the modern technique, already popular in other cities, which boosters claim is more ...Read more

If signed into law as written, the climate bill before the U.S. Congress would change the calculus for American households thinking about going solar. The legislation stands to make that transition more affordable while also subsidizing purchases of electric cars, heat pumps, high-tech water heaters and battery-storage systems — clean-energy ...Read more

If you want to put your dollars into causes you care about, one of the easiest ways to get started is through socially responsible investing. The strategy prioritizes financial return with the caveat that the money is invested to fuel positive change in three key areas: environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG). Perhaps you’re ...Read more

There was a major development in 2006 that transformed how Americans invest for retirement. It solved one problem, but created another that will be causing extra pain to people who retire in this economy.

The mid-2000s was the start of the nudge revolution, where policy makers thought they could coax people into more desirable behavior. The ...Read more

If there’s one thing the impending back-to-school season makes clear, it’s that the cost of higher education in the U.S. is nerve-racking. The average tuition and fees for the 2021 to 2022 school year is $10,338 at an in-state public college, $22,698 at an out-of-state and $38,185 at a private school, according to U.S. News data.

Based on ...Read more

Home ownership has reached a milestone in the U.S.

Nearly half of mortgaged properties were considered equity-rich in the second quarter — meaning owners had at least 50% in home equity. This marked the ninth straight quarterly rise, fueled by soaring house valuations in the pandemic era and an increase in down payments by recent buyers, ...Read more

With so much attention fixed on soaring prices for gasoline and groceries, one can almost overlook the fact that we’re also enduring an affordable housing crisis. The question is, why?

Spanning the pandemic era from February 2020 through May 2022, home prices soared 43.5%. Over the past 12 months, home prices are up 19.7%, while residential ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Just when we thought the real estate market had cooled, along comes evidence that in the land of make-believe, there is no ceiling.

My colleagues Roger Vincent and Andrea Chang have reported in the last few days that even the humble condominium, which once was sort of like a starter house on training wheels, is going for ...Read more