Home prices continue to rise to astronomical heights in San Francisco. 

A home that was recently listed for sale in the Inner Richmond neighborhood is a near-perfect example of how bloated the market has become. 

In April of this year, the mummified corpse of the home's former owner was found inside, wrapped in a blanket. The woman had reportedly died five years earlier, but her 65-year-old daughter hadn't told anyone that her mother's body was still in the home. 

The deceased woman was reportedly a hoarder, and there was so much trash in the home that firefighters had to wear oxygen masks to enter. 

"The hoarding is reportedly so bad that it’s up to the ceiling," district supervisor Eric Mar said to CBS San Francisco in April. 

The home is now on the market for $928,000.

The home was built in the Victorian style in 1904. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and sits on a 2,996-square-foot lot. 

The listing describes it as a "Major-Fixer with Peaked Roof, Lots of Vintage Charm/Details and a real News Worthy History," but it doesn't mention the discovery of the woman's corpse.

According to CBS San Francisco, realtors must disclose that a death happened on a property only if it happened within three years. Since the woman reportedly died five years ago, the house was not subject to that law. 

SEE ALSO: A shack in SiIicon Valley and a mansion in Austin: Here's what a $1-2 million home looks like in 7 major US cities

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A small town in Italy is giving away free homes. It sounds too good to be true — and as one woman who visited that town found out, it is. 

In August last year, Tavia Macnaughtan went to Gangi, Sicily, on the promise of buying a house for just one Euro.

But after traveling nearly 10,000 miles from her home in Melbourne, Australia, and crossing two continents, she discovered that it would cost a lot more than that — over $17,000 more, in fact.

"I stayed there for a week and looked at all the ones that were for sale," Macnaughtan tells Business Insider. "They were all terrible and needed to be knocked down and rebuilt."

With a dwindling population and aging homes that offer little new-world appeal, the city started giving the homes away.

The catch? Buyers have to draw up renovation plans within a year and execute them within three.

As Macnaughtan soon learned, that clause came at a cost.

"The conditions were [such] that I would need to pay fees and permits" totaling $22,000 AUD ($17,040 US) before she started to renovate, she said.

The bottom dropping out on the visions of perspective buyers — like Macnaughtan — of cheap homeownership isn't unheard of.

In America, foreclosed homes that go up for auction almost always need major repairs.

The fact that they cost next to nothing usually just serves to get potential buyers interested. When local governments reclaim the properties, they sell them on the agreement that repairs will be made within a certain period of time.

In the end, Macnaughtan realized it was cheaper to buy a house that wasn't on the list of €1 homes, so she spoke to a local real estate agent to see some houses that were more up to par. But when she showed interest in one of those houses, she says, she was told she couldn't buy it on the spot.

"I said I would buy it, but they said not now!" she recalls.

Eight weeks after she had returned home to Australia, without a Sicilian home to her name, she got an email asking if she was still interested.

"But by then," she says, "I was over it."

SEE ALSO: New York City rent laws are insanely confusing, so we figured them out for you

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The idea behind paying off a loan faster than scheduled is pretty simple: It saves you money.

That's a huge part of the reason Andrea Stewart and Jerimiah Honer decided to repay their 30-year mortgage in just seven years — by doing so, they saved more than $130,000 in interest.

Now the couple has an opportunity to achieve other goals, like invest beyond their property and existing retirement funds, travel and maybe do a little shopping.

The frugal pair hasn't done a lot of that in the last several years.

Stewart, 32, and Honer, 36, worked hard to save money as they tried to accelerate their loan repayment, but they acknowledge they also had a lot of luck. 

Paying off debt is a different journey for everyone, but here's how they quickly achieved their dream of owning their own home.

The details

Stewart and Honer bought their house on a 0.10-acre lot in Sacramento for nearly $300,000 in 2008.

Their combined annual income from their full-time jobs amounts to roughly $150,000, but they received supplemental income from a variety of sources along the way to repaying the mortgage.

They made a 10% down payment and received a 30-year mortgage with a 6.75% interest rate, but they refinanced twice, to 5.25% and then to 3.875%. Honer calculated their estimated savings of $130,000 using the lowest rate. The couple had some student loan debt when they took out the mortgage, but by paying an additional $200 a month toward their education debt, those loans were paid off by the end of their first year in the house.

That's when they switched their attention to the mortgage.

How they paid off a 30-year mortgage in 7 years

The property itself had a huge impact on the couple's ability to put a lot of money toward their home loan. The house is close to downtown Sacramento, allowing them to easily commute by bicycle and sell their second car. Honer and Stewart also grow most of their own food.

"It's actually easier to go into your backyard and pick things than go to the grocery store," Honer said. "We like the organic element as well as it's a huge bill cut."

Not only did they save a lot on gas, vehicle expenses and grocery bills, they also budgeted as if they made less money in the first place. Honer crunched the numbers, and even though both he and Stewart have full-time jobs, they figured out they could manage under one income. The second income went toward the mortgage, and Honer made his own amortization schedule to determine how much they could afford to pay (and eventually save).

Much of their success stems from their mindset toward money.

"I think we were always frugal to begin with — we're both savers," Stewart said. "One of the things we asked ourselves when we made a purchase was, 'Is this really going to make us happy?' … We try to have experiences like traveling and things like that, yeah, but I don't think [we like] a lot of stuff."

Or, as Honer puts it: "We don't know how to spend money anymore. We kind of forgot." He also said that they're not "big credit people," and even though a mortgage is a helpful credit instrument, it was important to them to be out of debt as soon as possible. (You can see how your debts and your payment history are affecting your credit by getting your free credit report summary on Credit.com.)

Tips for paying off debt fast

For anyone interested in trying to replicate their success, there are a few things to know. First, they paid off their other debt obligations (student loans). In addition to cutting out expenses and keeping to a strict budget, Honer and Stewart received some money besides their regular income, which they put toward the loan. The two are aspiring writers and made some money from side gigs, but they also received personal-injury settlements from two separate times a car hit one of them while riding a bicycle. Getting hit by a car isn't exactly good fortune, but the settlements amounted to $37,000, which helped cut down the debt. Inspired by a friend's successful pregnancy through egg donation, Stewart twice donated eggs and received about $6,000 each time.

Their story is a combination of hard work, a solid financial situation and luck, but a lot of their success comes down to decision-making: They could have done a lot with their regular income and the additional money they came into, but they chose to put it toward a specific goal. That means their home cost them thousands of dollars less than it could have if they paid for it on schedule.

There's not much they would have done differently, though they admit they could have saved more, rather than just pay off the home loan and contribute to their retirement accounts. Honer and Stewart don't see themselves changing their spending habits now that this huge loan is behind them, and they plan to stay in the home for a long time. Now they're interested in exploring other investments and maybe even retiring early some day.

"I hope it helps some people," Stewart said of her decision to share their story. She posted about it on Reddit, where it generated a lot of conversation. Her advice? "I would say just think about what makes you happy." That's what drove their decisions, and it kept them on track for years.

More from Credit.com

• How to Refinance Your Mortgage With Bad Credit
• How to Cut Your Homeowner's Insurance in Half
• The Lifetime Cost of Debt Calculator

SEE ALSO: How to shave years off a decades-long mortgage

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Online home marketplace Realtor.com announced its new partnership with home rental service Airbnb. The partnership is an effort to help potential buyers “try before you buy”. Now available on Realtor.com’s desktop and mobile sites, when viewing a listing customers will also see an “Airbnb before buying” section on the listing page, showcasing rentals in the same neighborhood. The new partnership is being kicked off with a Try Before You Buy Sweepstakes, which is giving away $500 towards an Airbnb stay to weekly winners through August 23.

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Realtor.com has recently been focusing heavily on its digital presence, reports Mobile Marketer. Last month, the company revamped their mobile site and app, streamlining its look to make it as easy to use on a mobile device as it would be on a desktop.

Additionally, in order to keep up with the local markets, the app refreshes 90% of its listings every 15 minutes. Now, partnering with Airbnb gives Realtor.com access to a new audience of online buyers, as well as being the first online realty market to provide this kind of service to its potential customers.

Here are other stories you need to know from today's E-COMMERCE INSIDER:

• SUPERMARKET COMPANIES AHOLD AND DELHAIZE ANNOUNCE MERGER
• AMAZON LAUNCHES TREASURE TRUCK IN SEATTLE
• COMPANIES IN THE NEWS 

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WeWork, a company that leases office space to startups, is now worth $10 billion, twice as much as it was worth 9 months ago. Is this a sign that the tech boom is turning into a tech bubble?

Analyst Ben Thompson lays out the bear and bull cases for the company in his newsletter today.

It's easy to see WeWork as a risky real-estate arbitrage play — it finds office space in hot markets while it's still relatively cheap, mainly by being an anchor tenant in new developments, then sells it at a markup to venture-funded startups. 

When the flow of venture capital and other startup financing slows down or dries up, as it must eventually, that could put WeWork in a very tough spot. 

More generally, commercial real estate is a boom and bust business. When the economy stumbles, landlords who were faced with waiting lists a few months ago suddenly struggle to find tenants and have to accept lower prices.

But Thompson argues that WeWork may be a new kind of business because:

• It's creating a community with a particular identity, not just renting space. 
• It appeals to the "on-demand" mindset that a lot of startups and their employees enjoy with services like Uber and Airbnb (and even in cloud-based technology like Amazon Web Services and Salesforce). Instead of locking yourself into a long-term contract for space you may not need, WeWork lets the company retain a lot of flexibility to grow and shrink as your needs change.
• It may seem expensive, but it lets you outsource the kinds of services that used to require a dedicated office manager. 
  

Business Insider is now a two-time customer of WeWork in San Francisco, and while the community aspect is nice — it's fun to work in a pleasant well-appointed office with a lot of other similar-minded startup employees and amenities like free beer on tap — it's Thompson's last two points that really resonate.

Earlier this year, our previous landlord, TechSpace, couldn't guarantee any new space in time for the new employees who were starting soon. The fact that WeWork is expanding so fast — the space we moved to opened in June, and it's planning two more facilities in San Francisco — meant that they could accommodate us right when we needed it.

The office management benefits are a little overstated — for instance, this WeWork facility did not include telephone land lines, so we had to come up with our own solution — but even so, we don't really need a full-time office or facilities manager for our 20-person office. I'm not sure that would be the case with a traditional lease.

There are a couple other things I've noticed that make me positive on the company:

• They pre-lease spaces before they're finished. Maybe this is standard practice, but both times we've rented WeWork spaces, we took hardhat tours before the space was complete. The final amenities — like desks — weren't added until a day or two before move in. Right now in this space, a couple floors are done, but the remaining floors are still being built out. This is great for WeWork's cash flow — it can use the first tenants to help fund the rest of this space's expansion.
• Space is used extremely efficiently, with glass walls to make it feel bigger. Our current space covers significantly fewer square feet than our last one — and it's cheaper — but it holds more people. WeWork is able to do this thanks to extremely efficient use of space — there's no square footage wasted in alcoves or entryways, and nearly every wall and window has a desk in front of it. This could feel crowded, except every single wall throughout the facility is mostly glass. That light goes a long way.
• Not just office space, but coworking space. In the last WeWork space we rented, there was a large common space reserved for on-demand coworking — customers could buy packages starting at $45 and rent a desk for a day. WeWork gives them a mailing address, Internet connection, and so on. This doesn't make sense for a fast-growing company that's already funded, but it's perfect for entrepreneurs working on an idea, contractors, or freelancers. Not every WeWork facility has this option, but many do.

Yes, real estate is risky business. And WeWork is dependent on the current tech boom.

But if you believe that the startup landscape has changed forever — it's so much cheaper to start a tech company now than it was 15 years ago, thanks to Amazon Web Services and dozens of similar on-demand services — maybe WeWork is at the vanguard of a 21st century way of working, not just an arbitrage play.

SEE ALSO: WeWork, which rents space to startups, is reportedly worth $10 billion — step inside and find out why

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A church-turned-condo overlooking Manhattan's Stuyvesant Square is up for sale. 

The 3,462-square-foot, loft-style duplex combines two apartments in the Abbey at St. George’s Church. 

The apartment has four bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, and is selling for $5.9 million. 

David Margolies of Compass has the listing. 

SEE ALSO: These are the 5 most extraordinary homes on sale right now

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This spectacular, loft-style duplex combines two apartments in a former church built in 1915 and converted into a condominium in 2006.

The landmark building is located on East 16th Street and offers views of Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Square.

Inside the architectural gem is a large, light-filled living room with original coffered ceilings and arched stained-glass windows.

There's probably no place in the world where the adage "live and learn" is truer than in New York City.

First-time renters may think a "cozy" apartment sounds cute; veterans know it's claustrophobic.

Newcomers may think that a bedroom that looks out into a courtyard will be nice and quiet; veterans know it's dark — all the time — and that the early morning garbage can rollout will wake anyone from slumber.

RentHackr, an NYC-based apartment search site where renters post about their apartments and lease expiration, has collected responses from hundreds of users about what they wish they'd known before they moved into their buildings. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, water pressure, hidden costs, and lax staff are among the most common complaints.

We suggest you read through the responses below and use them as fodder for your due diligence so you can save yourself some rental grief when hunting for a new apartment.

Moving issues

• You can't move in and out on Sundays.
• You can avoid the broker's fee! 

Building  issues — maintenance and beyond

• Elevator occasionally doesn't work so you can't get down to laundry/trash.  
• There's no buzzer, so there's no way to let people into the building except going to the front door
• Wish I'd known that the renovations on the roof deck would last over two years. Still haven't been able to use it.

Noise complaints — from inside and outside

• You can hear everything when people above are running around. 
• Pipes bang in the winter! 
• Wish I'd known that  Second Avenue subway noise was going to eventually make its way to the East 60s and wake me up at night.
• Being in a pet building without pets means listening to neighbors' barking dogs all the time with no benefit whatsoever. 
• The building is under renovations — it can be loud at 8 am. 
• The heater is loud.
• The radiators in the apartment are extremely loud to the point that we can't sleep.
• The bedroom is street-facing and the honking drives me crazy!
• There's a large construction project happening one building over — jack hammering in the morning is sometimes a problem.

Problems inside the apartment

• You are not able to put up a pressurized wall. 
• Water comes out scalding hot — be careful! 
• We had a mouse problem, solved that by getting a cat.
• The living room window can't really open because of the A/C unit. 
• I just wish there was better water pressure. 
• Most of the time the radiators don't work and it's freezing. 
• Wish I knew we wouldn't always have hot water for showers in the morning.
• Wish I knew that living in a private house I wouldn't get as much heat or enough sunlight or even a view.
• Wish I knew how hot it gets from the heater in the winter.
• Wish I knew how annoying it could be to have such a small sink when you don't have a dishwasher.
• Wish I knew that water temperature would constantly change in shower. 

Issues with the outside

• The building shakes a little from the subway below. 
• Wish I'd known how many homeless people camp out around the block. 
• Wish I'd known that the scaffolding outside would be up for three years.
• They built a patio on the building next door; there is not a lot of privacy as it sits right next to my bedroom window. 
• There is a space to safely park bikes behind the building, but it gets crowded quickly. 
• Wish I'd known there would be scaffolding outside for three years. 

Neighborhood quirks

• Wish I knew about how loud it gets on the weekends [in Greenwich Village].
• How loud the neighborhood is in the summer [in Washington Heights].
• Sometimes the F train doesn't run on occasional weekends.
• Stuyvesant Town is a great community, but is secluded from the city which is double edged sword.
• The [South Street Seaport] neighborhood is dead from fall to spring.
• I love the apartment although Roosevelt Island takes some getting used to.
• Wish I knew that commuting downtown [from Washington Heights] so often would wear me down.
• There is nothing to do on Roosevelt Island. Our neighbors complained after every single party on the terrace. 
• Wish I knew how noisy [Washington Heights] is.
• There are  too many tourists, and construction in Hell's Kitchen is ongoing, overall completion estimate is 2017. 
• That Yorkville wasn't the most happening place in NYC. 
• [Alphabet City] is a little bit of a hike to the Second Ave F Train or the L, but CitiBike makes getting around the city easy.

Building staff problems

• We have a security guard who they bill as a doorman; however, they cannot accept packages.
• Inattentive super. Maintenance requests are ignored.
• The super never fixes anything. Seriously. 

Unexpected costs

• Rent rises astronomically every year.
• Paying for gas and electric is expensive during the winter.
• Utilities are not included in rent.
• That parking was so expensive in this building and tickets are not fun.... Oh well you live and you learn. 
• Wish I knew having a yard is like having one more expense.
• They give you a great deal initially but raise the rent by hundreds.
• There is a fee for some repairs. Laundry prices are extremely high.
• Rent increases are substantial when not committing to a two-year renewal.  
• The windows and walls are not at all insulated, and you pay for electric heat. Expensive! 

Building rules

• They make it nearly impossible to sublet. I actually want to move a few months before my lease is up. 
• Only Time Warner Cable is allowed in this building. I dislike TWC.
• Co-op boards put you through hell to rent from an owner.
• Temporary walls aren't allowed anymore.
• They forced us to take down our temporary wall after two years of living there, a month before our lease was set to renew! 
• The laundry room closes at 10 p.m.

Neighbor issues

• Wish I knew how many kids there were in the building.
• The average age in the building is in the mid to early 20s and it can be loud at night. 
• The building is a little bit young — lots of just-graduated-from-college type. 
• The two apartments next door are on AirBnB so you have new neighbors every single weekend! 

The apartment's locale

• In a front-facing ground-floor apartment, if I open my blinds everyone can see me.
• The boiler is right below our ground-floor apartment, so it's always warm. 
• Wish I knew that the elevator bell dings each time it stops on my floor, as the unit backs up to the three elevators. 
• Wish I knew that ground floor = bugs.

SEE ALSO: Here's what it's like to stay in a Cuban Airbnb, where everything looked great but was actually broken

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Many people have said to me in the past month, “I’m going to buy a home.” Or, “What do you think of the idea of me buying a home?”

I like the second batch of people. They are my friends and it seems like they are sincerely asking for my advice.

And I’m going to give it to them. Whether they meant it or not.

I have some stories about owning a home. One of them is here: “What It Feels Like to be Rich,” where I describe my complete path into utter depravity and insanity.

The other one is still too personal. It's filled with about as much pain as I can fit onto a page. Oh, I have a third one also from when I was growing up. But I don’t want to upset anyone in my family so I’ll leave it out. Oh, I have a fourth story that I just forgot about until this very second.

But enough about me. Lets get right to it.

There are many reasons to not buy a home: [By the way, I also put this in the category of Advice I want to tell my daughters, including my other article: 10 reasons not to send your kids to college.]

Financial reasons:

1. Cash Gone.

You have to write a big fat check for a downpayment. “But its an investment,” you might say to me. Historically this isn’t true. Housing returned 0.4% per year from from 1890 to 2004. And that’s just housing prices. It forgets all the other stuff I’m going to mention below.

Suffice to say, when you write that check, you’re never going to see that money again. Because even when you sell the house later you’re just going to take that money and put it into another downpayment. So if you buy a $400,000 home, just say goodbye to $100,000 that you worked hard for. You can put a little sign on the front lawn: “$100,000 R.I.P.”

2. Closing costs.

I forget what they were the last two times I bought a house. But it was about another 2-3% out the window. Lawyers, title insurance, moving costs, antidepressant medicine. It adds up. 2-3%.

3. Maintenance.

No matter what, you’re going to fix things. Lots of things. In the lifespan of your house, everything is going to break. Thrice. Get down on your hands and knees and fix it! And then open up your checkbook again. Spend some more money. I rent. My dishwasher doesn’t work. I call the landlord and he fixes it. Or I buy a new one and deduct it from my rent. And some guy from Sears comes and installs it. I do nothing. The Sears repairman and my landlord work for me.

4. Taxes.

There’s this myth that you can deduct mortgage payment interest from your taxes. Whatever. That’s a microscopic dot on your tax returns. Whats worse is the taxes you pay. So your kids can get a great education. Whatever.

5. You’re trapped.

Lets spell out very clearly why the myth of homeownership became religion in the United States. Its because corporations didn’t want their employees to have many job choices. So they encouraged them to own homes. So they can’t move away and get new jobs. Job salaries is a function of supply and demand. If you can’t move, then your supply of jobs is low. You can’t argue the reverse, since new adults are always competing with you.

6. Ugly.

Saying “my house is an investment” forgets the fact that a house has all the qualities of the ugliest type of investment:

1. Illiquidity. You can’t cash out whenever you want.
2. High leverage. You have to borrow a lot of money in most cases.
3. No diversification. For most people, a house is by far the largest part of their portfolio and greatly exceeds the 10% of net worth that any other investment should be.

Personal reasons:

7. Trapped, part 2.

Some people like to have roots. But I like things to change every once in awhile. Starting March, 2009 I was renting an apartment directly across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. It was fun. I’d look out the window and see Wall Street. How exciting!

Before that I lived in The Chelsea Hotel with Chubb Rock. Last year we decided to relax and move a little north. Now I look out the window and see the Hudson River. And its quiet and I can walk along the river in the morning with no noise. It took us two weeks to pick a place and move. No hassles. I like to live a hassle-free life.

8. Walls.

You can’t change the walls when you rent. A lot of people seem to want to tear down walls. Or paint them. Sometimes when you rent you can’t do these things. Well, make sure you have a landlord that lets you tear down walls. There must be some ancient evolutionary tic that makes us want to tear down walls or put nails in them or paint them. I don’t get it. I like the walls to stay right where they are.

9. Rent.

People will argue that the price of the mortgage, maintenance taxes, etc is all baked into the price of rent. Sometimes this is true. But usually not.

10. Psychology.

Look at your personal reasons for wanting to own. Do you feel like you can’t accomplish something in life until you own a house? Do you feel like its part of getting married and “Settling down,” i.e. creating a nest for your future children?

For you, is it a part of becoming an adult. Is this what your parents taught you? Examine the real reasons you want to own and make sure they are coming from a good spot in your heart.

11. Your time.

Do you really want to spend all that time working on your house? Is this where your time is best spent towards creating a happy and fulfilled life for yourself?

12. Choices.

I feel when I rent I always have the choice to leave. To live wherever in the world I want whenever I want. Adventure becomes a possibility even if I never take advantage of it.

13. Stress.

For me (not for everyone) owning a home equals stress. I saw what my parents went through at their worst moments owning a home. I saw what I and others went through in the Internet bust when I first owned a home. I saw what people went through in 2008. People were killing themselves. I don’t like that sort of stress. This is how I deal with stress.

14. Cash is king.

I like cash in the bank. I like having access to it. I don’t like it all tied up in one illiquid investment. I want to fill a bathtub with all the dollar bills I would’ve used as a downpayment on a house. I want to bathe in that bathtub. I’m going to do that later today in fact.

By the way, this is going to sound like a contradiction: but I think housing is a great investment right now. I think housing prices have gone down far enough and I can list the reasons why housing as an abstract investment concept is going to go higher from here.

But I don’t like to write about investing on this blog. Suffice to say there are many stocks you can buy, with leverage if you want to take advantage of the rise in housing. But I’m never going to buy a home again. And sit there in the middle of the night thinking, “why the hell did I do this to myself again.”

SEE ALSO: This Flowchart Could Help You Decide Whether To Buy Or Rent A Home

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.

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Paris has approved its first tower in over 40 years; the city council has agreed to move forward with Herzog & de Meuron's 180-meter-tall "Triangle Tower" - or "Tour Triangle" - after initially rejecting the proposal last year.

The controversial plans have been the center of an intense debate since its unveiling in 2008 on whether or not Paris should preserve its 19-century skyline. 

As Gizmodo reports, the Swiss architects sold the tower to the city by claiming its glass facade will "disappear" into the skyline.

“Almost everything the architects say has one message: This building is invisible,” as Foreign Policy pointed out last year. “As if to reinforce this strange duality, the renderings omit Paris’s one true existing skyscraper: the wildly unpopular Tour Montparnasse, built in 1973.”

Once built, the tower will be Paris' third tallest structure, after the 324-meter Eiffel Tower and 209-meter Montparnasse Tower. It will house a 130-room hotel, restaurant, Sky Bark and 70,000-square-meters of office space.  

The building will be the city's first tower realized after its height limitations were removed in 2010, which prohibited the construction of buildings over 36 meters. 

SEE ALSO: 27 of the coolest new buildings on the planet

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BEIJING (Reuters) - Dismayed by the millions of unsold homes in China's troubled real estate market, the Chinese government is taking matters into its own hands: by buying some properties and turning them into public housing.   

Like a white knight riding to the rescue of distressed developers, a handful of local governments are snapping up thousands of empty homes at hefty discounts and re-selling them to the country's poorest households.

This cannot be a cure-all for China's huge supply overhang.

At the end of May, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, unsold residential floor space totaled 657 square kilometers - the most unsold space in at least two years, and covering an area nearly the size of Singapore. 

Still, the policy getting tested in at least six provinces looks like a win for all. Low-income households gain from a bigger supply of subsidized homes, the government boosts its poverty alleviation work, developers deplete an oversupply of houses that has dampened prices, and crucially, China's cooling economy gets a fillip from a healthier property market.

All of this comes with a caveat: government purchases of homes - done with discounts averaging between 10 percent and 52 percent - add to a mountain of public debt and do little to discourage the next housing bubble.   

But the potential benefits are alluring, leading authorities in some of China's worst-performing property markets to experiment with mass purchases of homes.

'Ghost city' movement

In the Inner Mongolia city of Erdos, notorious as a "ghost city" after a building frenzy failed to attract buyers and residents, authorities in Dongsheng district bought houses in April and May.

Online documents showed authorities, through tenders, bought 3,660 housing units from eight developments in May for between 2,766 yuan to 3,612 yuan ($446 to $582) a square meter. "We will watch the situation in the (housing) supply," said an official at the Dongsheng housing authority who declined to be named. "If there is a need, we will buy again."

Repeated phone calls to the Erdos government went unanswered

The government's foray comes at a time China's struggling housing market appears to be stabilizing. New home prices edged up for the first time in 13 months in May, suggesting the property market may be bottoming out.

"If the inventory can be gotten rid of more quickly, it will ease the stress on developers' funding," said Zhu Jianfang, the chief economist at CITIC Securities.

Too many homes, too few buyers

In Erdos, a coal town battered when a stuttering world economy dented coal prices , pain was compounded by its housing market, where a supply glut led the mayor to call for a three-year halt in construction last year.

New housing space completed in Inner Mongolia last year was 24 percent less than in 2013, the second-biggest decline among China's 31 provinces and regions, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a state think-tank, said in May.

"It helps to run down the inventory, but not by much," a broker surnamed Hua said of the government's purchases.

Analysts warn against betting on a dramatic turnaround.

Developers do not want to slash their profit margins by selling houses to the government at discounts of up to 52 percent - the figure in Inner Mongolia - unless they have to.

"If the market has enough buying power then we would sell to the market," said an official from a developer that sold homes to the government recently.

"But the market's buying power has weakened by too much. My feeling is that most part of the housing inventory has not been digested," he said.

($1 = 6.21 Chinese yuan)

(Editing by Richard Borsuk)

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In our article for this cliff-hanging project by Modscape published last year, we said that all it really needed was James Bond and an invisible Aston Martin in the garage.

Well, the images presented by OPA (Open Platform for Architecture) for their new project offer us James Bond and a (sadly visible) Ferrari.

Perhaps it's not quite what we expected, but either way it's a big step forward for the super-villains lair market: Casa Brutale gives us wall-to-wall water and concrete set into cliffs above the Aegean Sea in what OPA promises will be a literally ground-breaking development.

Unclad and simple, the house is all about modesty, making no impact on the landscape beyond a surface swimming pool and a set of steps. Descending these steps, though, brings you to the entire point of this home; an enormous glass façade set flush into the cliff face, bringing an incredible view of the Aegean sea to the entire residence.

Upping the stakes, the living quarters are topped with a skylight that turns out to be, in fact, the swimming pool - made of reinforced glass, it functions as the only other window in the house, diffusing the sunlight to soften the hard surfaces of the building itself and giving you views that could plausibly claim to be 100% water.

With jaw-dropping features like these, OPA chose to keep the rest restrained. Simple, raw concrete surfaces and slabs set off by aged wood and steel form the rest of the project, placing an open living area around the main stairs and a master bedroom on the mezzanine floor, making the incredible water views perfectly visible from the bed, which is also made of cast concrete. The whole thing is cooled by the landscape and the swimming pool, thanks to the design's clever twist - aside from the big chunk of rock removed from the cliff, there's very little impact on the landscape.

An inverted Casa Malaparte — brutalist, plain concrete mixed with water, light and rock — OPA says that their concept "seeks for an investor or an ambitious owner to finance its construction." Fill the pool with sharks for extra super villain points, although that might make the view from the bed a little off-putting.

SEE ALSO: Paris is getting its first skyscraper in over 40 years — and it will be a futuristic 'Triangle Tower'

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For real estate investors who choose to follow a buy-and-hold strategy, owning a portfolio of rental properties is the ultimate dream.

And while collecting monthly cash flow from numerous units may be what drives their ambition, there is a gamble involved as well.

It's a bet that they can handle an additional job with definite overtime involved and no clock to punch.

That job: being a landlord.

"A lot of people get into landlording thinking it's passive investing. The truth of the matter is the more you put into it, the more you will get out of it," says investor Jasmine Willois, principal of JazzUpIndy, based in Indianapolis.

She learned firsthand what it takes to be a landlord, thanks to her parents' rental business in San Diego.

"I was exposed to the real side of it. How tenants leave the place, if they call for something, watching my mother dealing with the banking and the rent payments and all that stuff. When my sister and I were old enough to drive, we were the ones depositing the checks," she says.

At the end of the day, the investor's goal is to have a property that is well-maintained so tenant turnover is minimal, and the property slowly and organically appreciates in value, Willois notes.

"It's a good time to be a landlord because tenants are on their best behavior," says Bill Bronchick, an attorney, author and investor. "The negotiating power is in the landlord's hands right now."

Even with rents on the rise in many parts of the country, investors should still consider the location as a factor in deciding to become a landlord.

"No matter if the property is inherited, bought through traditional marketing channels or in an online auction, before deciding to become a landlord, the investor should take the time to analyze the renters – and the rental opportunity – in a neighborhood," says Rick Sharga, executive vice president at Auction.com. "Rental real estate is extremely local in nature. Securing the right property in a neighborhood with reliable tenants and low vacancy rates is where your due diligence will pay off."

Due diligence is the key. 

"I don't know what to do now. Where do I advertise? Where do I find tenants?"

As general manager of the National Association of Independent Landlords in Los Angeles, Brittany Benson hears these questions a lot, especially from people who are about to purchase a property or have already purchased or inherited a property.

Benson says some people come to landlording expecting that all they need to do is collect the rent and pay the mortgage. But the reality is that the landlord has a lot of work to do. Preparing the property for occupation can be costly, and properly screening prospective tenants can be very time-consuming.

"If you do all the due diligence, then you should have a good tenant and you shouldn't have problems," says Benson, whose association offers tenant screening and other services to more than 300,000 members nationwide.

What is enough due diligence is up to each landlord, but background checks may include a comprehensive credit report, eviction reports, criminal reports and a prequalification estimate based on the landlord's desired criteria.

Personality and communication skills are essential.

At the end of the day, not everyone has the personality or the interpersonal skills to be a landlord.

"Being a landlord takes good communication skills, tolerance and flexibility," Willois says. "People have different mindsets. We are sitting ducks. People want to take advantage of the landlord. Not everyone is going to be a good tenant."

With that in mind, landlords must have a thick skin and a level head. "It's give and take how you deal with people," says Lin He, an Orange County, California-based investor who has owned as many as 50 rental properties. "You have to know when to play hardball and when to play softball. Some people can't deal with it. It definitely takes a certain personality. It takes street smarts."

Then there is the time involved in being a landlord, as well as lifestyle choices. "How much aggravation do you want in your life?" says Bronchick, who managed his own properties for the first 10 years of his investment career. "You have to do stuff. It's not like watching stocks go up."

Eventually, Bronchick handed over the daily grind of running his rentals to a property management company. "If you don't want tenants calling you directly, make sure you have a good relationship with a property management company," says Willois, who uses property management companies to oversee her two rental properties in Jackson, Mississippi, and four others in Indianapolis.

Have your financial house in order.

Even having done all the due diligence possible, there is no guarantee that a tenant won't move out or continue to live in the property long after he or she stops paying the rent.

There are also unexpected expenses that come up. "You have got to have a couple months' reserve of mortgage payments for each property for any unforeseen circumstance," Bronchick says.

There can also be state or local assessments involved, like the yearly rental property tax in San Diego and Los Angeles counties, as well as homeowners association assessments for a multitude of contingencies.

It's the law. 

No matter what state you are in, being a landlord carries with it some heavy legal responsibilities.

Key among them are two federal statutes: the Fair Housing Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Violation of these laws can be very costly.

At the state level, Benson recommends familiarity with landlord/tenant statutes as well. What is the landlord responsible for? What are the tenant's responsibilities? What do the parties have the right to expect from each other?

"The main thing is that you can only run a credit check on someone to approve or deny them for the property," she says. "Everybody has to have the same requirements. As the landlord, you can't wait until a particular tenant comes along."

Another part of being a landlord is the unpleasant task of evicting tenants.

"We have a lot of customers who have properties out of state and use our services. When you start having issues to post notices or do an eviction, then it gets tricky if [you're] out of state. Especially if you have to go through the court process with them," Benson says.

Depending on local regulations, your property management company may or may not be allowed to represent you in court. While Benson's organization does process eviction notices for its customers, there are times when local regulations require that the actual property owner appear in small claims court where attorney representation is not permitted. As a result, that can mean many months of traveling to settle the eviction case.

"There's no guarantee it won't happen. Do all the proper due diligence and tenant screening in the beginning. The best defense is doing the most thorough tenant screening you possibly can," Benson says.

SEE ALSO: Why you should hesitate before buying a second home, even if you have the cash on hand

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Eighteen months after Billionaire.com compiled its first Top 10 Most Exclusive Streets list, many of the streets featured there have not registered a single housing transaction, such is the dearth of supply on these Bollinger boulevards.

“A top property on one of the world’s most expensive streets may come to market only once in a generation,” says Yolande Barnes, head of residential research at Savills. “The owners of these homes are unlikely to need the money and tend to hang on to such prized real estate.”

So in the interest of accuracy (and to make things a bit more interesting), this year’s Top Ten Most Exclusive Streets is getting an overhaul. Where no sales have registered in the last 18 months, the street has made way for a new name. Prices are calculated on a basis of average price per square meter of property on that street.

This year’s list was compiled with the help of international agency Savills.

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10. Ardmore Park, Singapore

Average price: US$24,000 per square meter

In April, one of the founders of Alibaba Group reportedly bought a S$51 million penthouse on Ardmore Park, an exclusive enclave close to Orchard Road. The duplex apartment in the Le Nouvel development, set a price record for Singapore, at S$40,000 per square foot.

According to Alan Cheong, senior director of research at Savills Singapore: “Ardmore Park is Singapore’s new Paterson Road.” The street is a quiet cul-de-sac located near the prime shopping belt of the city, nestled within lush greenery. “Most other condominiums on this road are priced lower but it remains the most sought-after road,” says Cheong.

9. Molochnyy Pereulok, Moscow

Average price: US$30,500 per square meter

Ostozhenka in Moscow is both the name of an area as well as a street. Within this prestigious district is Molochnyy Pereulok (Lane), this year’s ninth most expensive street. “Within Ostozhenka area the price difference depends on whether the buildings are new.

In Molochnyy Lane the majority of houses are new-build — post-2000 — and are really very expensive,” says Alexander Shatalov of IntermarkSavills. Recently a 238 square meter apartment at number two Molochnyy Lane sold for US$9.5 million. “This area is truly known as Moscow’s ‘Golden Mile’”, adds Shatalov. “Ostozhenka is situated in the capital’s historical and cultural centre, close to the main showplace of the city — the Kremlin and the Red Square. Housing in this district is extremely popular.”

8. Avenue des Palmiers, Les Parcs de Saint-Tropez, France

Average price: US$39,000 per square meter

An address in Saint-Tropez has cachet. An address in Les Parcs de Saint-Tropez, the most prestigious private domain in the iconic French town, is a whole other level. Les Parcs is a gated estate located on a peninsula in the Bay of Saint-Tropez, and available property is almost impossible to come by. The best road is Avenue des Palmiers, says Savills head of Saint-Tropez Antony Bruni. Sales for homes overlooking the sea on this street can hit €70,000 per square meter.

“The market has been very strong in Saint-Tropez with some of the highest transaction prices ever registered,” said Bruni. Six months ago he sold a property on Avenue des Palmiers for €42 million. It has 800 square metres of living space between two buildings, across grounds of 10,000 square metres. “It has panoramic sea views and top specification. It was one of the best locations in the private domain,” says Bruni.

Want to own a home in Sagaponack, New York?

You'll need to start saving now. Currently, the median sale price is $5,125,000.

No matter where you live, it's likely that your home will be the most expensive thing you ever buy. But in certain areas of the country, home prices aren't just expensive — they're staggering.

The data team at the real-estate-listings site Property Shark recently compiled a list of the top 20 most expensive ZIP codes in the country.

To do so, they calculated the median sale price for each ZIP code in America based on closed sales that took place between January 2014 and June 2015. Prices ranged from $2,134,000 in the Los Angeles suburb of San Marino, California to over $5 million in Sagaponack.

Here's the full list — how does your ZIP code stack up?

SEE ALSO: The 20 most expensive ZIP codes in America

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Right now, home prices are low, and mortgage rates are attractive.

As a result, the temptation to buy is great, especially for first time homebuyers who want to get in now, while they can save big.

However, just because you think now is a good time to buy does not mean that you should.

Make sure you know how much house you can afford on your income before you jump in.

The '25% of salary' rule of thumb.

Here's a question I recently received from a friend and reader about how much house he could afford on his income.

He referenced Dave Ramsey's rule of thumb about not having a mortgage payment for more than 25% of your salary:

I have a Dave Ramsey question, PT.

I've Googled around and cannot find the answer, and was wondering if you knew.

Ramsey states that you should spend no more than 25% of your income on your mortgage.

Do you think he wants you to calculate property taxes and insurance in your "mortgage payment," or do you think he is simply calculating principal and interest?

In my answer I said, "yes, Dave definitely wants you to include it." The second comment on this post suggest that he said so specifically in one of his newspaper columns. Further, taxes and insurance are guaranteed, so you should consider it.

I went on to say that a rule of thumb is limited in its simplicity. For instance, I can go out and get a adjustable or variable rate mortgage payment that's less than 25% of my take home pay today, and tomorrow the housing market could crash another 30%, rates could go through the roof, and I could lose my job. Owning the home outright as quick as possible is sounding like a better rule for the future.

How much house can I afford?

There are a number of things you can do to reduce the cost of your first home, but you still might not be able to handle the costs of homeownership. Let's look at some ways to help determine the answer to the question, "how much house can I afford?"

In some cases, your mortgage plus interest may be more than your current rent payment. But that's not all. As we mentioned about, homeownership comes with other costs, including:

• Property taxes: You will need to make property tax payments. Whether a yearly lump sum is due, or whether you pay monthly with your mortgage payment, this is something to prepare for.
• Maintenance and repairs: No longer can you have the landlord bear the cost of maintenance and repairs on your dwelling. You are responsible for the costs associated with keeping up the home, and taking care of it. This can cost more than you might expect.
• Utilities: Many people forget to consider the extra costs associated with a home. In many cases, your home is larger than your rental. This means that it will cost more to heat it. Electricity and water costs are likely to go up as well. And, if your landlord previously paid sewer and garbage collection costs, these are additional expenses.
• Falling home values: When you are renting, your landlord bears the cost of a falling home value. If you buy, though, you could find yourself underwater — especially if your down payment was small. Are you prepared to take the risk that your home will decline in value?

Test to find out what you can afford.

Before you buy, it is a good idea to go for a "test run" with the increased costs of home ownership. One thing you can do is take 30% of your expected mortgage and interest payment and add it back on. So, if your expected mortgage and interest payment is $1,100, add $330 so that your total estimated monthly costs are $1,430.

Then, consider the difference between what you pay now for your rental and the estimated cost. If you pay $850 in rent now, it means that you will pay an extra $580. Can you afford that much house? Let's find out with a real savings test.  Next, open a high yield bank account. Put that extra $580 in the account every single month. Do this for at least four months. Are you having difficulty making the new "payment"? If so, you might not be ready to purchase a home. The higher costs may exceed your ability to pay for them.

Before you buy a home, you need to make sure that you are truly ready to shoulder the costs. Otherwise, you will be house poor, and your monthly cash flow will be strained. You could end up in a worse position than if you continued to rent.

SEE ALSO: What I Learned From Buying My First House

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Buying a house is a major commitment involving a lot of money.

But you have to live somewhere, and sometimes it makes more sense to buy than rent.

Realtytrac, a real estate information company, compiled data on 285 counties nationwide and analyzed the economics of buying versus renting a home. They found the average cost to rent or own a 3-bedroom house and determined the percentage an average worker would have to spend from their weekly income.

The report found something surprising. "The separate Buy-or-Rent analysis released today found that making monthly house payments on a 3-bedroom property is more affordable than paying fair market rent on a 3-bedroom property in 188 of the 285 counties analyzed (66 percent)," said the company.

We screened for the counties that had populations of more than 400,000 people and where a homebuyer would save at least 10% more than renters. 

Check them out below in order from least to most savings.

Cuyahoga County, OH

Metro Area: Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH

Population: 1,263,154

Median Weekly Income: $1,050

Average Monthly Rent: $1,092

Estimated Monthly Mortgage Payment: $725

Percent of median income saved from buying instead of renting: 10.45%

Source: RealtyTrac

Lucas County, OH

Metro Area: Toledo, OH

Population: 436,393

Median Weekly Income: $896

Average Monthly Rent: $980

Estimated Monthly Mortgage Payment: $613

Percent of median income saved from buying instead of renting: 10.85%

Source: RealtyTrac

Volusia County, FL

Metro Area: Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, FL

Population: 500,800

Median Weekly Income: $729

Average Monthly Rent: $1,306

Estimated Monthly Mortgage Payment: $922

Percent of median income saved from buying instead of renting: 11.32%

Source: RealtyTrac

Alert!

There's a place in New York City where rents are falling. 

A report by the real-estate firm Douglas Elliman shows median rents falling by almost 11% in Queens, while rents in Manhattan and Brooklyn continue to shoot up. (The report only covers those three boroughs, which tells you something else.) 

If you look a little bit more closely at the numbers, though, it's still not a great situation.

For one thing, studios are crazy expensive. Studio rentals in Queens (at a median price of $2,474, and $54.83 a square foot) have not only outpaced studios in Brooklyn (median price of $2,284 and $48.83 a square foot), but have also outpaced one-bedroom rentals in Queens (median price of $2,278 and $40.32 a square foot).

What's the income required to afford a median studio in Queens, assuming you only want to spend a quarter of your income on rent (no one wants to spend more than that, surely)? $118,752.

Here's the data from Elliman:

The real lesson here is that starter apartments are a nonstarter for most young people.

Good luck out there, kids.

(P.S. Here's a studio in Astoria that appears to be nothing but a bay window and a kitchen for $1,100!)

(via NY Daily News)

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Over recent years, rents in most parts of the US have soared — forcing many Americans to spend an outsize portion of their paychecks on rent. 

Over the 2000-2010 period, the percentage of American families who spend over 35% of their income on rent has jumped from 33% to 44%, according to analysis of data from the Neighborhood Change Database. The Urban Institute defines anybody who's spending more than 35% of their income on rent as "rent-burdened."

Rent-burden has a very direct impact on renters as it affects their ability to save for the future. This calculator from the Urban Institute shows whether you're rent-burdened and reveals the percentage of people in your neighborhood who pay more rent than they can really afford.

In parts of the trendy neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the percentage of residents who are rent-burdened is very high. On Lee avenue for example, 72% of people spend more than 35% of their income on rent. 

But other parts of the US are worse off. In some parts of Von Ormy, near San Antonio in Texas, 85% of the population are rent-burdened.

On the other hand, some cities in Missouri, like Lee's Summit, have a 0% rate of rent-burdened citizens. 

Try the calculator from the Urban Institute for yourself:

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