The Bay Area real estate market may be hot, but one property was especially so.

In spite of being "stripped to the studs" because of a two-alarm fire last year, a four-bedroom, two-bath ranch house in Walnut Creek, California is under contract after just a week on the market at a list price of $850,000.

"This one is ready to start fresh," the listing said. "Opportunities like this are rare to make dramatic changes to a home and floor plan."

Read more: The 7 best suburbs worth moving to right now, where people earn more money and homes are cheaper

"Great neighborhood, large lot, and close to shopping and conveniences," it continued. "Bring your contractor, architect, and designer: this is more than a fixer."

Realtor Melinda Byrne of Key Realty told Insider she had thirteen offers before she could mark the listing "pending," and that she's still getting requests from buyers who want a spot on the backup list.

The median list price in Walnut Creek — about 28 miles east of San Francisco — is $1.2 million, according to Redfin, but Byrne said houses routinely go for $2.1 million, depending on size and condition.

As the daughter of a contractor, Byrne said the property is actually a better bargain than it might first appear, due to the location and the fact that the mid-century floor-plan is in need of a significant update.

"Fixer-uppers usually have walls," she said. "In the case of this property, it's literally transparent."

With a good school system, lots of local shops, access to recreational trails, and an easy jaunt into San Francisco, communities like Walnut Creek are seeing extraordinary demand over the past year.

Byrne said listings are now down 50% compared with 2020, and that there is effectively zero available inventory in her market — the one house for sale already has three offers.

Previously in June, a heavily vandalized "house from hell" in Colorado Springs was listed for $590,000 and got 72 offers in five days. Both are signs that buyers are willing to look past severe defects in order to get their hands on a promising property in an unprecedentedly tight market."

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Real-estate investors have one thing in common: they want to generate income.

And for many, the more passively they can generate that income, the better.

Creating a stream of passive-income (which requires minimal effort for an investor to actively maintain) is a widely held goal by those who seek to keep money coming in after their initial investment.

Collecting rent is the classic example, but there are options besides landlording, like REIT and tax lien investing, which investors can use to start generating profits. The point is to generate streams of income that don't require extensive effort from the investor themself. 

In the US, real-estate ownership has long represented financial freedom and the opportunity to build generational wealth — in a Gallup survey published in 2019, 35% of 1,012 US adults polled said real estate was the best way to build wealth. 

Compared with other asset classes, real estate can have the strongest long-term growth potential. Expected annual total returns on apartment investments have fluctuated between 6 and 15% since 2012, according to the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries, while over the same period, the S&P 500 had an annualized return of about 10%. In 2019, one-year returns on REITs were 20%, outperforming all other asset classes, per data from National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts.

With that in mind, Insider outlined a handful of investment strategies that make it easy for beginners to get started investing in real estate, according to real-estate pros and "clever investor"Cody Sperber, who started investing in real estate with no money to his name and has now done hundreds of millions in deals.

Investors can generate passive income in a variety of ways, depending on just how involved they want to be in the process and how much time and capital they have to invest. 

Tax lien investing

When you purchase a home, you're required to pay property taxes. And if a property owner defaults on those taxes, Sperber said, the city government can make a legal claim — or "lien"— against the property for the amount owed.

That's where a tax lien investor can step in.

For the city to recover the money the property owner hasn't paid, the city sells tax lien certificates to investors. The delinquent homeowners then have a period of time — usually 120 days — to pay the investor the tax, penalties, and interest owed, Sperber said. If they fail to pay off the delinquent amount, the investor can foreclose on the lien and take possession of the property. 

That said, tax lien investing most often occurs on single family homes, Sperber said, and works best in smaller markets, often returning an interest rate between 4% and 6%.

It's a strategy Sperber said is a good way for beginner investors to start out if they don't have deep pockets, too. 

The 'subject to'

"Subject-to" investing is purchasing a property subject to the existing mortgage that is already in place.

Essentially, this is when an investor comes in and makes back payments for a homeowner who is behind on their payments, as opposed to the home falling into foreclosure.  The original owner then deeds the property to the investor and moves out — often to downsize into a more affordable living space — while leaving the loan in place and the property under the investor's ownership.

It's an investing strategy ideal for investors low on capital, Sperber said, adding that buyers in this situation aren't formally assuming the loan. The terms of the original note stay the same, including the name in which the loan was purchased. And the buyer takes on the responsibility of making sure the mortgage is paid on time until it's renovate and resell the property.

An average return for a "subject-to" investment is hard to give, according to Sperber, who said profits could differ greatly depending on expenses at hand. 

REITs

Real Estate Investment Trusts, or REITs, are companies that own, operate, or finance income-producing real estate ventures. And investing in them can be a good way for rookie investors to create passive income from real estate.

Publicly traded REITs offer investors a liquid way to invest in real estate without having to buy or manage property themselves, Insider previously reported.

So instead of owning individual buildings, REITs allow investors to make investments in a mutual-fund-style model.

As of the first quarter of 2021, the average 25-year return for private commercial real estate properties held for investment purposes was 10.3%, outperforming the S&P 500 Index's 9.6%, according to the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF). Residential real estate investments averaged a return of 10.3% as well, according to Investopedia.

Investors can find value if they know where to look for it. Jussi Askola, the president of the boutique investment-research firm Leonberg Capital, told Insider in November that the REITs with the most potential during the 2020 economic downturn included those within the apartment, mobile-home, and manufactured-home sectors. REITs with properties appropriate for industrial or e-commerce use could do well too, he said. 

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High-flying financial players such as hedge funds, private-equity firms, and other boutique investment companies are expanding their Manhattan offices like it's 2019.

The activity reflects the robust fortunes of the upper end of an investment industry that has boomed during the pandemic. The hedge-fund industry, for example, had its best first half of a year in over 20 years, some estimates suggest.

The deals also run counter to the larger office market, where leasing has remained moribund as much of corporate America has been reluctant to commit to office space, grappling with when and how to get employees back to the workplace amid a new phase of the pandemic.

Here are the financial firms planning to expand:

• Tiger Global, a roughly $80 billion investment firm that manages hedge funds and venture-capital investments in the technology sector, is in negotiations to expand its headquarters at 9 W. 57th St., where it has about 50,000 square feet, according to several sources. Tiger is expected to pay over $200 per square foot, more than double the average rent in Midtown Manhattan of roughly $80 per square foot.
• Stone Ridge Asset Management, a $10 billion asset manager, just signed on for nearly 100,000 square feet at One Vanderbilt, a brand-new skyscraping tower next to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan's Midtown East neighborhood. The company took four floors in the 1,400-foot-tall building, agreeing to rents that increase over the life of the 15-year deal to $245 per square foot — three times the average Midtown rent — according to terms of the lease that a source shared with Insider. The space is several times as large as the office the company occupies elsewhere in Midtown.
• Citadel, a major investment company run by the billionaire Kenneth Griffin, is in talks to expand its presence at  425 Park Ave., an ultra-high-end Midtown office tower under development where Citadel already has pledged to occupy about 300,000 square feet. One source speculated that the firm was in talks to add as much as 70,000 square feet. Another knowledgeable source said Citadel could also seek to add the space in another office building in Midtown.
• The large Manhattan landlord Vornado Realty Trust just signed three deals at the recently built 512 W. 22nd St. in West Chelsea, another Manhattan neighborhood. Hunter Point Capital, Capricorn Investment Group, and Pura Vida Investments each committed to nearly 12,000 square feet, paying rents above $100 per square foot — a premium rate.

A spokeswoman for Tiger declined to comment. A spokesperson at Stone Ridge could not immediately be reached. A spokesman for Citadel declined to comment.

Scott Panzer, a leasing executive at JLL who handles leasing deals at 9 W. 57th St., told Insider that three boutique financial tenants at the tower were expanding in the building and that two other such firms were negotiating to move into the skyscraper. Panzer would not comment on whether Tiger was among the tenants expanding.

Billionaire investment managers expect workers to come back to the office

Workers have increasingly sought more flexibility in coming back to the office. Amid a hot job market and a shortage of skilled workers, a growing number of companies have rolled back plans to require employees to return and have instituted flexible work policies.

Financial firms and the billionaire fund managers who run them, however, have a different set of rules, according to people familiar with the culture in that rarified segment of the investment market.

"In the larger corporate world, there will likely be a match between some employees that want to work remotely and employers that are fine with it," said Ben Friedland, a vice chairman at the real-estate-services firm CBRE who specializes in leasing high-end office space to financial-services tenants. "At the higher end of the market, principals feel the collaboration and idea generation that takes place when physically together is critical, and there is an expectation for those people to return."

Providing top-tier spaces with soaring views, amenities, and health-related aspects like filtered air and ample light is part of the enticement these firms are spending on to draw workers back.

"These guys are masters of the universe," one leasing executive quipped. "They're not going to let COVID have an impact on them. They're above that."

Financial firms are a bright spot in an otherwise slow office market

The deals signify a burst of activity in an office-leasing market that has otherwise been moribund. About 6.35 million square feet have been leased in Manhattan since the start of 2021, according to data from CBRE, putting the year on pace for an activity total that's a fraction of totals before the pandemic; in 2018 and 2019, for instance, 32.4 million and 31.6 million square feet were leased in Manhattan.

Some tenants have been reluctant to make office-leasing decisions as questions loom over whether remote work will become a fixture and whether it may allow some firms to reduce their footprint as fewer employees come into the office every day.

But some top-tier financial firms feel confident in their business and see a return to the office as key to their continued success, making them more willing to commit to space. The vacancy rate in a collection of 200 higher-end office buildings in Manhattan tracked by CBRE was 11.8%, less than the 13% vacancy rate across the market.

"Most of these financial firms view the office as a necessity," said Steve Durels, an executive vice president at SL Green, which codeveloped One Vanderbilt. "What has crystallized in the minds of investment managers is the office is an extension of their brand, a way for them to create a company identity."

Durels said he could not comment on the firm's recent deal with Stone Ridge.

The deals also show that while financial companies have sought to open offices in other areas of the country, such as South Florida, many will seek to not only retain but expand their presence in investment hubs like New York.

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My wife and I are business partners and firm believers in having multiple streams of income. 

Because we have 19 different income streams, we were able to easily shift our attention last year when the pandemic stopped some of our projects in their tracks and focus our energy on other areas.

Here are our five favorite ways to make money — not necessarily because they pay us the most money. Some pay really well, some help grow passive income, and others line up with our passions and lifestyle.

Airbnb and real-estate investments

I hopped on the Airbnb wagon in 2013. I was already opening my home up to couch surfers at the time. We sold one of our Airbnb rentals last year because of our heated local real-estate market in Mobile, Alabama. 

We operate two more in Mobile and use different strategies for each. We don't own one of the units. Instead, we asked the owner if we could lease and then sublease it as an Airbnb property.

Last year, we generated $28,400 in revenue from this property, making a net profit of about $7,000 after factoring in the cost of maintaining it. We'll look to start more of these, since the cash outlay is lower than purchasing the unit. To make sure our units are competitive with other Airbnb properties, we search the competition in our local market.

We love real-estate investing, and since we're self-employed, it's part of our retirement plan. We generated $65,800 last year in total income from our Airbnb units.

We also own a standard single-family-home rental that we plan to hold long term but doesn't fit well into our Airbnb business strategy.

Affiliate income

Affiliate marketing pays you a commission when a product sells because you recommended it. We all do this already — we just don't necessarily get paid for it.

For example, you might recommend a mechanic to your friend because the one you went to did a great job on your car and had excellent customer service. You don't think twice about it. Your friend goes and gets their car fixed. The mechanic just made $1,500. But what did you get paid? Nothing.

Affiliate marketing gives you that opportunity. I love this income stream because I get the benefits of business ownership without worrying about the product, customer service, or overhead. It also can be passive, as I get traffic to my blog from search engines when people are looking for answers. I help provide solutions and get paid for them.

We can make sales from dozens of companies that we know, like, and trust. I'm averaging $23 a day in affiliate income, and it increases as my online traffic increases.

I create content on my blog that helps entrepreneurs with their businesses. So when I recommend email-marketing software, a podcast host, or website hosting, I get paid a commission when my website visitors make a purchase.

You have to sign up with the companies and get approved before you can refer them. I started with companies that are best for beginners.

YouTube sponsorships

I've been working for a few years to grow my YouTube channel, where I make videos for other solo entrepreneurs. I record videos covering marketing, real-estate investing, making money online, and personal finance.

I recently crossed the 1,000-subscribers mark, and I'll make money directly from my videos with the YouTube Partner Program by sharing revenue from the ads that play on the videos people watch.

But there are a lot of ways to make money from YouTube, and one of them is sponsorships.

I've been hired to create videos for companies showing their software or tools and how I use them in my business.

Based on the size of my channel, I was paid $500 a video. What's great is I got paid to make videos that I would've made anyway for my channel.

Most people mistakenly think that you have to have a large channel to get sponsors on YouTube, but it's just not true.

Print ads

Who says print is dead? Not us. 

We started a local media company in our hometown nine years ago. After growing our online presence, we had the idea to launch a magazine that promotes nonprofit organizations in our area.

Creating a print publication wasn't part of our business plan, yet this project generates thousands in net profit for our company.

I love this income stream because it shows that if you can find the right target audience, niche print publications can be pretty successful — and do good for your community in the process.

Selling our belongings 

We make the least income from this method, but it's my favorite because it allows us to stay flexible and mobile. 

You could say that selling items you already spent money on isn't making income, and I can see this perspective — but if you keep unused items, they'll become permanent sunk costs.

I like to think of items as long-term rentals. Maybe I'll find a set of weights for our home gym that haven't been used in the past year. If I'm savvy with my purchase, I can often sell an item for the same price I bought it for.

Sometimes, you get to sell items at a profit. My wife still rolls her eyes every time I talk about the chair I bought for $30, used for a year, and then sold for $100. I got paid $70 to sit in that chair.

If we haven't used an item in 12 months, it goes on the sale list.

We sell things the quickest on Facebook Marketplace and its local sell groups. If we need a wider reach, and we're OK with shipping, we'll sell on eBay. We haven't needed to go outside these platforms, and we generate thousands in income every year from this method.

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After shedding residents through much of the pandemic, cities are bouncing back.

The onset of lockdowns in early 2020 eroded the appeal of the US's largest cities. Residents looking for more space and cheaper housing fled metropolitan areas in large numbers, with New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles seeing huge out-migration.

And as city populations shrank, the exurbs thrived. These neighborhoods — characterized by affordable housing, low population density, and a reasonable weekly commute — saw strong gains in occupancy as city-dwellers flocked to the once-neglected areas.

That population shift is now reversing course, according to UBS economists. The exodus from urban centers "has now largely ceased" and returned to its historical trend, the team led by Ajit Agrawal said, citing nationwide change-of-address data. The next few months will reveal just how quickly urban populations can return to their pre-pandemic highs, the team added.

Four charts from the Monday UBS note shed more light on cities' rebound.

1. Permanent moves to cities are up

The outflow of residents from cities to suburbs and exurbs has slowed for permanent movers, and cities are once again growing. Urban population growth was steady across all metropolitan areas tracked by UBS.

That uptick is a "positive trend" for cities after several months of plunging occupancy, the team said. Still, it'll take months for urban areas to return to their pre-crisis density. The speed of that rebound depends on when large-scale employers call workers back to offices, and how many workers who left cities are willing to return, the economists said.

2. Temporary moves out of cities are back to normal

Temporary mover data signal the shift from cities to suburbs and exurbs has almost entirely ended. The return to trend is most likely fueled by companies' return-to-office efforts.

While promising for cities looking to recoup residents, the recent uptick in virus cases presents a new hurdle for their recoveries. Daily case counts are now the highest since January as the Delta variant of COVID-19 spreads across the US. A return to partial lockdowns could revive the out-migration seen last year.

3. New York is on the rise

It's possible New York City will be the first city to stage a full recovery in occupancy, as residency began climbing in late May, according to UBS. At the same time, suburbs, towns, and rural areas started to lose residents in late February.

The rebound is likely a product of financial firms and major banks having some of the strictest return-to-office policies, analysts at Jefferies said in a July 25 note. The push for in-person work fueled a "scramble for apartments" and put New York City in the lead among major US metropolitan areas regaining occupants, they added.

4. California's cities aren't far behind

California cities show similar trends but aren't as far along in their rebounds. While out-migration has slowed markedly in cities, they're still losing residents, according to UBS. Meanwhile, population growth remains mostly flat in rural areas and towns.

The gap between New York and California cities' recoveries likely has to do with their different return-to-office strategies, Jefferies analysts said in July. While finance giants mandated in-person work early in the summer, the tech giants of Silicon Valley have pushed back their calls to return to offices as virus cases surge higher. New York City saw occupancy grow on net in May and June, according to Jefferies. Conversely, population growth was flat in San Francisco and remained negative in Silicon Valley over the same period.

Virus case counts have only soared higher since change-of-address data was last updated. Should infection trends hold, the split between east- and west-coast cities could power a sharp divergence in how urban economies recover.

Investing in real estate can be one of the most effective ways to build wealth. 

But it can also be a difficult thing to get started in, with often-prohibitive down payments and marketplace competition driving up prices to unattainable heights. The process can also be intimidating to first-time investors financially, legally, and in terms of time commitment. 

But real estate investing doesn't have to be exclusive and convoluted: there are tried and true strategies investors can use to begin building a portfolio of properties even if they don't have a pile of cash ready to deploy. We know because we've talked to people who have put them into action. 

Below we've compiled several stories highlighting the various methods that investors have successfully used in the real estate world. 

Real-estate investor Brandon Turner owns 1,500 units and achieved financial independence by age 27. He shares 6 steps for buying a first rental property within 3 months. 

Arguably nobody does more for providing investors with the material they need to get started in or continue building their real estate portfolios than Brandon Turner. Turner is the founder of BiggerPockets, a site that educates and provides a platform for investors in the space. He also co-hosts the "BiggerPockets Podcast," which highlights successful real estate investors. 

In May, we wrote about an episode of Turner's podcast in which he unpacked six steps to buying a first property within three months. Turner bought his first property when he was 21.

Step one? Figure out what's motivating you to get into real estate investing.

Kumar Sadaram bought his first rental property in 2012 and now owns more than 50 homes. He breaks down the strategy that finally propelled him to financial independence — and shares 3 ways to get started in real estate with little to no money.

It took Kumar Sadaram a few years to find the strategy that worked best for him. But once he did, he repeated it again and again to build up a portfolio of over 50 properties. 

Sadaram now makes more money per year from rental income from the properties than he did when he was an IT consultant — a job which he quit for good three years ago.

In addition to sharing with Insider his preferred strategy, he shared his three best tips for those looking to break into real estate without large sums of money. He also shared his advice for overcoming being intimidated by investing in the space.

Real-estate investor Mike Bryant breaks down the strategy he used to acquire 10 properties 'without putting a nickel into' them — and shares why he recently decided to sell all but 4

Money is perhaps the biggest hurdle — whether perceived or not — for many when it comes to real estate investing. But there are ways to invest without being rich first. 

Mike Bryant has used a very specific strategy that has helped him acquire 10 properties without first needing to dip into his own funds. 

"Without putting a nickel into any of these, I have a portfolio — between what I've sold already last year and what I haven't sold yet — of more than a half a million dollars of equity, at least on paper, from what I can glean is the market value versus what I owe on these properties," Bryant said on an episode of the "BiggerPockets Podcast."

Deb Cleveland is a master house flipper who maintains 80 rental properties. The 30-year real-estate-investing veteran breaks down how she picks discounted houses to buy, renovate on a budget, and successfully sell or rent for huge profits.

It's the point of making any investment: returning a profit. To do so, you have to identify assets that are being undervalued by the market. Easier said than done.

Deb Cleveland has done it. An expert with three decades of experience and a portfolio of 80 properties, she shared with Insider how she goes about finding undervalued properties to rake in big returns.

Firefighter Mike Webb went from owning a single duplex to acquiring 35 units, all while working 40 hours a week. He breaks down his financing strategies and his favorite approach for adding properties to his portfolio.

One reason investors can be hesitant to get into real estate is because of amount of time they may think they have to put into maintaining a property. But Mike Webb proves that it can still be done, even while working a full-time job. 

Another reason that gives people pause is financial risk and the work that goes into finding favorable deals. Webb broke down for Insider how he finds deals in a red-hot housing market. 

A couple in their 30s breaks down how they came to own 21 rental units in affordable, high-appreciating areas across the country — and share their approach for picking top cities, realtors, and financing strategies

Again, finding favorable deals can be difficult, especially today. Many variables are involved, like regional population and job growth.

Sharon Tseung and Sean Pan, a couple in their 30s with 21 rental units, recently shared with Insider their approach to underwriting — analyzing all of the financial aspects of a deal. They also shared how they go about financing their properties. 

Follow the broader real estate investing space here.

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Yields of 10% to 15% can be found in crypto markets, but often they come with big risks, as the market is largely unregulated.

With low interest rates, investors are going deeper into the dark corners of markets in the hunt for yield.

According to Carter Malloy, the CEO of AcreTrader, they're overlooking a traditional asset class: US farmland.

While farmland might not sound as sexy as crypto or venture capital, the returns are solid. It's also unlikely to face the same regulatory hurdles as the burgeoning crypto asset class could in the next few years.

On average, US farmland has delivered a 12% annualized return for the past 20 years, a 2020 report by the investment manager PGIM found. That's compared with a 6% return offered by stocks, 5% by bonds, and 8% by real estate.

Malloy knows about the benefits of US farmland, having spent years personally investing in it.

When a neighbor asked Malloy how he could gain similar exposure to farmland, Malloy realized how difficult access could be for the average retail investor.

Malloy had unique exposure to both investing and farmland: He was a partner at a hedge fund, and he spent time on a farm growing up.

"There was no real way for most people to invest, and that's why it's not been popularized in financial media — because the only real way to get at it was either to put a million dollars into a private-equity fund or go out and buy a million-dollar piece of farmland and manage it, which is obviously a nonstarter for just about everyone," Malloy said.

Malloy launched AcreTrader to democratize farmland investing and educate more people on the asset class. The platform selects farms for investors, places the farms in individual LLCs, and lets investors individually invest in the LLC. It is open only to accredited investors.

4 reasons to bet on farmland

Malloy bet on AcreTrader because of the asset class's multifaceted appeal. He shared his four-part case for why investors should consider betting on US farmland.

1. Low correlation with other assets

The returns from US farmland are even more impressive when investors take into account a low-yield environment where there's little reward for investing in bonds.

Investors have looked to riskier asset classes that are heavily correlated, making their portfolios less diversified. US farmland, on the other hand, has very little correlation with other major asset classes, with a 0.07 annual correlation with stocks and a -0.39 annual correlation with bonds over 20 years, PGIM found.

Malloy highlighted farmland's "almost zero correlation to the S&P, as an example."

"We view it as a fascinating portfolio-diversification tool from a pure financial standpoint," he said.

2. Low volatility

The PGIM report found that farmland had produced the highest annual returns and Sharpe ratio— a measure of risk-adjusted return — over the past 20 years compared with stocks, bonds, and real estate.

A Sharpe ratio over 1 is considered good. Farmland had a Sharpe ratio of 1.21, according to PGIM.

"The price of it moves around far less than things like the S&P or gold, as an example," Malloy said.

3. Inflation hedge

A debate has raged about whether inflation from the global recovery will be transitory or permanent.

The US consumer price index's July reading represented a 5.4% year-over-year increase for the second month in a row — the biggest one-year jump since August 2008.

For investors looking to hedge inflation, US farmland may be a good option, as it has a high correlation with inflation, Malloy said.

4. Supply-and-demand dynamics

Investors make money in two ways from farmland investing: rent and asset appreciation.

Malloy said he believes that asset appreciation has been influential in producing farmland's impressive historical returns and expects that appreciation to continue.

"Every day we have more and more mouths to feed, so growing demand for products that come off of farms, and every day we have less and less farmland," Malloy said. "In the US, as an example, we lose about 3 acres a minute of farmland. It's obviously a very finite asset; you can't make more land. As a result, it's very fascinating supply-demand dynamics for the investors."

Accessing farmland

While investing in farmland used to have a lot of barriers, it's becoming easier. Platforms like AcreTrader and FarmTogether let accredited investors access investment opportunities.

Retail investors can gain access through real-estate investment trusts, or REITs, that trade on stock exchanges.

Another option, if you have the budget, can be to buy the land outright.

Questions to ask

For investors who choose to invest in farmland directly or through a platform, Malloy outlined three key questions.

1. Is there an operator of the farm?

Who will be managing and operating the farm daily?

2. What's the water situation?

How will the farm get water? In cases where there might be too much water, how will water get off the farm? Water supply plays a role in both farm income and asset appreciation.

3. What's the neighborhood around the farm like?

Understanding the neighborhood helps give investors an idea of the marketplace competition and the farming community — and the potential of the investment.

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Zillow received 153,000 job applications in the first half of 2021, CEO Rich Barton disclosed on a recent earnings call.  

That's nearly 50% more than before the pandemic. The $25 billion property-technology giant and residential real-estate listings site had about 107,000 job applicants in the first half of 2019, according to a spokesman.

The surge of job seekers comes as Zillow has ramped up its hiring in an effort to build a major new business for the company, which is best known to the public for its property-listings website. Zillow has poured resources into growing an iBuying arm, a fast-expanding business in which it purchases and then flips homes for a quick profit while seeking to package lucrative ancillary services into the transactions, such as sourcing mortgage financing for buyers and providing title insurance.

The iBuying business has boomed during the pandemic: Zillow reported it purchased 3,805 homes in the second quarter, a record number, and sold 2,086 houses, producing the unit's highest revenue at $777 million — more than half of the company's total revenue of $1.3 billion.

In March, the Seattle-based company announced its largest hiring initiative, saying that it will add 2,000 jobs in 2021 on top of the roughly 5,000 workers it employs nationally. Though it was historically averse to remote work, Zillow began to allow and even encourage it during the pandemic.

Zillow's sought-after jobs double as a powerful résumé booster in the proptech sector, a nascent industry that applies digital solutions and technologies to antiquated areas of the real-estate business where innovation can result in profits. Several former executives at the firm have gone on to launch notable startups, win top positions at established firms, or jump into the world of venture investing in the sector.

Insider evaluated salaries at Zillow from a database that discloses the pay companies offer to foreign workers who participate in the US's H-1B visa program, which allows workers to establish residency in the country to take jobs that might be difficult to source from the domestic labor pool.

The data offers a window into the normally opaque pay scale of employees in corporate America. But it isn't definitive. Companies might offer richer compensation to domestic workers. The salary figures also don't include other forms of pay, such as bonuses or stock awards. Insider recently unveiled its own portal to search salaries from the data among 250 companies.

Zillow is ramping up its stable of software engineers, who can make from $113,110 to $251,200

Zillow said it was hiring at least 214 foreign workers to staff software-development-related positions, two-thirds of the 324 positions it said it has hired since the fourth quarter of 2020, according to federal data.

Such hires are key to building the company's iBuying platform, called Zillow Offers, which allows home sellers to input information about their house on Zillow's website and receive a potential offer from the company for the property, sometimes almost instantly.

Software development engineer (Georgia):  $113,110 to $141,400

Software development engineer, search (California): $205,000 to $218,400

Software development engineering, big data (Washington): $155,106 to $189,600

Software engineering manager (California): $155,000 to $210,500

Software test lead (Washington): $147,200 to $153,600

Senior software engineer (California): $186,108 to $251,200

Senior applications analyst (Washington): $137,401 to $187,400 

Senior software development engineer (Washington): $155,106 to $229,300

Senior product manager, tech (New York): $156,560 to $193,700

Senior full stack software development (Washington): $155,106 to $218,400

Senior developer (Washington): $155,106 to $229,300

Computer and information systems managers earned the highest salaries at Zillow 

Senior director, developer experience (New York): $300,000 to $325,900

Senior manager, machine learning (Washington): $198,453 to $292,000

Principal software development engineer, big data (Washington): $191,000 to $286,700

Director of engineering (Washington): $198,453 to $284,400

Senior software development manager (Washington): $198,453 to $274,700

Management analysts and statisticians were also top earners

Director, program management (Washington): $174,075 to $281,400

Senior applied scientist (California): $203,670 to $260,800

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The pandemic unchained Americans from their office desks and sent rental vacancies in big cities like New York and San Francisco climbing. In an attempt to curb the free fall, a record share of landlords slashed rent prices and offered concessions like months off rent and waived application fees to lure tenants back in.

But good luck finding those concessions — or vacancies — now.

Average national monthly rent surpassed $1,500 in June for the first time, according to a new release from the National Apartment Association. Occupancy is also at 96.5%, the highest it's been in 20 years. Rent increases year to date are also starkly higher than in the past: The rental website Apartment List found that the median apartment rent in the US rose 9.2% through the first six months of 2021. Typical first-half growth was previously 2 to 3%, per Apartment List.

The frenzy, in part, is because of an overheated real-estate sales market. Millions of Americans have tried to scoop up homes over the past year — and now they're getting completely shut out because of record-low inventory, sky-high prices, and intense competition marked by bidding wars pushing those flush with cash to offer up to $1 million over asking prices. When they're shut out, they have to rent.

So the competition spills over to the rental market, making apartment hunting feel just as expensive and disheartening as house hunting. When home prices surge, rental prices often follow.

People "still have to live somewhere," Logan Mohtashami, HousingWire's lead analyst, told Insider. And it's going to get worse, he said: "Rent inflation should pick up."

The president of the National Apartment Association, Robert Pinnegar, estimated that prices would continue to rise for the next 12 to 18 months.

It's so bad because demand for rentals is strong: Gen Zers are entering the market looking for apartments after spending the pandemic with family, newly mobile millennial knowledge workers are choosing to rent in lower-cost cities, and baby boomers are offloading homes in a seller's market and downsizing to rentals. There are even bidding wars for rentals now.

"We've never had three generations in the rental housing space, at least not in the numbers we're seeing now," Pinnegar told The Washington Post.

Here are three key reasons renters are in such a tough spot.

1. Rents in newly popular places are skyrocketing

The pandemic inspired about 36 million Americans (according to one Zillow estimate) to trade homes in 2020. The reshuffling, fueled by the rise of remote work and desire to live in larger spaces while spending less money, anointed new hot places to live, from midsize cities to suburban enclaves and enviable vacation spots like mountain towns and beach retreats.

Consider the on-the-rise Sun Belt spot of Phoenix. Chey Tor, a realtor with Re/Max in the Phoenix area, told The Post that he tried to be realistic with his local clients: "I tell my buyers: It's a terrible time to buy, but it's an even worse time to rent."

From May 2020 to May 2021, the metro area's rental prices spiked over 15%, one of a handful of cities to see such growth, according to recent Zillow data. Phoenix is so popular that Wall Street firms are even snapping up single-family homes in the area to rent out at a profit. It's getting unaffordable: Renters need to make $24.06 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment, but the average local renter makes only $18.12 an hour, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Ritzy suburbs where it's more common to own a luxe mansion are seeing surges in rental interest, too. Take Greenwich, a posh Connecticut town about an hour outside New York City, for example. Wealthy Wall Street types decamped to Greenwich in droves amid the pandemic. In May last year, the state's governor said that "phones are ringing off the hook at real-estate agent offices." But outsize demand has pushed prices of dwindling inventory ever higher — and so those house hunting in one of America's richest places are making the phones at leasing agent offices ring off the hook as well.

One new local luxury rental development, The Mill, has yet to even open its doors but has fielded over 1,000 inquiries for just 59 apartments ranging from $2,750 to $13,000 a month. Apartments at all price points have been leased for late-summer move-in dates, and there are just a handful of remaining units. The developer has already raised rents and is not offering incentives to prospective residents.

2. Big-city returners are fighting over apartments

While sales and rental markets in more suburban and midsize cities flourished amid the pandemic, markets in the country's biggest and priciest cities, like New York City and San Francisco, slowed. 

That lull is ending.

As the US recovers from the pandemic, many are pouring back into those coastal hubs, looking for coronavirus-crisis-level concessions and slashed rent prices — but not finding them.

Landlords are retiring months of free rent and other enticing incentives in New York City, according to a new report from the brokerage Douglas Elliman and the real-estate consulting and appraisal firm Miller Samuel. 

Manhattan rentals offering incentives tumbled to just 39% last month — far below the peak of 60% in October. The average concession in July, according to Miller Samuel, was 1.8 months off of rent, still hovering around yearly lows. New leases themselves were up 54.7% year over year. Vacancies, which had reached record highs, are declining again. There were more new leases signed in July than in any other July since at least 2008.

The chief operating officer of the brokerage Corcoran Group, Gary Malin, told Bloomberg that the current New York rental market was the busiest he'd ever seen.

"You're seeing people sometimes getting bidding wars, you're seeing people have rents changed on them right away, you're seeing apartments rented before they even show up at the appointment," he said.

You likely don't need to look further than your own social-media feeds to see the evidence. 

One TikTok video posted last month and viewed over 127,000 times features one Manhattan apartment hunter inquiring about a $5,250 three-bedroom, two-bathroom unit in the East Village, only to be told by a leasing agent that the rent increased by $1,550 "due to the enormous amount of interest" in the dwelling. Another TikTok video posted last month by a different Manhattan apartment hunter showcased a line 80 people deep for an open house of a $2,950-a-month two-bedroom apartment in the neighborhood of Chelsea. The video has been viewed over 3 million times. 

Meanwhile, it seems like tech workers are returning to San Francisco as offices slowly reopen.

"I think people were pretty noisy about quitting the Bay Area," Eric Bahn, a cofounder of the Silicon Valley investment firm Hustle Fund, told The New York Times. "But they've been very quiet in admitting they want to move back."

Rents near the city's financial district dropped over 20% in 2020, The Times reported, citing Zillow data, but they're going back up. That same area had the biggest spikes in rent price in the first half of 2021.

3. Renting a house is also more expensive — and benefits Wall Street

Even as the allure of urban environments creeps back into the American psyche, the dream of living in a single-family home persists. The pandemic pushed many to realize the value add of sheer space, like an extra room for a home office, separate space for children attending school remotely, or a backyard for private access to the outdoors.

If the market is too frenzied to buy a big enough place, people are willing — or forced — to rent. A May CoreLogic survey of consumers found that nearly 70% of respondents cited high home inflation as a reason to rent over buy, even though more than one-third of respondents also said rentals in their areas are not affordable.

As a result, the single-family-rental market is booming. A new CoreLogic reportt found that single-family rent prices rose 7.5% year-over-year in June, marking the fastest price growth since at least 2005.

This is good news for large-scale investors, such as Blackstone and Invitation Homes, that have been beating out everyday Americans in bidding wars by offering cash and skipping due diligence to buy homes to rent out at a profit. The brokerage Redfin found that investors purchased a record $77 billion worth of homes during the fourth quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021.

They're expecting large returns.

Jon Gray — the chief operating officer of Blackstone, one of the largest landlords in the country — said in an April earnings call that the firm owned and managed industrial, residential, and retail properties across the US but that rental housing represented one of the pillars of its portfolio.

He said on the call that he was considering preparing for inflation by raising rents on the thousands of apartments and homes the private-equity giant owns. While the firm does not disclose how many multifamily units it owns in total, a fact sheet for its Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust showed the company had at least 89,000 multifamily units.

Hikes like these make the rental market even more unaffordable for Americans already struggling to pay rent.

A report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that people earning minimum wage could afford rent in only 218 of more than 3,000 counties nationwide. Even before the pandemic, there were only 37 affordable and available rental homes for every 100 renter households with low incomes.

Meanwhile, about 7 million people in the country are behind on rent payments, according to a US Census Bureau survey released in June. And the end of the nationwide eviction moratorium looms.

Come this fall, the only place with free rent will be your mind, where TikTok videos about bonkers housing will play over and over.

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Trying to snag a vacation rental this summer has been brutal. After months upon months inside, many Americans are willing to fork over thousands of dollars to secure a hideaway — even for just one precious week off.

Savvy real-estate investors can reap those profits by targeting hot spots. Vacasa, one of the largest platforms for vacation-rental management in the US, just ranked the best rental markets for buyers to invest in this year based on prospective profitability.

The company determined this year's top places to buy a vacation home to rent out at a profit by assessing each location's average capitalization rate, or cap rate: the rate of return on a real-estate investment.

Thaddeus Hanscom, who served as Vacasa's data-trends analyst, told Insider how the cap rate was calculated: Take the property's rental-income potential, subtract any operating expenses, and then divide by the purchase price. The figure takes into account local property taxes, insurance, property-management fees, and more.

What makes a "good" cap rate is relative, according to Investopedia, and depends on the conditions of the area and an investor's threshold for risk. All the spots that made Vacasa's list have cap rates between 5.2 and 8.6%. For comparison, a 10-year government bond had a 1.31% interest rate as of July.

The locations with strong cap rates include both beach towns and mountain hideaways. Snapping up affordable homes in Southern states might be your best bet — two spots in Tennessee and two spots in Alabama are high on the list.

In ascending order, here are the 10 best vacation areas for real-estate investors to target this year:

10. Ludlow, Vermont

Ludlow was once a tiny mill town but is now a choice ski destination. It is near the Okemo Mountain Resort and the Okemo State Forest, making it a dream destination for nature lovers. The busiest seasons are winter and summer.

Median home sale price: $345,950

Median annual gross rental revenue: $42,648

Cap rate: 5.2%

9. Seaside, Oregon

Seaside is a tiny resort city in northwest Oregon that sits right on the Pacific Ocean. Popular local attractions aside from the beach include the Seaside Aquarium and the area's historic downtown. The busiest seasons are spring and summer.

Median home sale price: $466,086

Median annual gross rental revenue: $45,249

Cap rate: 5.2%

8. Deep Creek Lake, Maryland

Deep Creek Lake is a mountainous lake destination in western Maryland that has 60 miles of shoreline. It's a multiseason vacation spot, with water activities like boating and tubing in the summer and skiing in the winter.

Median home sale price: $439,367

Median annual gross rental revenue: $51,031

Cap rate: 5.7%

7. Palm Springs, California

Palm Springs is one of the most popular vacation destinations on the West Coast, just 100 miles east of Los Angeles and 30 miles west of Joshua Tree National Park. It's a glamorous stretch of desert known for its hot springs, golf courses, and midcentury-modern architecture. The busy seasons are spring and fall.

Median home sale price: $539,370

Median annual gross rental revenue: $52,784

Cap rate: 5.9%

6. Blue Ridge, Georgia

Blue Ridge is in northern Georgia on the southernmost stretch of the Appalachian Mountains. It offers craft breweries and easy access to the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway and Chattahoochee National Forest. The busiest seasons are summer and winter.

Median home sale price: $290,934

Median annual gross rental revenue: $38,266

Cap rate: 6.1%

5. Norris Lake, Tennessee

Norris Lake is 55 miles north of Knoxville and just south of the Kentucky border. The massive lake is the surrounding area's main attraction. The 52 square miles of freshwater in the landlocked state lures lovers of water sports like kayaking and wakeboarding. Summer is the busiest season.

Median home sale price: $343,907

Median annual gross rental revenue: $42,450

Cap rate: 6.2%

4. Dauphin Island, Alabama

Dauphin Island is a tiny Gulf Coast town known for quiet white-sand beaches just 40 miles south of Mobile, Alabama. Local attractions include the Audubon Bird Sanctuary and an aquarium. The busiest seasons are spring and summer.

Median home sale price: $539,370

Median annual gross rental revenue: $52,784

Cap rate: 5.9%

3. Gulf Shores, Alabama

Gulf Shores, Alabama, is close to Dauphin Island — and the Florida border. It is also known for its white-sand beaches frequented by sea turtles and migratory birds, along with famous dive bars and restaurants. The busy seasons are spring and summer.

Median home sale price: $402,905

Median annual gross rental revenue: $46,107

Cap rate: 7.1%

2. St. Augustine, Florida

St. Augustine sits on the northeast coast of Florida on the Atlantic Ocean. It's known for its Spanish colonial architecture and general European feel. Popular attractions include the Castillo de San Marcos, a stone fortress dating to the 17th century, a historic downtown, and, of course, the beach. The busy seasons are spring and summer.

Median home sale price: $365,576

Median annual gross rental revenue: $46,557

Cap rate: 7.4%

1. Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Gatlinburg is a woodsy spot in eastern Tennessee that serves as a gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains. It's just 40 miles southeast of Knoxville and known for having sweeping mountain views that can be seen from the country's longest pedestrian suspension bridge or scenic chairlifts. The busiest seasons are summer and fall.

Median home sale price: $320,111

Median annual gross rental revenue: $47,328

Cap rate: 8.6%

In the past few years, Texas has become a real-estate hot spot, as more people flocked to the state during the pandemic. Texas is home to diverse landscapes, open spaces, and gorgeous houses that live up to the "everything is bigger in Texas" motto. 

One in particular, a nine-bedroom home near Houston formerly owned by NBA hall of famer Tracy McGrady, especially fits the bill. 

The house measures to little more than 23,000 square feet and is decked out with 12 bathrooms, a huge kitchen, guest house, home theater, fully loaded gym, full basketball court, elevator and so much more.  It's being sold by CA Modern Realty.

Take a look inside:

The property sit on just over 2 acres in Sugar Land, Texas.

This home has six garages, nine bedrooms, eight full bathrooms, and four half-baths.

This contemporary/modern mansion was built in 1999.

It's three stories high and packed with a ton of features, including this grand staircase.

The custom iron staircase leads right to the front door. This mansion is also equipped with an elevator.

And a serious game room.

Plus a plush home theater for more entertainment.

The two-story living room features hand-panted ceilings, the listing says.

And the family room features custom wood detailing on the ceiling as well.

The master closet is absolutely massive.

There's also an open kitchen with a butler area, wet bar, and breakfast area.

The breakfast area is adjacent to the kitchen.

But what's a mansion without a spacious home office?

The master suit is connected to this fabulous sitting area.

And here's the master bedroom.

There's a spacious master bathroom to accompany the bedroom.

The master bathroom features custom detailing.

But what puts this property over the top is this full-size basketball court.

And a fully loaded workout area.

But it doesn't stop there. The property also features a fully functional guest house.

With this guest master bedroom, your guests might never want to leave.

The guest house also features another spacious guest room.

And this loft area.

Plus a custom-designed bathroom.

Outside, the landscape is just as impressive as the inside of the house.

With a nice-sized pool and slide.

And plenty of room for other outdoor activities that really ties the entire property together.

There may be some encouraging signs that the real estate market is calming down, but housing prices are still climbing — especially in Austin, Texas.

That's according to a new report from real estate site Redfin, which tracked home prices nationally over the past 12 months. Redfin found that in the Texas capital, home prices rose 39% since last year to a median price of $485,000. That increase was the highest among the 85 biggest metro areas Redfin tracked. 

Not only has the median home price risen, but the number of homes selling for significantly over asking price has as well. In 2021 alone, nearly 2,700 Austin homes have sold for $100,000 — or more — over their listing price. And since last year at this time, the number of homes that sold for at least $100,000 over asking increased by 57 times, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing Redfin data. 

Austin has seen an influx of new residents over the course of the last year, many of whom are paying well above asking price. People relocating to the region pay, on average, 7.8% over asking when they buy a home, compared to local buyers, who pay an average of 3.7% over, Redfin found. 

Read more: Austin's 'new normal': Experts say homes will keep getting more expensive as the frenzy for the Texas capital rolls on

Out-of-towners have been contributing to the Austin real estate boom for years, but that has shifted into high gear during the pandemic, Sean Waeiss, a broker and the owner of Wise Property Group in Austin, told Insider earlier this year. 

"Austin is a market that's attractive to the San Francisco, the Los Angeles, the New York market, even the Miami and Chicago market," he said. "It's got good weather, it's a young city, vibrant, we've got a good culture, live music, and it's more affordable than all those places I just mentioned."

Plus, workers can now do their jobs remotely, or find work at firms that have been in the Austin region for years, companies like Dell, IBM, Samsung, Applied Materials, and Texas Instruments.

Waeiss also noted that you can get more for your money in Austin if you're relocating from another major city. Some buyers have equity in a tech company like Facebook or Google, or have sold a million-dollar house in the Bay Area, and are able to spend big in Austin. Others are paying about the same mortgage as they did in other cities, but their square-footage has doubled, or they can have a yard now, he said.

All these factors combined have led to the soaring sale prices, bidding wars, and low inventory Austin has seen in 2021, Waeiss said. 

"Austin's not a little secret anymore," he said. 

Home prices are still high nationwide

The Austin prices align with a continued rise in home sales nationally.

Redfin found that the median price of houses sold in July 2021 rose 20% from the same time last year, reaching a new high of $385,600. 

Redfin noted that the annual growth rate hit a high of 26% nationally in May, which means that overall, that rate is slowing slightly. But July marked the 12th month in a row of double-digit increases, and the median home price is still higher than any other time on record before April 2021, Redfin found.

Daryl Fairweather, Redfin's chief economist, said in the report that while there are some signs the market is improving for buyers, prices are still significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels. 

"Home prices are still soaring at an astonishing rate," Fairweather said.

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The numbers are in: The most popular places to move to during the pandemic were also the most popular places to move to over the past decade. 

Recently released results from the 2020 census found that the fastest-growing metropolitan areas between 2010 and 2020 were mostly Sun Belt spots. The top three — The Villages, Florida; Austin, Texas; and St. George, Utah — all ballooned by over 30%. Those same locales also cracked the list of the top five fastest-growing metros in 2020, suggesting that the pandemic only accelerated an already present migratory trend.

Insider asked locals why the spots, from a retiree Disney World to a burgeoning tech hub, are so hot. Below, we've compiled a list of stories, in ascending order, sharing what we found.

Thousands of people are flocking to one Utah city for cheaper houses, red-rock canyon views, and conservative neighbors

Chef Cory LaFranchi was looking to move from Seattle to St. George, Utah, in August. He wanted to be closer to his family, but finding a house was harder than making the decision to relocate, as nearly 7,000 people had already moved there between July 2019 and July 2020.

The local population spiked from 177,938 people to 184,913 in just one year, the US Census Bureau found.

That growth isn't new — recent data found that St. George was the third fastest-growing metro area in the country over the past decade. Between 2010 and 2020, the area grew 30.5%.

Read more about why the area is so attractive to new residents — and how its explosive growth has rattled the local real-estate market.

How Austin lured 67,000 new residents last year: no state income tax and a rollicking social scene

Drew vonEhrenkrook was just following the crowd when he packed up and moved from his native Kansas to Austin last year.

"I had a lot of friends and clients who were already living down here and raving about it," vonEhrenkrook, 29, said. He said their glowing reports of life in the Texas capital emboldened him to make the leap. The draws of no state income tax, warm weather, and an exciting social scene didn't hurt either.

He's one of the 67,000 people who relocated to Austin between July 2019 and July 2020, the US Census Bureau found. Recent data found that pandemic migration was just solidifying long-standing trends: Austin grew by one-third between the 2010 census and 2020 census, making it the second fastest-growing metro area in the country over the past decade.

Read more about how Austin's explosive growth has bolstered the frenzied local real-estate market.

The most popular place to move to in the 2010s was a massive Florida community where residents dance in piazzas and whip around in golf carts

In the 1980s, Harold Schwartz, a Michigan business owner, bought a 400-unit trailer park in central Florida with the intention of redefining retirement.

The original investment has since grown into The Villages, a veritable Disney World for retirees. The area is now so big that it's considered its own metropolitan area — and there are more residents careening through its 90 miles of golf-cart paths now than ever before. From July 2019 to July 2020, the population increased by 3.9% to 139,018. That's more than 5,000 newcomers.

But new census data showed that the area's meteoric growth hasn't been isolated to last year. From the 2010 census to 2020 census, The Villages grew 39%  — making it the fastest-growing metro area of the decade.

Read more about how The Villages — a Republican stronghold by design — represents a version of the classic American dream that entices new residents.

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Training for the Olympics and selling New York City real estate have something in common: intense competition. 

And no one knows that better than McKenzie Ryan. The 29-year-old former rhythmic gymnast and classically trained ballerina is a former national-level athlete who competed at the Junior Olympics and spent many years training for the games.

Her passion for real estate ignited while she was attending Horace Mann, a co-ed private K-12 school in Manhattan. It was then that she did her first deal— while still in high school — when calling brokers and setting up showings led her to convince her family of five to move apartments.

From there, her real-estate education took off. Ryan dove headfirst into every facet of the industry, channeling her ambitious and competitive nature into brokering deals. Her résumé includes roles in development at Related — the firm responsible for developing New York landmarks like Hudson Yards — to retail leasing at Winick and other top-tier residential firms. 

"I was basically trained to be an all-star Olympic real-estate agent," the Upper West Side native told Insider.

Since 2016, she's been with Compass, the brokerage at which she founded the asset-advisory team, a group focused on developing long-term strategies for their clients' real-estate assets to help them maximize their returns.

Often juggling 30 deals at any given point between her sellers and buyers, she has been named by Forbes as one of the top power brokers in the city (the youngest person ever to receive the recognition). It's no surprise why: She recently sold a West Village townhouse that was on the market for four years at full asking price within five months of landing the listing.

Now, amid one of her strongest years for sales to date, Ryan's gross sales volume in 2021 is just over $34 million (not including active listings). She's sold trophy properties across the city, from a $7.25 million townhouse at 21 Downing St. to a $675,000 apartment in Chelsea she sold thanks to posting an Instagram story (which caught the eyes of her more than 36,000 followers).

She shared the daily schedule that keeps her focused on attaining Olympic-level feats.

6 a.m.

Ryan's morning begins at her West Village home, where she starts the day with a greeting. When she gets up, she even says aloud, "Good morning, McKenzie."

"We should be nice to ourselves, our bodies, and our brains," she said. "It's a nice little introduction to the day."

She greets her 14-year-old Shiba Inu, Winter, too. "She has three different beds in the apartment," Ryan said.

Then, Ryan does a bit of journaling and writes down what she's grateful for that happened in the past 24 hours. Jotting down affirmations and gratitude has changed her life, she said, adding that mindfulness is important to her and she does yoga three times a week.

"My brain and life are so much more open," she said.

She stretches, walks Winter, and has some coffee — either "utility" coffee (for the sake of waking up) or fun coffee (a honey latte or cappuccino).

7:30 a.m.

She runs or bikes to the gym. "Workouts are super important to me," she said, adding that she runs an average of 5 or 6 miles a day.

"With my background, I need to be physically conditioned. Working out is half mental, half physical," she said. "And I do a ton of my business strategy when I'm working out."

9:30 a.m.

The workday begins. Usually, she'll spend three days a week working from her Compass office on 5th Avenue and 16th Street near Union Square and two days working from her apartment.

She starts by looking at her "hot list" and "warm list," which map out her active deals, and account for her clients, from buyers to sellers to landlords.

Looking through all her transactions, she keeps a checklist of who everyone is so she never forgets a single person. "People are always present with me throughout the day," she said.

10:30 a.m.

She hits the phones for two hours.

For the first hour, she calls her sphere of influence: past clients, people who have referred her business, interior designers, neighbors, and more. The goal of those chats is to stay connected, gather ideas, and keep her network alive.

Then, it's an hour of calls on any active or time-sensitive business before a 10-minute break.

Ryan dedicates time for correspondence, too. "I write three letters a day, either personal letters saying 'hi' or thank-you notes," she said. "I use the postal system on a daily basis." 

12:30 p.m.

Around lunchtime, Ryan spends 30 minutes working on her customer-relationship management, adding people to her database and making updates to her contacts.

Then it's time for an hour of outreach, split between media engagements and building her network via Instagram. She'll talk to writers or broadcast journalists on the record or other New York professionals she finds interesting who could end up as clients when they need to buy or sell their homes.

2 p.m.

An hour is set aside for in-person meetings, from chats over coffee to walks in the park. 

By midafternoon she turns to focus on active business, searching for properties for buyers, and scheduling showings. Ryan also works on asset-advisory strategy for her clients, which revolves around how they can increase returns from their properties.

"My day is very heavily focused on business building and management up until 3 p.m.," she said. "Then I open up all of my time to showings." 

She tours prospective buyers and renters through townhouses and apartments, hopping from building to building throughout the afternoon.

"My showings are mainly all below 59th Street and typically on the west side," she added. "I have a big portfolio in Brooklyn, too."

7 p.m.

Showings quiet down by 7 p.m.

"I enjoy taking a nice wind-down walk with Winter in the evening or going for an evening run," she said. She sometimes goes to the dance studio — or dances in the street.

Ryan loves dressing up for dinners across the city, new museum exhibits, or a performance of Shakespeare in the Park.

She goes to the public library a few times a week to take out books.

"I'm very immersed in New York," she said. "I'm the most New York person ever."

For dinner, she's either out on the town indulging in sushi, burgers, and cocktails, or keeping it casual and healthy with her regular Sweetgreen salad order. "I'm either super casual or super ritzy," she said.

She does 1,000 crunches a night before she winds down, making a point to perform a little skin-care routine, then reads or listens to music.

12 a.m.

Evening rituals extend to just before bed, when she likes to visualize her future.

"I have an idea of how I want to interact with the world," she said. "Having that outline is so important to visualize and execute. I just want to live a full meaningful existence in this world."

Sometime between 11:30 p.m. and midnight, it's lights out.

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The Manchester housing market is booming. And one local agent says he's never seen anything like it.

Referred to casually as England's second city, the Northwestern English metropolis is known for its longstanding industrial history.

But now, the city is a center of culture, popularized by its bustling nightlife scene and famed football. And it's drawing homebuyers in droves. 

Anthony Stankard is the managing director of Reside Manchester, a Deansgate-based residential agency. He told the Manchester Evening News that his firm sold £52 million (over $60.8 million) worth of homes over the last year as the city's housing market bounces back from the coronavirus pandemic. 

Between August 2020 and July 2021, the firm has sold 167 properties, he said, amounting to £51.25 million in sales. That's an average of just under £1 million a week in sales (all to UK-based buyers), in addition to the 555 properties the firm let over the same time frame.

"We've had a year like no other, but despite everything we've been through Manchester continues to thrive," he said. "I always had this feeling it would come back strong, but it's been way beyond anything even I could have predicted. Since April it's been absolutely phenomenal. I have been doing this for 20 years and, in the rental market especially, I've never seen anything like it."

Data shows UK housing costs are up over 13% year over year as of June, the highest annual increase since 2004, according to the BBC. In Manchester, property prices are up 12% year over year, the Manchester Evening News reported. 

Stankard said his firm is bustling with prospective clients, adding that the agency's sales figures are up 17% as a result of the frenzy, and up 30% from the 2018-2019 year. 

He attributes the mass migration to the return of city workers, who otherwise may have relocated or moved home amid the heights of the pandemic. Not only that, but he claims to see ample Londoners moving up as well.

"I think because a lot of people are now able to work from home they've looking at Manchester because it's cheaper than London, but it's still got all the attractions of a big city," he said. 

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In 2016, Dan Brault decided to try real estate.

On nights and weekends, when the Rochester, New York, medical-device salesman wasn't at his day job, he founded a construction company.

Brault, now 31, liked building custom homes so much that he decided to make the work full time. It was lucrative — until a project in 2019 turned disastrous thanks to a poor construction manager, he said. Brault's firm ran out of money. He had to lay everyone off and shut everything down. He said he racked up about $400,000 worth of debt and returned to sales.

Then, in spring 2020, he pivoted back to real estate with a new plan: wholesaling. Brault buys properties directly from distressed homeowners and resells them to investors, landlords, or flippers for a profit.

Just over a year later, business is booming. Brault told Insider his company averages about 10 deals a month. With a wholesaler's fee of about $16,000 a property, he said, pulls in a revenue north of $160,000 a month. Finding sellers is hard, he added, but his profit margin is about 55% — or $8,000 in profit per deal.

"I'd never really liked the process that much, but it was low risk and the margins were really good," Brault admitted to Insider. But then he reconsidered. "Maybe there's just a better way I can do it," he said.

There was.

Brault, who outlined his revamped investment strategy on the "BiggerPockets" podcast this summer, laid out four key ways he's found success wholesaling.

1. Amass a pool of regular buyers

Brault and his team reach out directly to homeowners in hopes of finding ones who need to offload their properties quickly and easily.

"We'll contract to buy their properties, but then before we have to close on the houses ourselves, we basically find another buyer like an investor, landlord, or flipper who wants to buy it from us. And they'll buy it instead," Brault said.

He has a consistent group of buyers he sells about 90% of his deals to, he added. Those buyers have to agree to pay a slightly higher cost than he paid for the wholesaling to work, he said.

For example, Brault said, his company can buy a property for $100,000, but one of their buyers is willing to pay $115,000. Brault will sign a new contract with a new buyer to close on the property. Then, when the buyer pays $115,000, $100,000 goes to original seller and $15,000 goes to Brault.

"It's more or less like a finder's fee," Brault said of the revenue he stands to generate on each deal. "We help homeowners get rid of problem properties and help investors find properties."

2. Find sellers in creative ways — and vet them

Desperate sellers aren't always easy to find, so Brault has to go out and hunt them down.

"Leads are the lifeblood of the business," he said. "To us, a lead is a homeowner who's raised their hand and said, 'Yes, we'd like to sell our property.' And they're a probably candidate for selling off market." 

Two sales representatives and three leads managers assist Brault in making contact with homeowners, vetting them, and gathering information to understand if they are a good fit for the wholesaling process.

A team of third-party cold callers who call and text homeowners help, too, Brault said, adding that the television ads he places are a great source for leads. He also sends handwritten letters directly to homeowners, which he said were very effective.

Most homeowners don't need to sell immediately and forgo the prospective benefits of listing their properties publicly.

"Only between 5 and 10% of people are candidates for what we do," he said.

Since a lot of owners willing to sell to a wholesaler are in debt, Brault said, there can be red flags. They might have liens or judgments against their properties or complicated family situations. Lawyers vet every transaction, he added.

"Having competent attorneys plays a huge role," he said.

3. Build an efficient, cost-effective team

Brault has built a team of nine (himself included) in just over a year, hiring his first remote assistant out of the Philippines within his first four months in business.

The staff has now grown to include a chief operations officer and two remote assistants, in addition to Brault, the two sales reps, and the three leads managers.

Affordable remote workers have allowed him to grow fast and sustainably.

"Virtual assistants are a huge resource," Brault said. "So much of what happens in a real-estate investing company doesn't need to be done in person. Back-end work can be done by anyone anywhere."

One assistant handles the dispositions, or sales, of properties: managing how homes are sold once under contract with the original seller, marketing properties and negotiating those agreements, and helping build buyer relationships. The other assistant handles contract preparation, data management, and other administrative work.

4. Run an efficient and accountable business 

The key to wholesaling, Brault said, is creating a business behind finding deals.

"So many people go wrong because they wing it," Brault said. "And something most real-estate investors don't have is the knowledge of how to actually build a business."

The key to running a real-estate business, according to Brault, is having set systems in place and formal processes to follow, Brault said. Understanding metrics and being able to keep steady accounting and track deals are also essential to making sure you're running a healthy operation.

"I'm really happy with where we're at and looking to grow a whole lot more," he said. "So much has happened so quickly. Who would think we'd be at this point?"

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The office has gone through dramatic transformations over the past several decades.

Once upon a time, cubicles and Xerox machines were the norm. Many years later, those were replaced with open offices and laptops.

Of course, it wasn't long before the flaws of the open-office model became apparent. Research shows that they tend to make workers more stressed and exhausted due to the lack of privacy and constant distractions. A 2013 Stockholm University study also revealed that those who worked in open offices were more likely to take sick leave than those who had their own office due to the increased risk of infection.

This risk forced many companies to send their staff home when COVID-19 became a threat. But as workers continued to work from home into this year, awareness increased about the limitations of modern office structure from both a productivity and health standpoint.

These insights have led companies to rethink the role of the office. And many business leaders, architects, and designers predict that it will primarily function as a place of collaboration in the future. They spoke to Insider about what that means in practice and what companies need to do to get it right.

The limitations of a pre-pandemic office

The open-office trend started in Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom. Not long after, much of corporate America followed.

What was intended to be a structure that encouraged collaboration and productivity turned into a subject of ire for many workers. But despite an abundance of research pointing to the open office's failure to create a collaborative environment, companies continued to adopt the structure — primarily because it's cost-effective.

The pre-pandemic modern office also came with elements that were problematic from a health standpoint. Lack of ventilation and insufficient access to nature and daylight have all negatively affected people's physical and mental health. 

"You really want to have people that are thriving," said Joanna Frank, the founder and CEO of Center For Active Design, a nonprofit that uses design in pursuit of fostering healthy and engaged communities. And a person's health and ability to thrive are directly correlated to an organization's financial ability to thrive, Frank added.

Designing for an activity-based workspace

Now more than ever workers expect to have more autonomy around when and where they work. According to a 2021 survey by the World Economic Forum, 66% of employees believed companies should allow flexible work, and 30% expressed that they would look for another job if they were required to go back to the office.

Designing for this reality means that companies should be "always moving toward activity-based design," said Lise Newman, director of workplace practice at SmithGroup, an integrated design firm with 15 offices across the US and China.

Frank agreed, saying that companies need to design with the "understanding that you need different physical spaces to support those different types of work."

That's likely to translate to more booths, pods, and cafe-like environments with seating arrangements similar to coffee shops. "The work cafe will serve two purposes — socialization and relationship building — but it will also serve as overflow seating on the days when 30% of the people are typically there, or on Fridays everyone is going to be there," Newman said.

Incorporating individual workspaces

Despite being of the view that the office will be a primarily collaborative space, Newman doesn't believe that individual spaces will go away any time soon. After all, one of the many inequities that the pandemic has brought to the forefront is that not everyone can transform their home into a safe and productive working environment.

There are also a "subset of employees that would prefer to do their work in the office than at home," Newman said. "Gen Z, in particular, are the ones that want to build relationships the most, and they want to be visibly present."

From a design standpoint, that means introducing individual rooms and enclaves rather than partitioned tables and cubicles. One of the themes that Newman consistently hears from clients is that many still want the ability to focus in the office but that the "old office wasn't cutting it."

Making nature and outdoors part of design

There's numerous pieces of research that illustrate the link between nature and creativity. 

A 2012 study found that hikers— after spending four days on the trail — performed 50% better on a "creativity problem-solving task" than those who weren't exposed to nature. Being in nature allows them to rest their prefrontal cortex, the researchers found, which allows creativity to flourish.

Businesses can tap into this benefit in the workplace, too, by incorporating more greenery into their office design. Newman said she's heard from clients that they would like their office space to open onto a terrace, but with Wi-Fi, monitors, and working spaces.

Incorporating health tools and tech

Air quality is another element that has a significant effect on workers' productivity and creativity.

In a 2016 study, researchers from Harvard University and Syracuse University found that employees who worked in offices with improved ventilation and reduced carbon dioxide levels and emissions performed 61% better on cognitive tasks than those who worked in standard building conditions.

According to Frank, before the pandemic, healthy buildings were generally seen as "nice to have." From a design standpoint, they require businesses to invest in the right technology. Frank said that tools allowing for temperature control and shading would be helpful for businesses and employees.

Transparency around quality is also critical, and Frank said employers should tell employees specifically what is happening in the workspace.

One example she's heard is that once an employee books a room in an office space, they can get information on when it was last used and whether the health status of the users presents any risks.

"Understanding that kind of powerful information is important for people," Frank said.

Inspiring creativity

In a world where the office is no longer the default place of work — and where collaboration is possible with just an internet connection and a computer screen — businesses also need to think of designing offices that make people want to come in.

David Schwarz, a partner at the design agency Hush, said the workplace should be "the iconography of a company culture and its mission and vision. You see that from Apple's circular rings, Steve Jobs sending a particular signal, and you see that in many other places." 

Schwarz gives the metaphor of a soccer stadium or a well-designed conference hub. "You enter and you're focused on a big clear gesture, " he said.

"It can be a flag in a stadium, or a certain type of light and window or architectural element that's so clearly put there," he added. "The programmatic element should beg interaction and collaboration. It shouldn't be something to observe without any kind of motivation. It should be something that's a touchstone where people gather."

After all, "collaboration doesn't go without inspiration," Schwarz said. And the workplace has been, and should continue to be, the "touchstone for that inspiration."

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Buying and then renting is one way of generating income from real estate, but it isn't the only way. House flipping, or buying with the sole intention of selling at a higher price, is another way to make a quick profit — and it doesn't require as much capital as you think, Ryan Pineda, a pro baseball player turned real-estate investor, said. 

Pineda didn't have a lot of cash in the bank when he purchased his first flip. He told Insider he had to use credit cards to fund his first deal. But that risk was worth it, Pineda said. Five years later, he's managed to flip hundreds of houses by the age of 32, according to records of his LLC's transactions on local government websites. His properties are scattered around Las Vegas, Big Bear Lake, California, and elsewhere.

He was an infielder for California State University and the Oakland Athletics before he moved into the real-estate field. His first experience in the sector was in 2010 after getting his real-estate license at 21. But after realizing that he didn't love the idea of being in sales and dealing with clients, he quit. 

"I didn't really think I was going to be in the real-estate game since I kind of already failed at it," Pineda said. 

It wasn't until he began buying and flipping houses in 2015 that he found his calling. Now he's the founder of Pineda Capital, a real-estate fund; Homerun Offer, a house-flipping company; and Forever Home Realty, a real-estate brokerage. 

"I realized that even though I didn't like representing clients as a realtor, I did like real estate," Pineda said. "I liked finding deals, fixing up homes, and making money that way. So it was kind of years later that I just realized, OK, this could actually be a career for me."

He also educates people through his website Future Flipper, a YouTube channel, TikTok and Instagram accounts, and a podcast, "The Ryan Pineda Show."

In an interview with Insider, he shared three pieces of advice for beginners based on mistakes he's seen them make. 

1. You have to get over analysis paralysis

Pineda said he had seen many people go down the rabbit hole of learning, where they will continually stack up on information but never take the first step because they feel like there's always more to learn.

"You're never going to know enough. You just have to take action," Pineda said. "You're going to learn more by doing deals and negotiating than you are going to be watching YouTube and reading articles. Like, that's just the truth." 

His first move was a leap of faith. Since he didn't start with much money in the bank, he had to take a risk on his first house-flipping property. He got a hard-money loan, a financing arrangement with a private company or investor where borrowed funds are secured with property. Interest rates are substantially higher, at about 12%, relative to a conventional loan that can be about 3%.

He said he went with this option because the lender didn't care about tax returns or credit but was focused on the deal or asset being purchased. The lender required a 20% down payment, or about $30,000. Pineda said he had only about $10,000 saved up in the bank. So he had to max out his credit cards for the rest. 

While he doesn't recommend following in his track, he doesn't regret the decision and said it gave him his start. 

2. It's a volume game, and you'll get a lot of nos

The second thing he's seen newbies struggle with is understanding that it's a volume game. About 99% of sellers and people you talk to are going to tell you no, whether it's a deal you're trying to negotiate or locking down a loan, he said. The rejection leads many to become discouraged and give up.

But you have to keep going and talk to a lot of people, Pineda said. In the end, all you really need is a few yeses to change your life. In context, if you can flip four houses and make $25,000 on each, that's six figures, he said.

2. Find a community within the sector

Finding support from a group of people that understand the sector is key, Pineda said. You can learn from the experience of others, ask questions, and get feedback. He believes that trying to do it on your own diminishes your odds of being successful. Seeing others pursuing a similar trail can encourage you to keep going.

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New York City has taken San Francisco's place as the most expensive place to rent an apartment in the US. 

That's according to an August report from real-estate rental site Zumper, which found that New York has the highest median rent for a one-bedroom unit at $2,810. San Francisco is a close second with a median price of $2,800. 

It's the first time since Zumper began tracking the data in 2014 that New York has nabbed the top spot. 

The shift highlights how much has been steadily changing in both cities over the last two years. New York was hit hard by the pandemic, which reverberated through the real-estate market. In the first quarter of 2021, New York City rents dipped to an all-time low, to a median price of $2,700, according to data from New York real estate site StreetEasy. At the same time, landlords began pulling units off the market because those rents — and the demand — were too low. 

But when the vaccine became more widely available this spring, things started to shift. 

As vaccinations became more widespread and life began to reopen in New York, residents returned to the city to take advantage of amenities like bars, restaurants, and museums. As of May, migration to New York was growing twice as fast as it was in 2019, according to location-data firm Unacast. As people migrated back to the city and demand for apartments rose, so did the rents.

Read more: Manhattan real estate is back

The same hasn't been true of San Francisco. San Francisco-based site Public Comment reported in December 2020 that as many as 89,000 households had left the city since the start of the pandemic. While some residents fled to locales like Austin or Miami, others simply left for the suburbs and exurbs of San Francisco. 

Now, with remote work continuing to be the norm among Bay Area-based tech companies like Facebook and Twitter, it seems there isn't the same rush to return to San Francisco as there has been to New York, and it's reflected in the rents: Median rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $800 more in San Francisco than in New York in early 2019 — by early 2020, San Francisco's median rent had dropped to $520 more than New York's, and by January 2021, it was only $330 more, according to Zumper. 

Zumper reports that while median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco has risen this year, it's up only 4.5% — compared to New York's 19.6% jump — and is still down 20% compared to March 2020. 

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There are some early signs that the red-hot real-estate market is calming — but it's still brutal to try to scoop up a property in much of the US.

Consider Austin, Texas. In 2021 alone, nearly 2,700 Austin homes have sold for more than $100,000 over listing price. The real-estate giant Redfin just released new data showing that the median sales price in the Texas capital rose nearly 39% since last July. It's significant because at this time last year, home prices nationwide had already skyrocketed over 2019's levels.

"Home prices are still soaring at an astonishing rate," Daryl Fairweather, Redfin's chief economist, said in the report. "While this ongoing trend continues to fuel an already severe affordability crisis, the market is becoming somewhat less competitive for homebuyers."

So while you might not be battling scores of others in a bidding war over one house, you could still end up shelling out more money than you anticipated. July, Redfin found, marked the 12th straight month the median home price for the entire US increased by double digits. 

Insider rounded up the top 10 places where home prices have increased the most from July 2020 to July 2021, according to Redfin's data.

Some spots on the list, like Phoenix and Miami, have recently welcomed an influx of high-earning new residents from coastal hubs like San Francisco. Others, like Riverside, California, and Buffalo, New York, represent a trend of city dwellers decamping to the suburbs and smaller cities.

Listed below, in ascending order, are the places where the average price of a home has jumped the most in the past year:

10. North Port, Florida

Median sales price: $375,000

Year-over-year median sales price increase: 21%

9. Riverside, California

Median sales price: $510,000

Year-over-year median sales price increase: 21.4%

8. Miami

Median sales price: $415,000

Year-over-year median sales price increase: 21.7%

7. Tucson, Arizona

Median sales price: $307,400

Year-over-year median sales price increase: 22%

6. Las Vegas, Nevada

Median sales price: $378,000

Year-over-year median sales price increase: 22%

Read more: Las Vegas is booming against all odds as hordes of Californians move in and snatch up houses

5. McAllen, Texas

Median sales price: $198,500

Year-over-year median sales price increase: 22.2%

4. Buffalo, New York

Median sales price: $222,500

Year-over-year median sales price increase: 25.7%

3. Salt Lake City

Median sales price: $479,000

Year-over-year median sales price increase: 26.1%

2. Phoenix

Median sales price: $410,000

Year-over-year median sales price increase: 28.1%

Read more: Phoenix is so hot right now. No, really.

1. Austin, Texas

Median sales price: $485,000

Year-over-year median sales price increase: 38.6%

Read more: Austin's 'new normal': Experts say homes will keep getting more expensive as the frenzy for the Texas capital rolls on