Ever thought about renting out your home, but shuddered at the idea of 2am texts about wi-fi passwords or where to find more toilet paper? Enter the Airbnb cohost: part property manager, part hospitality guru who makes every short-term stay run smoothly for guests and homeowners alike.

Take Libby Ross. A year ago, she was managing three of her own rentals in Oklahoma when Airbnb tapped her for its first US cohost beta test. Now, she manages 44 Airbnbs in two states, and she charges the owners anywhere between 10% and 22% depending on how hands-on (or hands-off) they hope to be.

“Most feel immediate relief when they start working with me,” Ross says. “By stepping in, we give homeowners time back to chase their next investment.”

Today, cohosts on Airbnb’s network support over 100,000 listings. How it works: Cohosts apply to be part of the network and must meet certain criteria (hosting 10+ stays with a 4.8+-star rating). If accepted, they set up a profile and can get recommended to overwhelmed owners who need backup in their areas of expertise.

On paper, it’s a symbiotic relationship: Owners pocket passive income without the headaches, while cohosts scale their hospitality business without buying more properties. But in practice, cohosts sometimes struggle to balance their many demands.

“Think of a hotel that is split into multiple parts of the city,” says Cory Friedman, who expanded from three Airbnbs he owned to managing 40 in Miami. “Downtown, you have a condo and the toilet isn’t flushing, midtown you have an apartment and the AC just shut down, over by the beach you have a studio and the cleaners didn’t show up, up north you have guests complaining about leaves in the pool. Finding which fire to put out first is a never-ending puzzle.”

Keeping homeowners happy is another challenge. “I have to stay loyal to the homeowner while still being hospitable to the guest, and those priorities don’t always align,” admits Ross. Still, she thinks for “hosting geeks” like her, the effort pays off.

“I knew I wanted to build a full-time career in hosting, but I didn’t have the ability to buy enough properties,” Ross says. “Cohosting gave me the path forward.”

Learn more about cohosting here.

Housing market shows signs of life. Pending home sales in August jumped by 4.0% from July and 3.8% year over year, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s the highest level in five months, and a sign that lower mortgage rates are finally luring buyers back. Find out where they perked up the most, plus one area where sales dropped.

Zillow and Redfin brace for a legal storm. The Federal Trade Commission sued the real estate platforms for entering into an illegal agreement where Zillow paid Redfin $100 million to stop advertising rentals: a violation of antitrust laws. Learn more about the lawsuit (and its potential impact on rental prices).

Open and shut? Government shutdowns can have a disastrous impact on housing. During the most recent and longest federal shutdown (34 days starting in 2018), home sales dropped significantly.

Are accidental landlords cooling the rental market? The Wall Street Journal found that nationwide, 2.3% of the homes for sale this summer were delisted and turned into rentals. The result? Rents in the top 20 markets are expected to rise just 0.8% this year, the slowest pace since 2011, according to John Burns Research & Consulting. In certain areas, rents are even falling.

Own a slice of X2? Activist investors have urged Six Flags to spin off the acreage under its roller coasters and water slides as a real estate investment trust, estimated to be worth $6 million. Learn more about this potential opco-propco split.

Safari in the USA: A 3,300-acre ranch in Lampasas, TX, just hit the market for $60 million...and it comes with a built-in safari. Think $20 million worth of exotic wildlife, from zebras and antelope to kudu, lechwe, Cape buffalo, and other species you probably couldn’t pick out of a lineup. Take a virtual tour.

When Scott Twentyman and Cindy Doughty bought their house in Rodanthe, NC, in 2002, beach erosion wasn’t on their radar. Since then, the Outer Banks has lost about 13 feet of shoreline per year, and at least 17 OBX homes have collapsed into the ocean (six just this week). To avoid the same fate, Twentyman and Doughty moved their house.

When did you realize your house might collapse into the ocean? Doughty: “Around 2017–2018, we noticed the ocean creeping closer. Homes nearby had collapsed into the ocean, and the wreckage slammed into our pilings and broke one. Even after that storm had receded, water was almost washing up under our house. Since we own a double lot, we decided to move our house back by 100 feet.”

What does it take to move a house? Twentyman: “We hired Expert House Movers, the same company that moved the Hatteras, the tallest brick lighthouse in the US. If they could move a structure weighing hundreds of tons, they could move our house. After permits were approved, movers tore down the ground-level laundry room and slid steel beams under the house, and jacked it up onto a wheeled platform.”

Was any other prep involved? Doughty: “The house was sitting on this temporary cribbing, and another hurricane was coming, so we had to move the house before it hit. The actual move itself took only 15 minutes. Inside the house, we didn’t have to pack anything. Pictures stayed on the walls, china stayed in the cabinets. I even left a glass on the counter, and it was still there after the move.”

How much did it cost? Twentyman: “About $200,000. We had to take out a home equity loan on another property we own. Insurance doesn’t pay anything until a home collapses into the ocean.”

What advice do you have for others buying beach homes? Doughty: “Maintain your sand dunes meticulously. Plant seagrass, put up sand fences, and keep people off the dunes. Every grain of sand matters.”

Click here for more photos of this mind-boggling move.

Roads are supposed to get you somewhere fast. Streets are meant to connect people to shops, restaurants, and homes. A stroad tries to do both, often ending up as a five-lane highway lined with strip malls, where traffic crawls and pedestrians dodge cars just to satisfy a craving for Takis.

Stroads tend to drag down both residential and commercial real estate values, so investors eyeing these areas will want to weigh the risks.

“Stroads murder walkability and stifle growth,” says Ben Mizes, a licensed real estate agent and president of Clever Real Estate. “Commercial tenants might like the visibility, but retail does poorly unless it’s a destination business. Residential tenants complain about noise and safety. I don’t play around with stroads unless there’s a rehab plan.”

Stroads can get pedestrian-friendly makeovers: In Providence, RI, Broad Street—infamous for its accident rate—was renovated to include an urban walkway in 2021 that revived a once-vacant movie theater and other businesses. Here’s what investors and residents can do to fix stroads from the urban planner who coined the term.