Everyone knows that person who hangs onto their Christmas tree long past the socially acceptable expiration date (which, if you ask us, is January 2). Psychoanalyze it all you want, but for short-term rental host MJ Palattella, leaving the holiday decor up year-round is simply good business.

“My decision was based on being a huge Christmas fanatic, but it also seemed like it would help me stand out,” says Palattella, who has an Airbnb in Carolina Beach, NC. At first, her pool house had more of a beach theme with a tasteful sprinkling of lights. But once she gave in to the urge to add more lights and blow-up Santas throughout the house, reservations soared.

“I’m always booked during Christmas, but my most booked time is the summer,” she says. “That’s the strangest part.”

Happy holidays, all day, every day

Palattella is hardly the only Airbnb host celebrating Christmas 365 days a year. In Chickasha, OK, Shane and Maggie Henry took their cues from their town’s claim to fame: a 50-foot-tall replica of the leg lamp from A Christmas Story.

“The inventor of the leg lamp, Nolan James, is from Chickasha,” explains Shane. Since their property was within walking distance of the attraction, they renovated their property into Ralphie’s House, named after A Christmas Story’s main character and outfitted with its own (much smaller) leg lamp and other tributes to the film.

The couple’s advice to achieve year-round bookings? “Find some connection to your location and make it over the top,” Shane says. “You have to go all in and know that it’s going to be more expensive to set up than a standard Airbnb.”

Keeping the holiday cheer going can be downright grueling. Just ask Jim Lane, who owns a Christmas tree farm with two short-term rental cabins in Ozark, AR.

“My wife and I loved visiting a local farm and decided to start our own,” he says. They quickly learned that growing Christmas trees is less a peaceful pastime and more a full-scale labor operation. “It’s a long-term real estate investment that takes years of upfront work with no pay,” Lane explains. “Some people see us only during the holidays when we’re making money, and they don’t realize we’ve worked all year long planting, mowing, spraying, and shearing.”

Even so, Lane says the effort is worth it. “It’s rewarding to build relationships with families that last for generations,” Lane says. “A Christmas tree farm sells more than trees. We sell memories.”

Santa’s home is for sale. Looks like one Zillow engineer may have too much time on their hands. Take a tour of Santa’s house, check out the Zestimate, and if you’ve got some free time, try to find 17 hidden treasures inside.

America’s merriest real estate markets: The holiday spirit is strong in these 10 towns, and one is just about giving away homes for a mere $185,180.

Save $1,100 a year on your mortgage. It’s so easy, yet only 3 in 10 shoppers do it.

Affordable homes are here: Although most Americans cough up 39% of their income for a roof over their head, Redfin found that residents in the St. Louis suburb of Bellefontaine Neighbors, MO, spend just 16%. And this market isn’t a fluke; check out this list of the top 100 affordable markets where buyers spend under 22% of their income on a house.

Will your area have a white Christmas? And is your property prepared? Find out here, along with what you should shut off and turn on right now.

Don’t forget the fur babies. Pet-friendly rentals pay off, and RentCafe has pinpointed exactly how much to charge in pet rent, pet deposits, and other fees.

Rachel, Monica, Joey, and Chandler have a new landlord. The 21-apartment NYC building used for the exterior shots of Friends sold for $32.7 million. And although we always knew this foursome couldn’t afford to live there (except maybe Chandler), the current rent will make you wonder if anyone can.

Did you decorate wrong for the holidays? Interior designers warn of six mistakes to avoid.

Why live near the water when you can live on it? A one-bedroom tugboat in Sausalito, CA, has just floated onto the market for $1.8 million. Named Mirene, it was built in 1912 as an Alaskan fishing schooner, arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1975 in a derelict state, then was lovingly restored and lived in by Whole Earth Catalog author Stewart Brand. “Mirene is as fit as it ever was. At 87, I am not,” Brand says. “It’s time for younger owners.” Here’s more on this adorable abode from Compass listing agent Steve Sekhon.

Q: What was your first impression of the property when you saw it? “It’s like the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang of houses, immaculately maintained, so cheerful. My first thought was that this would be such an amazing way to live, on the water, with all of the amenities of a regular home that could, at a moment’s notice, be disconnected from the dock and deployed to travel.”

Q: What are the best parts of living in a houseboat? “A dynamic living environment that constantly changes [with] beautiful views; it feels like living in the wild while being four minutes from the Golden Gate Bridge and 10 minutes to San Francisco. This is both a home and a piece of history that can move around the bay, host events, and return to its base in one of the most delightful communities on the planet.”

Q: What about the challenges? “Most houseboats tend to be smaller than most homes, and everything you take home has to be carried by hand or in a shopping cart. You also have to deal with the tides and the changing height of your home vis-à-vis the dock, which is fixed. There is currently only one lender that makes loans on houseboats, and they are more expensive than loans for conventional real estate purchases.”

Q: What’s been the response to this home? “There has been a healthy response from a wide variety of buyers considering the unique value proposition here. It is a one-of-a-kind opportunity searching for the right person to become the new captain and steward of its next incarnation.”

Got your sea legs? Check out more photos of this floating residence here.

Everyone has come across a Pepto-Bismol-pink bathroom at some point. Although these candy-colored relics have been known to turn stomachs, an entire preservation movement, Save the Pink Bathrooms, has emerged to protect them from demolition. So are they good or garish from an investment perspective? That depends on the market.

“In working-class or rental-heavy neighborhoods, pink bathrooms are almost always a turnoff,” says Itay Simchi at Proven House Buyers. “When I flip homes in areas where buyers prioritize practicality and price, the pink bathroom is usually the first thing they want gone. Renters associate it with something outdated and ‘unrenovated,’ even if the plumbing works perfectly.”

That calculus changes with more design-savvy buyers. “I recently bought a 1950s home with an all-pink bathroom and debated ripping it out, but decided to keep it,” Simchi recalls. At the sale, “A young couple paid over asking, and told me the bathroom was the reason they chose the house. It completely changed how I look at these rooms.”

Bottom line: If your likely buyer binge-watches Mad Men or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, preserve the pink. If the property is a rental, a budget flip, or located in a more traditional market, swapping it for a neutral bathroom is usually the safer bet.

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