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While real estate is always a high-stakes game, the past year has been a particularly wild ride.

The presents are wrapped, the tree is decorated, and the lights outside your house would get high marks from Clark Griswold himself. And yet, something still seems to be missing in your rigorous holiday decor regimen, particularly in the room where everyone always gathers: the kitchen.

Mortgage rates fell for the second week in a row, averaging 7.12% for a 30-year fixed-rate loan in the week ending Sept. 7, according to Freddie Mac.

This downward trend is a welcome relief after rates spiked to a 22-year high of 7.23% two weeks earlier. Still, these rates are formidable—more than double what they were two years ago when they dipped below 3%—which has ground America’s housing market to a near standstill.

“The housing market has shuffled along at a slow pace for more than a year now as the market waits for mortgage rates to stabilize or decline,” says Realtor.com® data Scientist Sabrina Speianu in her analysis. “Heading into the fall housing season, mortgage rates, home prices, and housing availability continue to remain a challenge for both homebuyers and home sellers who themselves may need to purchase a home as they sell their current one.”

As the autumn homebuying season unfolds on shaky ground, we’ll explain what the most recent real estate statistics mean for buyers and sellers in our latest installment of “How’s the Housing Market This Week?”

What’s next for mortgage rates?

With the Federal Reserve slated to meet on Sept. 19 and 20 to discuss whether or not to raise benchmark interest rates, many are trying to read the economic tea leaves and forecast whether mortgage rates will rise or fall in response.

“All eyes are on macroeconomic indicators such as job market strength and inflation, which will guide the Federal Reserve in charting the path forward for interest rates,” says Speianu.

With the job market robust but cooling off and inflation slowing down, “the market is not anticipating the Federal Reserve to increase rates in September and it is also less likely that they will raise rates before year-end,” predicts Speianu.

With a possible end to rate hikes in sight, the housing market might just begin to inch forward.

How high mortgage rates lead to fewer listings

Until mortgage rates drop, the supply of homes for sale will remain slim.

For the week ending Sept. 2, the number of new listings sank by 8.5% compared with one year ago.

“While the number of newly listed homes increased from July to August, new home listings have once again begun to decline as is expected heading into September,” says Speianu.

Fewer sellers are listing their homes since many have low mortgage rates they’re reluctant to give up—thus locking sellers into their homes and locking buyers out. As a result, overall inventory (of both new and old listings) has also declined, lagging behind year-ago levels by 5.2%.

“In the meantime, new construction offers buyers an alternative, and new-home sales continue to climb from year-ago lows,” adds Speianu.

Home prices edge upward

As if high mortgage rates weren’t daunting enough for would-be buyers, low housing inventory has inflated home prices.

After a welcome stretch of annual price declines in June and July, median list prices rose year over year in August, to hover at a median of $435,000.

And for the week ending Sept. 2, median home prices rose by 0.2% compared with last year. But the good news is that home prices didn’t top last June’s record high of $449,000.

The bad news? Home prices are not likely to fall dramatically anytime soon.

“A renewed existing-home inventory crunch is still supporting listing prices as homebuyers find fewer opportunities compared to last year,” adds Speianu.

Why the slowing pace of home sales may speed up soon

Any sellers who can break free of their mortgage rate handcuffs will likely be rewarded with a quick home sale.

The pace of home sales has been slowing for 59 weeks, but that might soon turn a corner.

“The gap is now only two days more than the same time last year,” says Speianu. “While the demand for homes has pulled back due to affordability constraints, there are still eager home shoppers on the market browsing through a declining inventory of homes for sale.”

There are a lot of things to consider when buying a house. Are you ready for this? Emotionally? Financially?

Things to consider when buying a house

While you might feel prepared for this next giant step, just remember—there’s a lot of planning and prep work that goes into this purchase, even before you start to look at homes. So make sure you’ve got all your mallards in a row first!

From checking on your credit score to see if you can score a mortgage to amassing the down payment, use this checklist of things to consider when buying a house to figure out if there are any things you may have missed.

1. Crunch your numbers

First, ask yourself not if you’re ready emotionally—because it sounds like you are—but ready financially, says Kristen Robinson, senior vice president at Fidelity Investments. A perfect place to start is at our Home Affordability Calculator, where you can punch in your income, desired location, and other factors to see if your expectations jibe with reality. Good luck!

2. Know your credit score

Your mortgage’s interest rate—and, as a result, the size of your monthly payments—will be directly related to your credit or FICO score, essentially a summary of how reliably you’ve been paying off your debts.

“If you’ve had too many problems or late payments leading up to the purchase of a home, your score could be lower, and you might get a higher mortgage rate,” says Ali Vafai, president of The Money Source, a national lender and servicer. Many major lenders require a score of at least 620 for a mortgage, but if you find out you’re below that or want to boost your score, now is the time to get started, since it can take months to take effect.

3. Amass a down payment

Most mortgage lenders require a cash down payment of 5% to 20% of the price of a home. If you don’t have this kind of cash lying around, it’s high time to start a saving goal for the next few months. You can start by putting off buying any big-ticket items, fancy vacations or other extravagances. This is a new home we’re talking about, remember? You can also explore other ways to come up with a down payment fast—like borrowing from your IRA or even getting a gift from your parents (lucky you).

4. Get educated

The most important thing to consider when buying a house? The nuts and bolts of how it works. Consider taking advantage of local home-buying seminars, often offered by banks or nonprofits. Such resources will explain aspects of a home loan, like the criteria lenders use to evaluate a borrower, the documentation buyers will need to provide and what each portion of a mortgage payment goes toward. Even better: these seminars are usually free.

5. Interview at least three real estate agents

Just about everyone knows a real estate agent or five, which explains why 52% of home buyers find their agent through a friend. But don’t just settle for the first agent to cross your path—remember, a house is a huge purchase, the stakes are high. In the same way you’d want to thoroughly vet a surgeon before upcoming surgery, you want to consider who you work with when buying a house. Here are some questions to ask a real estate agent before deciding which one is right for you.

A real estate agent can also help in the education department, according to Christine Lutz, director of residential brokerage for Chicago-based Kinzie Real Estate Group. “An agent will often have relationships with lenders that buyers can work with to determine a budget and down payment percentage and get pre-approved for a mortgage.”

6. Go mortgage shopping

In the same way you wouldn’t buy the first house you set foot in, you shouldn’t commit to the very first mortgage you meet, either.

“Mortgages are not one-size-fits-all,” says Scott Haymore, head of mortgage pricing and secondary markets at TD Bank. He advises buyers to find a lender they trust and to discuss their financial situation. A lender will then help buyers “understand what financing options are available.”

7. Ballpark your closing costs

Buyers sometimes forget, amid their scramble to make a down payment and monthly mortgage fees, that that’s not everything they need to pay for. Another sizable chunk are closing costs, and they’re no small chunk of change, ranging from 3% to 6% of the purchase price thanks to taxes, transfer fees, and other expenses. So, make sure to budget for this expense too, just so you aren’t blindsided come closing time.

8. Ponder the future

Home buyers sometimes think of the purchase “inside a vacuum,” says Jeremy Hallett, CEO of Quotacy.com. That’s why he advises “making sure you have a will in place. Buyers should also consider a term life policy that runs at least 20 years and would pay off the home if something tragic happened—$20 a month buys a $500,000 policy.”

Robinson adds that before buying a home, you should have “an emergency fund established with enough money to cover three to six months of living in case you’re faced with an unexpected financial hardship. Considering your retirement savings is also important; you should continue making contributions towards your future.”

Life is short. And while no one wants to focus on the end, forcing yourself to do so can ultimately makes things a bit easier for your loved ones—not just emotionally, but financially too. One way to deal with the latter concern is to put your home in a living trust.

A living trust is a legal document that places your assets into a trust for your benefit (you’re the trustee) while you’re alive and then transfers those assets, via your “successor trustee,” to beneficiaries after you die or become disabled.

Think of it as a bucket filled with your money, property, and other assets. You’re free to do whatever you want with the contents of the bucket, such as sell stock or property. But after you’re gone, whatever’s left in the bucket goes to your heirs.

How is a living trust different from a will?

Like a living trust, a will is a legal document that instructs how to distribute your possessions after your death. If you have a will when you pass away, your estate goes into “probate,” a legal process where the court supervises the distribution of your estate. It appoints somebody (usually your executor) to collect information about your assets and liabilities, pay your bills, then distribute the remainder of the estate to your beneficiaries according to your wishes. Probate includes a lot of paperwork and can take up to a year.

However, if you set up a living trust while you’re alive, you typically pay a lawyer anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000 to do the paperwork ahead of time and avoid court supervision of the most valuable items you own after you’re gone.

“You’ve done all the paperwork so your loved ones don’t have to,” says Lorni Sharrow, an estates and trusts attorney with the Denver law firm Moye White. “It’s a pretty nice thing to do for people.”

Whatever you’ve placed in the trust can be distributed in a matter of weeks after your demise, not months. And as a bonus, a living trust is private, whereas a will is a public document, so everyone knows what and how much you did (or didn’t) leave to your least favorite relatives.

So, should you put your home in a living trust?

Yes. There’s no point in having a living trust unless you fund it with your assets, and your home typically is your largest asset. If you own vacation homes in different states, it’s especially important to put those in the trust, too, to avoid separate probate proceedings in those states.

You still need a will to designate who gets the antique clock or your coveted spoon collection. But you should make sure all your big-ticket items—specifically any property you own—are covered by a trust.

To place a property in a living trust, ask the attorney who drew up the trust to draw up a new deed in the name of the trust. If you have a mortgage, notify your lender that you’re putting the property in a living trust to avoid confusion later.

It’s also a good idea to keep a list of what’s in the trust, which will make life easier for your successor trustee.

“Estate planning goes to the bottom of everybody’s to-do list,” Sharrow says, explaining that only about 20% of Americans have a living trust. “But once they sign a living trust, the weight of the world is off their shoulders.”

Revocable vs. irrevocable trust: Which is right?

As the creator of the trust, you will also have to choose between having a revocable or an irrevocable trust. A revocable trust is just what it sounds like—you can change what property is in your trust, or even the very existence of the trust itself. This works best for a person who wants to maintain control over tehir assets until they can no longer mentally do so. Once that happens, a designated trustee will step in step in.

An irrevocable trust, by contrast, is one where once you create it, you can’t take things in or out, or dissolve it. As such, this trust is not included in your estate’s value, on which you’ll pay taxes—so an irrevocable trust can save you some money come tax time. Still, due to this lack of flexibility, in most instances, the irrevocable trust makes more long-term financial sense. A discussion with an estate planner can clear up which kind of trust is best for you.

If you’re finally ready to get serious and buy a house, you feel primed to start poring over listings and spending your weekends open-house hopping. Exciting!

Forget the splashy in-ground pools, the brand-new deck, and those impressive fire features. The landscaping that can fetch the highest return on investment might cost homeowners only an afternoon of work.

It’s all about curb appeal. Homeowners who invest in standard lawn care service—which can be as simple as seeding and mowing their lawn to keep it green and healthy—generally see a 217% ROI, according to a recent report from the National Association of Realtors® and the National Association of Landscape Professionals.

Those who would rather not lug the lawnmower out to tackle their grass generally pay about $415 for lawn maintenance.

Some things are just meant to go together: macaroni and cheese, Pam Beesly and Jim Halpert, a bubble bath and a glass of wine. But when it comes to bathroom decor, some pairings are less obvious.

During our weekly scroll through Instagram, we noted a number of stylish bathrooms with decor pairings that are both complementary and unexpected. So if you’re looking to liven up your loo or add value to a bathroom in your home you plan on selling, the following design ideas are sure to provide some inspiration.

Here are five dreamy bathroom design pairs made in heaven.