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Aside from the obvious, one of the best parts of the work-from-home revolution is being able to outfit your workspace as you see fit. And if you spend your days squinting at a tiny laptop screen, yelling into a tin-can microphone, and wondering if your spine is going to make it into the next decade, youre doing it wrong. So take some of that money youre saving on your commute, coffee, lunch out, and post-work happy hours and redirect it toward some items thatll let you work more efficiently and more comfortably. These must-haves are absolutely, positively worth the extra dough. Here they are in order of most to least important. The best network you can cobble together For most office-goers, the workday is a delicate balance between the three hours of actual work your job requires and the five hours you have to kill by making yourself look busy. At home, on the other hand, you can do other things with that downtime. So the idea is to create a much downtime as possible, and one way to do that is to do your job better and faster. If your video calls are constantly pixelated, your files take eons to upload, and your high-speed internet is anything but, youre stealing precious time from yourself. Don’t settle for basic internet if you’re relying on it for your livelihood. Upgrade to the fastest connection you can afford. It’s the silent, unsung hero of productivity. But fast internet speeds arent enough: you need also need to sling those bits and bytes around your home with speed and precision. Look into mesh networking equipment that leverages the Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 standards: Amazon Eero, TP-Link Deco, Google Nest, Netgear Orbi, and Netgear Nighthawk are all solid options in the $300$400 range. Monitors: go big and stay home A very, very close second to high-speed internet: get yourself some decent monitors. My favorite setup? An ultrawide monitor for files, web browsing, email, and the like, and a large-ish, high-res, standard-width monitor for project work. Look for something with good resolution (4K is nice, but QHD is often plenty), decent size (27 inches is a sweet spot), and good ergonomics (height adjustable, tilt, swivel). Ultrawides and 4K monitors can be had starting at around $200 each. Having more screen real estate means less tabbing, less window wrestling, and more actual work. Your eyes will thank you, too, as you won’t be hunched over a tiny laptop screen squinting at spreadsheets. A backside-worthy ergonomic office chair Funny thing about office life: the internet is often on the slow side, decent monitors are hard to come by, but those office chairsespecially if you work for a big companyare generally kind of awesome. Its the one thing thats hard to replicate at home without spending some coin. But your derriere spends more time in that chair than anywhere else, so pamper it. If you really want to throw down, think Herman Miller, Steelcase, or something equally overengineered (in a good way). You can also find some surprisingly good chairs in the $200 to $300 price range as well, though. A smart desk with height control This might feel like the ultimate luxury and its possible that itll eat up the bulk of your budget, but trust me: your future self will thank you. Standing desks aren’t just a fad; they’re a legitimate way to break up the monotony of sitting and theyll help keep your blood flowing. A smart standing desk, one that glides effortlessly between sitting and standing with a push of a button, is a glorious thing. FlexiSpot, Uplift Desk, and Fully are all solid contenders that allow you to seamlessly transition throughout your day. If youre not keen on spending on a motorized desk, keep an eye out for manually adjustable ones. Theyre quieter, cheaper, and only take a few seconds longer to adjust. A decent microphone Once youve gotten yourself all kitted out with the above items, its time to turn your attention to communication. While a great microphone isnt going to make or break your career, it sends the message that youre serious about work and, better yet, the good ones have features that can block out unwanted background noise like lawnmowers and barking dogs. Splurge on a dedicated USB microphone like Logitechs Blue Yeti Nano or the Rode NT-USB Mini run a very reasonable $100. Your colleagues will thank you, your clients will respect you, and you’ll finally sound like the articulate, highly competent professional you are, right? Right?!
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Child psychologists tell us that around the age of five or six, children begin to seriously contemplate the world around them. Its a glorious moment every parent recognizeswhen young minds start to grasp the magnificence and mystery of the universe beyond their nurseries and bedrooms. That wondermenttheir very own aha” moments, and the questions they provokeare what truly make us human. And this summer, thanks to both the scientific triumphs of astronomers and the creative feats of pop culture, we are reminded once again that curiosity is our most powerful gift. Remarkably, the profound questions asked by our youngest philosophers continue to echo throughout our lives, returning again and again as the most compelling of all inquiries. Definitely discoverable, possibly livable Earlier this summer, the James Webb Space Telescopelaunched in 2021 and continually gathering data on planets beyond our solar systemidentified a previously unknown exoplanet. What made this discovery particularly groundbreaking is that, unlike earlier exoplanets detected indirectly by observing the dimming of starlight, this one was directly imaged. Even more exciting: according to NASA, this new exoplanetnamed CE Antliae and roughly 100 times the size of Earthis, based on its average temperature, theoretically capable of sustaining habitable life. I find this moment thrilling for many reasons. First, I hold the deepest admiration for the brilliance of NASA scientistsand the researchers whose work they built uponthat made this discovery possible. Second, it serves as a powerful reminder of the essential role government plays in pushing the boundaries of knowledge. These physical frontiers also invite us to explore existential ones. The possibility of a habitable planet offers a momentary escape from the noise of the daily news cycle, and reopens a question that has captivated us since ancient times: Are we alone? Simply looking up at the night skya universal giftplaces us in the company of Democritus, Epicurus, and later, the Persians, who speculated about extraterrestrial life as far back as 400 BCE. Its one of humanitys oldest questions, fueled by an innate curiosity that rarely yields immediate answers. Science has its own schedule Of course, were far from confirming whether this exoplanet has its own version of Uber or inhabitants with built-in AI. Science operates on its own timeline. To have directly observed an exoplanet only five years after Webbs launch could be seen as astonishingly fastor perhaps not, given the advanced tools now at our disposal, from machine learning to quantum computing. In todays attention economy, dominated by thumb-scrolling and short-form content, we risk losing sight of the long view that science requires. The rise of generative AI and its future successor, AGI, may well disrupt the pace of discovery. But even then, the scientific process will still demand patience and rigor. We must remember: it took nearly a century to confirm Einsteins theory of gravitational waves. The theory of continental drift was proposed in 1912, but not proven until the 1960s. Black holes were hypothesized in the early 1900s, yet the first image didnt arrive until 2019. One of the many reasons I advocate so strongly for STEM education is that children need to understand science as a processa patient, layered accumulation of insight. Humanitys oldest questionare we alone in the universe?likely wont be answered quickly. And even if it is, critical thinking and the scientific method remain essential. Yes, flashes of insight can transform history. But even those leaps must launch from a foundation of conventional wisdom. Science is a continuous journey of discoveryboth awe-inspiring and, at times, unsettling. Pop culture meets the whats out there question Movies and literature have long reflected our obsession with the unknownfrom 2001: A Space Odyssey and Contact to Dune. This summer, Alien: Earth premieres. Reading about this reimagining of first contact, I couldnt help but think of CE Antliae and how science and art intersect. The discovery of a potentially habitable planet pushes us to reconsider what we define as science fiction. There are many paths through which humanity seeks to understand its place in the universe. And we need both our most gifted scientists and our most imaginative artists to help us askand keep askingthe cosmic questions that first stirred our six-year-old minds and have never let go.
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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. National active housing inventory for sale at the end of June this year was up 29% compared with June 2024. Thats just 12% below pre-pandemic levels in June 2019. However, while the national housing market has softened and inventory has surpassed 2019 pre-pandemic levels in some pockets of the Sun Belt, many housing markets remain far tighter than the national average. Generally speaking, housing markets where inventory (i.e., active listings) has returned to pre-pandemic levels have experienced softer/weaker home price growth (or outright declines) over the past 36 months. Conversely, housing markets where inventory remains far below pre-pandemic levels have, generally speaking, experienced more resilient home price growth over the past 36 months. Pulling from ResiClubs monthly inventory tracker, we identified the tightest major housing markets heading into the spring 2025 season, where active inventory is still the furthest below pre-pandemic 2019 levels. These markets are where home sellers have maintained more power compared with most sellers nationwide. Many of those tight markets are in the Northeast, in particular, in states like New Jersey and Connecticut. Unlike the Sun Belt, many markets in the Northeast and Midwest were less reliant on pandemic-era migration and have fewer new home construction projects in progress. With lower exposure to the negative demand shock caused by the slowdown in pandemic-era migrationand fewer homebuilders in these regions offering affordability adjustments once rates spikedactive inventory in many Northeast and Midwest housing markets has remained relatively tight, maintaining a sellers advantage heading into spring 2025. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}})}(); That all said, this cohort is slowly losing members. Back in May, 32 of the nations 200 largest metro-area housing markets still had at least 50% less-active inventory than in June 2019. In April, there were 37 markets. In March, there were 42 markets.
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