Ask anyone who's ever sold a home, and they'll tell you how seriously they took the process of selecting a real estate agent to represent them. It's likely they also took a proactive role in ensuring that the agent worked hard to market their home. When it comes to home buyers however, the number of people who end up with a real estate agent by accident is amazing. The person who helps you find and buy your house is integral to the success of the process, which is why buyers ought to put the same effort into finding an agent as home sellers would.Who's who in real estate agentsTo find the righ... view article details

Start With Confidence  Dealing with Realtors  House, Job, and Income  Finding the HouseWhen Renting is Better  Making the OfferWhen Buying is Better  Closing TimeIncome and Mortgage Size         Making the Offer Good real estate agents are invaluable when it comes time to make an offer on a house. Invariably the agent will provide you with a preprinted form of a purchase contract, which together you rework to fit your needs. The contract begins by identifying the focal points, buyer, seller, property location, brokers, etc., then quickly moves to the crux of the matter: the purchase price offe... view article details

Higher education may be getting more expensive, but a college degree is necessary to compete for jobs in many industries. College should be healthy mix of passion and pragmatism, and it’s important to pursue the things you love while recognizing the fields that give you the best chance of finding a job upon graduation. According to research by CareerCast.com, here are the majors with the best career prospects. We also provided the median salaries of various jobs in each industry based on Salary.com data. 1) Accounting They say numbers don’t lie, but did you know they can also get you a job? T... view article details

You’re probably in a fantasy football league. If your league is really competitive, you’ve probably spent a lot of time researching the best players for your team by buying magazines, studying depth charts, analyzing position rankings, or soliciting advice from experts on Twitter.If all this is true, you’ve probably heard of Dave Richard.As the Senior Fantasy Writer for CBSSports.com, Dave has a job most sports fans and stat-obsessed fantasy football geeks envy---he gets paid to watch professional football and then discuss it. Dave is paid to pick out the best players in the NFL and estimate h... view article details

There was a great episode of Cheers long ago where the dim-witted Woody was duped into accepting the higher title of “Senior Bartender” over a pay raise. (For those under 30, Cheers was a sitcom in the 80s and Woody was played by Woody Harrelson … you know… that guy from True Detective and Hunger Games).Maybe it’s because I somehow saw my future-self helping others negotiate, but even at the young age of 19, that scene really struck with me. After all, who could possibly want something as insignificant as a higher title, when the bottom line of money is what they were clearly looking for?Well,... view article details

How to Counter A Job Offer To Get A Higher Pay In the world of salary negotiation, there’s an important word that comes up quite often: Leverage. By definition, it means using a situation or advantage to obtain a desired result, in our case, negotiating a higher salary. When you’re looking to gain leverage, it often comes as a result of having other options. Someone who already has a steady income in a job has more options than someone who has been out of work for 6 months with bills piling up If you have in-demand skills, such as a mobile software development, you’re going to have mor... view article details

Q:  My title is Senior Web Editor at a growing Internet company in New Jersey. With a nearly exact match in responsibilities as indicated for this position in your Salary Wizard, my total compensation falls short of the median by $25,000. I have presented this information to my bosses who assured me they cannot match the Salary Wizard figures and told me I can go elsewhere if I need more money. But my question is, where are these places that are paying $75,000 for my skills? Nobody who I have spoken to in the industry is being paid that well. Are these the companies that are now out of busines... view article details

When Buying is Better   It's the rare person who doesn't resent handing over large sums in rent every month. Even if the very idea of a 30-year mortgage makes you shiver, the fact is, over the long term, building equity in your own property is far smarter than financing someone else's. A fixed rate mortgage also locks in your monthly rate so you know that whatever your payment is, at least it will stay the same for thirty years. Even with an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) you know your monthly cost will hover within a plus or minus dollar range for the term of the mortgage. Rent, on the other ... view article details

Any real estate professional will give you a litany of reasons why it makes sense to buy a house. But as with everything else, it depends on who and where you are, in your life as well as your career. Despite the prevailing assumption that everybody, everywhere sooner or later should settle down and buy their own home, research shows there are actually times and circumstances when renting might be a better idea.Will you put in the time?In any investment, there's no such thing as a sure thing. What usually makes real estate a better risk than most is time. The longer you commit to a property, t... view article details

Switching fields may seem taboo, but it's quite doable, especially now when labor markets are tight. Almost half of the 164 employers who responded to our MONEY/Salary.com survey say they regularly target mid-career changers when recruiting. One reason: Switchers are dedicated to their move, with 32 percent saying they'll spend 'as long as it takes' to get the necessary certification and schooling.What are they looking for? Pay and advancement, sure, but also fulfillment and a sense that they can control their career paths.Steve Mullins, 44, already has a good job: He's a telecommunications en... view article details