In a normal year, this is the time when home sales dip. In a normal year, this is when you can negotiate on getting the price a tad lower, and homes sit on the market longer because of the holidays. In a normal year, winter is typically a time when buyers have the advantage.

This is the winter, however, when all that flies out the window, according to Danielle Hale, Realtor's chief economist. "Normally winter is a good time for buyers," she says, but qualifies it by adding that because the coronavirus pandemic upended normal real estate patterns by keeping buyers at home last spring, it has created a pent-up demand for homes that are only now being felt and felt hard.

If you’re about to put your home on the market and it needs some updates to garner the price that has you smiling, there are two things you should not cheap out on: doing it all yourself and investing in a professional stager. Okay. We won’t go into the staging part here. But we will say that pinching pennies on a remodel/refresh and failing to bring in professionals to do things right is not a good path to take. As Lexi Klinkenberg says in her Redfin article on the topic, “DIY solutions are a great way to save time and money with very little risk, but at times, neglecting the abilities of a pro can cause costly problems.”

When people say nothing will ever be the same after 2020, they may be right. With the pandemic changing how we live in and enjoy our homes, it's entirely possible we will continue to make them serve us as never before.

Someone once asked me: With the way the economy has taken a toll on savings accounts, the traditional 20% down payment seems out of reach for many first-time home buyers like myself. Are more first-timers going the route of 5%-15% down payments? Or should I wait until I've got the 20% saved?

I can answer your question in two ways because you're asking two separate questions.