By Holden Lewis, NerdWallet

A Hemingway character was asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” he replied: “Gradually, then suddenly.” That’s a fine description of how I sold a house in a buyer’s market this summer.

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How it happened gradually: I inherited the house in October 2021, fixed it up bit by bit, and finally listed it for sale in June 2025.

How it happened suddenly: The house sold in 18 days.

So how did I manage that? First, some context: The house is in a desirable location on the west side of Fort Worth. Mom bought it when I was a high school sophomore, and she lived alone for decades after I left for college.

Now I live in South Florida. For years, I considered selling my Florida house and moving into the Fort Worth house. I made upgrades and repairs, but ultimately my wife and I decided not to move to Cowtown. I reluctantly said adios to El Tacorriendo (my favorite food truck) and Billy Bob’s (the legendary honky tonk), and listed the house for sale.

I didn’t expect to sell it in less than three weeks. Metroplex homes usually linger longer — a typical July sale took 53 days. The analysts at Realtor.com call it a balanced market, but it feels like a buyer’s market to me.

And yes, luck was a big factor in selling so quickly. That said, let me tell you what I did right and what I would do differently.

I interviewed three agents

I wanted to hire a real estate agent who had represented sellers and buyers in the neighborhood — someone I’d feel comfortable with, who also had years of experience. I interviewed three, asking, among other things, what improvements I should make to the house. I wanted an agent who would answer forthrightly instead of telling me what I wanted to hear.

I hired the agent who had the strongest background. She specialized in my neighborhood and had the brisk demeanor of a C-suite corporate executive who wants to sell efficiently.

What I did right: I chose an experienced, perceptive agent. She knew to be blunt with me and tactful with my wife, which was a sign that she would adopt the proper tone when talking with buyers and their agents.

And she priced the house right.

I shelled out for some updates

My $350,000 asking price was low for the neighborhood. There’s a good reason: Mom had Alzheimer’s, so the house suffered from some deferred maintenance. It took a full five minutes to get hot water from the kitchen tap, and the walls reeked of cigarette smoke.

On the outside, the hail-damaged roof needed replacement, the 75-year-old casement windows were caulked shut, and the siding consisted of unsightly, brown-painted cedar shingles.

Ah, those shingles. I remember catching a ride home from high school one day. As my friend pulled up to my place, someone in the backseat shrieked, “Look at that ugly brown house!” When I sold the house 46 years later, it still wore the same brown shingles…and I still felt kinda mortified.

Renovations I did and didn’t do

But my time and money were limited. I could spend them making the exterior look great, or I could prioritize making the interior function well. So I fixed up the interior — because what’s the use of having a house that’s pretty on the outside, if you have to wait forever to get hot water at the kitchen sink?

Overall, I paid more than $60,000 to upgrade the electrical, plumbing, and HVAC systems, replace the roof, and repaint the interior (to eliminate the cigarette smell). By leaving the exterior mostly as-is, I let the buyer choose their own siding and windows.

What I did right: I focused on updating major systems and completed only must-do interior work. The buyer wanted to spend their money refining the aesthetics, not replacing the A/C.

I kept my cool

To reassure potential buyers, I made a spreadsheet of renovations, how much they cost, and when they were done. However, there was sometimes a gap between the date of a contractor’s initial estimate and the date work was completed — and the buyer used this information to strong-arm me.

“It is clear to see that these repairs dates are incongruent to your marketing materials and seller’s disclosure making them obsolete,” the buyer’s agent emailed after the inspection. “Furthermore, this would be considered Deceptive Marketing Practices.” They reduced their offer by $33,000. I felt furious one second, and panicked the next. Would this sale go through?

My impulse was to teach them a lesson and insist on the price we had agreed to. That afternoon, I floated in my Florida pool while angrily mimicking Michael Corleone saying, “My offer is this: Nothing.”

But then I reminded myself that this was my only offer. I had paid attention to stats from Realtor.com, the Case-Shiller price indexes, and my agent — I knew home prices in Fort Worth were falling while inventory was rising. I made a counteroffer for $326,000, the lowest price I would have accepted. The buyer took it.

What I did wrong: Being specific about dates and dollar amounts of renovations opened up another round of negotiation that I didn’t want. I would have been better off providing general information about the upgrades.

And I didn’t recognize the accusatory email and lower offer as a hardball negotiation tactic. That was the judgment of my attorney, which brings me to the last thing I did right.

I hired an attorney

Candidly, that agent’s email wigged me out. I forwarded it to the lawyer who had represented me three years earlier in Mom’s estate. He laughed off the email and calmed me down.

Lawyers close real estate transactions in some states, but Texas isn’t one of them. So even though I didn’t technically need an attorney, I hired him because the buyer’s agent had intimidated me.

What I did right: My attorney’s services were well worth the cost. He helped me through the negotiation, and he prevented a potential delay by spotting an error in the closing paperwork. Instead of listing Mom’s estate as the seller, the document listed Mom herself as the seller — as if she would materialize from her urn, like a genie from a bottle, to sign the papers. My attorney fixed that, and we closed at the scheduled time.

What I’ll do next time

Eventually, I want to get away from the hurricanes, rising seas and high home insurance costs of South Florida. When I sell this house and move to the mountains of western North Carolina, I’ll do a lot of things the same and a few things differently:

I will employ a real estate attorney from the outset, starting with reviewing the contract with the agent.

I will keep mum about specific costs and dates of work done on the house. Anything I say can and will be used against me.

I’ll choose, hire and pay a photographer, and have final say over the photos. (My agent chose the photographer, and I wish the pictures had been better.)

And I’ll rejoice that I’m not selling a house with brown shingle siding.

Holden Lewis writes for NerdWallet. Email: hlewis@nerdwallet.com.

The article I’m a Real Estate Writer Who Sold a House in a Buyer’s Market. Here’s What I Learned originally appeared on NerdWallet.

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV said in his first interview as history’s first American pope that he has no intention of getting involved in U.S. politics but will raise his voice on issues of concern to the Catholic Church, including on immigration.

Leo spoke on a range of topics — from the Trump administration to the clergy sexual abuse crisis, welcoming LGBTQ+ Catholics and Vatican-China relations — in the interview, published Thursday. It was conducted by Vatican correspondent Elise Ann Allen of the news site Crux for a biography of Leo that was published Thursday in Peru, where Leo was bishop for many years.

Pope Leo XIV delivers his message in St. Peter’s Square on the occasion of the weekly general audience at the Vatican, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Here are some highlights:

Welcoming the LGBTQ+ community

Leo embraced Pope Francis’ message for LGBTQ+ Catholics that “todos, todos, todos” are welcome in the Catholic Church but said that he found “it highly unlikely” the church’s core doctrine about sexuality would change anytime soon.

The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that homosexual activity is “intrinsically disordered.” It opposes same-sex marriage, saying marriage is a union between a man and woman.

Pope Leo XIV arrives in St. Peter’s Square on the occasion of the weekly general audience at the Vatican, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

“I think we have to change attitudes before we even think about changing what the church says about any given question,” he said.

Earlier this month, the Vatican hosted a Holy Year pilgrimage that included several LGBTQ+ Catholic groups. On Thursday, traditionalist Catholic groups announced a petition asking Leo to “confirm and reaffirm the perennial teaching of the church” on sexuality “in the face of the brazen offensive of those who demand the moral legitimization of homosexual relationships and unions.”

Ties with China

Leo said he didn’t foresee any short-term changes in the Vatican’s controversial 2018 agreement with Beijing over bishop nominations.

The Vatican under Pope Francis had inked the accord hoping it would help unite China’s estimated 12 million Catholics, long divided between those belonging to an official, state-sanctioned church and an underground church loyal to Rome.

“I in no way pretend to be wiser or more experienced than all those who have come before me,” Leo said, adding he was studying the issue and speaking with Chinese people “on both sides” about it.

The Vatican has defended the 2018 accord against criticism that Francis sold out the underground faithful, who endured decades of persecution by the Beijing authorities. The Vatican has said the deal was necessary to prevent an even worse schism in the Chinese church after China named bishops without the pope’s consent.

Sex abuse scandals

Leo said the sex abuse crisis is “a real crisis” that has not yet been solved, and that the church still hasn’t found a way to help victims heal. But he also said the rights of priests must be respected.

“Statistics show that well over 90% of people who come forward and make accusations, they are authentically victims. They are telling the truth. They are not making this up,” he said. “But there have also been proven cases of some kind of false accusation. There have been priests whose lives have been destroyed because of that.”

The pope also said the scandal “cannot become the center focus of the church.”

Leo was instrumental in helping victims of an abusive Peruvian group find justice but he has been accused by a U.S. victim advocacy group of not doing enough to help other Peruvian victims.

Trump and US politics

Leo said he recognized the influence of the United States on world affairs and mentioned migration as one of the issue important to the Catholic Church.

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He recalled a letter Francis sent to U.S. bishops earlier this year rebuking the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations of migrants. The letter took direct aim at Vice President JD Vance’s defense of the deportation program on theological grounds.

Leo praised Francis’ initiative and said U.S. bishops showed “courage” in confronting the administration, expressing hopes they would continue to take the lead on such issues.

“One of the last conversations I had with the vice president of the United States – I have not had direct conversations with or have not met the president – I talked about human dignity and how important that is for all people, wherever you’re born, and hopefully to find ways to respect human beings and the way we treat them in the policies and choices we make,” Leo said.

Leo made clear he is not a Trump supporter, adding that he and his brother Luis Prevost, a self-described “MAGA-type,” who has met the U.S. president are in “different places.”

“The United States is a power player on the world level, we have to recognize that, and sometimes decisions are made more based on economics than on human dignity and human support, but (we have to) continue to challenge and to raise some questions and to see the best way to do that,” Leo said.

Women’s voices

Leo vowed to continue appointing women to leadership positions in the church, but tamped down any hopes of ordaining women as deacons or as priests. He pointed to an ongoing study by the Vatican’s doctrine office on the issue.

“I at the moment don’t have an intention of changing the teaching of the church on the topic,” he said. “I am certainly willing to continue to listen to people.”

Vatican finances

Leo inherited a longstanding financial crunch at the Vatican, which has been running a $57 million to $68 million structural deficit, a $1.14 billion pension fund shortfall and declining donations.

The crisis hit hardest during the pandemic when the Holy See’s main source of revenue, the Vatican Museums, closed down.

But things are improving and “it is not the crisis that people have been led to believe,” Leo said.

“I’m not saying we can relax,” he said. “I don’t think the crisis is over, I think we have to continue to work on this, but I’m not losing sleep over it, and I think that it’s important that we communicate a different message.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Minnesota United head coach Eric Ramsay didn’t want to “lean into my frustration” after the 2-1 loss to Austin FC in a U.S. Open Cup semifinal on Wednesday.

Ramsay’s measured response came amid the most gut-wrenching defeat of his two-year tenure and amid a big officiating no-call midway through the first half that led to Austin taking a 1-0 lead just before the break at Allianz Field.

After a back-and-forth between them, Austin winger Osman Bukari kicked Loons’ wingback Anthony Markanich in the knee, but Bukari was only given a yellow card for the action by referee Alexis Da Silva. After not getting ejected for a red card, Bukari scored the go-ahead goal in first-half stoppage time.

“I’m not one to stand up here often and talk about refereeing, but I feel like the Bukari one, the rationale for him not being sent off is he has not kicked him hard enough,” Ramsay said from the post-game podium. “As far as I’m concerned, that action nine times out of 10 results in a (red card and a) sending off. I think it was as clear as could possibly be. I feel like that is one that we will rue and question. I’m sure we will lose some sleep over that one (Wednesday) night.”

Video: Austin winger Osman Bukari was issued a yellow card, avoiding a red from referee Alexis Da Silva, for this kick-out contact on #MNUFC defender Anthony Markanich in 25th minute.

Context: Bukari scored just before halftime to give Austin 1-0 lead in US Open Cup semifinal. pic.twitter.com/zJaHKUO5is

— Andy Greder (@andygreder) September 18, 2025

But Ramsay looked at his own team’s defensive lapses for costing them a chance to win their first trophy in hosting the national tournament’s final against Nashville SC in St. Paul on Oct. 1.

Austin’s CJ Fodrey scored in the 120th and final minute of the match for a 2-1 result. If not for Loons defenders allowing that late winner, Minnesota and Austin were only 10 seconds from going to penalty kicks.

“Ultimately we are in the game,” Ramsay said. “Penalties are there. It’s our own undoing and not one I’m going to pin on the refereeing.”

Yeboah hurt

Top MNUFC striker Kelvin Yeboah appeared to suffer a hamstring injury and exited during the first half Wednesday, forcing Ramsay to tinker with the lineup as backup Momo Dieng was ineligible to play after being “cup-tied” in a previous Open Cup appearance for Hartford Athletic. Ramsay said they won’t know severity of the injury until imaging is done Thursday. He noted it initially wasn’t too severe because the forward was able to try to stay in the match.

By MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writer

The number of Americans applying for jobless aid last week retreated significantly after surging to a nearly four-year high a week earlier.

U.S. filings for unemployment benefits for the week ending Sept. 13 fell by 33,000 to 231,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s less than the 241,000 analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet had forecast.

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The previous week, applications surged to 264,000, their highest level since the week of Oct. 23, 2021. Last week’s figure was revised up by 1,000.

Concerns about the health of the American labor market led the Federal Reserve to cut its key interest rate by a quarter-point on Wednesday as many expected.

The rate cut is a sign that the central bank’s focus has shifted quickly from inflation to jobs as hiring has grounded nearly to a halt in recent months. Lower interest rates could reduce borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans, and business loans, and boost growth and hiring. The problem is that it can also exacerbate inflation, which remains above the Fed’s 2% target.

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a massive preliminary revision of U.S. job gains for the 12 months ending in March, further evidence that the labor market has not been as strong as previously thought.

The BLS’s revised figures showed that U.S. employers added 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year ending in March 2025, The report showed that job gains were tapering long before President Donald Trump rolled out his far-reaching tariffs on U.S. trading partners in April.

The department issues the revisions every year, intending to better account for new businesses and ones that had gone out of business. Final revisions will come out in February 2026.

The updated figures came after the agency reported earlier this month that the economy generated just 22,000 jobs in August, well below the 80,000 economists were expecting.

Earlier this month, the government reported that U.S. employers advertised 7.2 million job openings at the end of July, the first time since April of 2021 that there were more unemployed Americans than job postings.

The July employment report, which showed job gains of just 73,000 and included huge downward revisions for June and May, sent financial markets spiraling and prompted Trump to fire the head of the agency that compiles the monthly data.

The various labor market reports have bolstered fears that Trump’s erratic economic policies, including the unpredictable taxes on imports, have created so much uncertainty that businesses are reluctant to hire.

Broader U.S. economic growth has weakened so far this year as many companies have pulled back on expansion projects amid the uncertainty surrounding the impacts of the tariffs. Growth slowed to about a 1.3% annual rate in the first half of the year, down from 2.5% in 2024.

Thursday’s unemployment benefits report showed that the four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 750 to 240,000.

The total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits for the previous week of Sept. 6 fell by 7,000 to 1.92 million.

Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered representative of layoffs and have mostly settled in a historically low range between 200,000 and 250,000 since the U.S. began to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic nearly four years ago.