Summer is the busiest time of year for professional movers, according to the American Moving and Storage Association. It’s an arduous process, but these tips will make your transition much smoother. If you’re planning to use a moving company, call now. As busy as they are, they usually need plenty of notice — often at least six weeks or much more if you’re moving a long distance.

Be sure to build in some overlap between the closing/possession date of your new home and the last day of the lease on your rental (or closing date of your current home). Moving always takes much longer than you think. If you want to make any changes to your new home — for instance, paint some walls, put in new carpeting or refinish wood floors — plan enough time to do it BEFORE you move in so your furniture and belongings are not in the way.

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As you find yourself heavily immersed in the house-hunting mode, you may encounter a situation in which you’re torn between two houses. Perhaps you and your spouse each have a favorite, or perhaps you both like two houses equally - or think you do. Making a final decision and determining which house to make an offer on shouldn’t be taken lightly. The decision should be made rationally and not guided by emotion. Of course, you may not have the luxury of taking your time on deciding which house you’d like to pursue. You may be in a market in which homes in your price range get snatched up as quickly as they go on the market, perhaps even attracting multiple offers.

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By law, IRAs cannot hold certain assets including life insurance and collectibles such as art, antiques, gems, coins, and most precious metals. Because there is no approved list of investments for IRAs, many view the rest of the investment universe as fair game. Stories of people using IRA money to purchase everything from thoroughbred horses to football season tickets have long circulated in financial-services industry circles, although more typical self-directed IRA fare might include interest in private equity partnerships or commodity pools.

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Many new real estate agents don’t start out with the business skills they need. “Put income on one side of the ledger and support on the other, and write down what you need on the support side and see what you need to give up to get it,” Kimmons says. And it’s important to visit several offices, recommends Pat Hoferkamp, president of Burgdorff Realtors ERA. “Every office has a different personality,” she says. “Make sure you’re comfortable with the manager.” Here are some of the questions new real estate agents should ask when they look for a place to work:

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Many a young grad makes the mistake of buying a house and digging into a community only to discover that first job fresh out of college doesn’t suit their ideals — and that a much better one awaits them in another town. Suddenly, that new house morphs from an American dream to an agonizing albatross — especially if the resale market is soft, as it is now, and you have to move in a hurry. Sales data consistently show that first-time buyers are more transient than the rest of the home-buying population and generally move within three years after buying.

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These days, elaborate patios, outdated or high-maintenance landscaping and invasive plants and trees can kill buyer interest in a home almost as quickly as an outdated kitchen or orange shag carpeting, according to landscaping experts and real-estate agents. “Landscaping often makes the difference between a prospective buyer getting out of the car for a closer look at the house and simply driving on by.

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Two new online mapping features offer literal spins on the way we get from one location to another and how we learn more about where we are going. The Web-based applications can give consumers a better look at where they are and they can serve as marketing tools for professionals looking to send their business in the right direction. During Silicon Valley’s Where 2.0 location aware technology conference in San Jose this week, virtual tours hit the street as Google rotated the bird’s eye view of satellite imagery 90 degrees and swooped in to get a down-to-earth look at the neighborhood, much as Google Earth has been looking at select locations around the globe for years now.

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