Melissa Tracey

Contributing Writer

Highlights

Specialties: Real estate, home design, smart-home technology, and home improvement (and how it relates to real estate values)
Education: Bachelor of Science from Grand Valley State University and Master of Arts in journalism from Syracuse University
Other work: REALTOR Magazine; HouseLogic; Styled, Staged & Sold; Real Estate Today radio; Chicago Tribune; PEOPLE; California Real Estate; The Monitor on Psychology magazine; and more

Proudest DIY

Melissa likes to think outside the box and uses her own home to test out ideas. She turned her unfinished basement into a sports field for her children to enjoy. To do so, she rolled out the turf, hung sports team flags (to disguise the unfinished cement walls), and used tape to mark up the turf as a field for soccer or Nerf gun battles. She was proud to have turned one of the ugliest parts of her home into what is now the fun space in the house.

About

Melissa Dittmann Tracey has been writing about the real estate and home improvement industry for 15 years. She covers the latest real estate news as a long-time contributor to the National Association of Realtors’ publications and other real estate media. She is obsessed with other people’s homes (but in a non-creepy way) and loves to talk about the latest home design trends each week on the syndicated radio show Real Estate Today.

Experience

Melissa is an award-winning real estate journalist who is known as the “Housing Muse.” You can hear her weekly with the segment “Hot or Not?” in home design on the syndicated radio show Real Estate Today, which airs on 250-plus networks nationwide. She is also the host of The Housing Muse Podcast, which covers the latest real estate and home design trends. Melissa has been a contributing editor to REALTOR Magazine, writing about everything from maximizing home values to breaking down the latest home sales data.

She is the creator of the National Association of Realtors’ Styled, Staged & Sold blog (ranked as the No. 1 home-staging blog in the country by FeedSpot for the last 5 years and counting). She also frequently speaks to real estate brokerages or REALTOR® associations about real estate topics such as home staging.

Education

Melissa holds a Master of Arts in magazines, newspapers, and online journalism from Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. She also earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.