Marisa Kashino spent years covering local real estate as an editor at Washingtonian and the Washington Post. Now she’s using that knowledge for her debut novel, Best Offer Wins, a satirical thriller about a DC publicist driven to extremes by the horrors of house hunting. It’s already been optioned by Hulu for a TV series. We asked her to tell us how real life inspired the book.

A Nutso Market

In 2021, Kashino bought a house in Cabin John amid a frenzied real-estate boom. Her own search was relatively painless, but the general atmosphere at the time got her thinking. “It struck me as surprising that nobody ever set a thriller within the context of a really competitive house hunt,” she says. During that overheated time, Kashino heard tales of listings that got 60 offers, sold for hundreds

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