In most states, it's customary, or required by law, for the buyers to include a good faith deposit when they make an offer to purchase a home. The deposit should not be given directly to the seller, but held by a trustworthy third party that maintains a trust account specifically for home purchase deposits, such as an escrow or title company, real estate firm or real estate broker.

The deposit can be in the form of a check made out to the third-party company or it can be wired into the appropriate account. The size of the deposit you make is usually determined by market conditions and local custom, except for specific types of sales, such as probate sales or sales of homes in a housing development where a minimum deposit is required.

HOUSE HUNTING TIP: Your deposit will become part of your downpayment if the sale goes through. Depending on how your contract is written, your deposit should be refundable if you are unable to satisfy a contingency, after exercising due diligence to do so. Your contract should include contingencies for inspections, satisfactory condition of title to the property, your ability to line up financing and the lender's approval of an appraisal of the property.

For example, if your inspections reveal defects that can't be satisfactorily negotiated with the seller, your deposit should be returnable if your contract provides for this. However, the deposit won't be released by the holder to either the buyers or sellers without a release signed by both parties indicating how to disperse the funds.

Be sure to check with a knowledgeable real estate attorney to determine who is entitled to the deposit if you back out for a reason that's not provided for in the contract. Real estate agents who aren't also attorneys cannot advise you on this issue. If you end up in a dispute, the deposit holder won't release the money to either party until the dispute is resolved.

How large a good faith, or earnest money, deposit you make will depend on several factors. In any case, your deposit should indicate your intent to abide by the terms of the contract and close the sale. There is usually no set amount required by law.

In California, where home purchase contracts can include a liquidated damages clause, deposits are often 3 percent of the purchase price. This clause puts a limit on damages that could be awarded to the sellers if the buyers don't close the sale.

If buyers and sellers agree to include this clause in the contract, state law limits the amount that can be awarded to the seller to 3 percent of the purchase price. In many areas of California, deposits tend to be 3 percent of the offer price, even if the contract doesn't include a liquidated damages clause.

Like most elements of a purchase contract, the amount of the deposit is negotiable. So, if you offer a $10,000 deposit on a $500,000 house, the seller might counter your offer and ask for a deposit of $15,000, which is 3 percent of the purchase price.

The deposit can be made in two steps. You could offer $5,000 as an initial deposit, and increase that amount to a total of $15,000 upon removal of contingencies.

In a hot seller's market, you might want to offer the full amount up front, or make a larger deposit than you would if you weren't potentially competing, to show your sincerity to the seller.

THE CLOSING: If you're buying a short-sale listing that might take two or three months for lender approval, you might want to keep the deposit to a lower amount so that you don't tie up more money than necessary for a long time period.

Dian Hymer, a real estate broker with more than 30 years' experience, is a nationally syndicated real estate columnist and author of "House Hunting: The Take-Along Workbook for Home Buyers" and "Starting Out, The Complete Home Buyer's Guide."

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DEAR BENNY: My wife and I are in the process of getting a divorce. I am prepared to give her the family home so that our children will not be disrupted any more than they already are. I know that our mortgage lender will not relieve me of our joint obligation to make the monthly payments, but hopefully that will not be a financial problem for us. We have been advised that a lender can use the "due on sale" clause in the mortgage documents to block this transaction. Can this happen? --Tom

DEAR TOM: The short answer is no. Federal law permits certain real estate transfers even though the loan documents contain the "due on sale" clause.

Let's look at this concept. Mortgage lenders are in the business of making money, and obviously they do not like to allow people to assume a low interest rate when rates are much higher. While this scenario sounds unlikely in today's marketplace, many readers will recall the excessively high mortgage interest rates during the past decade.

Thus, many years ago, the mortgage industry came up with the concept of "due on sale." Most mortgage loan documents contain language to the effect that if property that is secured by a mortgage is sold or transferred without the lender's prior written consent, the lender has the right to call the entire mortgage due, and insist on payment in full. This is known as the "due on sale" clause.

There has been much litigation over this concept throughout the country, and the great majority of the court cases have upheld the lender's right to enforce the due-on-sale concept. In 1982, however, Congress enacted the Garn-St. Germain Act (12 UCA 1701j-3), which imposed certain restrictions on the enforcement of this clause.

This law contained nine specific exemptions where a lender was not permitted to exercise its option pursuant to a due-on-sale clause. When there is a real property loan secured by a lien on residential real property containing fewer than five dwelling units -- including a lien on the stock of a cooperative housing corporation or a residential manufactured home -- a lender cannot enforce the due-on-sale clause under the following circumstances:

• a transfer resulting from a decree of a dissolution of marriage, legal separation agreement, or from an incidental property settlement agreement, by which the spouse of the borrower becomes an owner of the property;
• a transfer where the spouse or children of the borrower become an owner of the property;
• a transfer to a relative resulting from the death of a borrower;
• a transfer by operation of law on the death of a joint tenant or tenant by the entirety;
• a transfer into an "inter vivos" trust in which the borrower is and remains a beneficiary and which does not relate to a transfer of rights of occupancy in the property (i.e., the so-called "living trust");
• the creation of a purchase-money security interest for household appliances (i.e., where you pledge your house in order to replace your heating and air conditioning system);
• the granting of a leasehold interest of three years or less not containing an option to purchase;
• a subordinate lien that does not involve a transfer of rights of occupancy in the property, and
• any other transfer or disposition described in regulations prescribed by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.

I highlighted your situation by listing it first on the list. Clearly, if you and your spouse enter into a formal, legal separation agreement, or actually have a court order granting a divorce -- which contains language reflecting the house transfer -- you are protected under the law and the lender cannot exercise the due-on-sale clause, which I suspect is contained in your mortgage documents,

However, here are some suggestions before you proceed to transfer the property to your wife:

First, before the divorce is finalized, arrange to transfer the house. Normally, when real property is sold or transferred, there is a transfer and recordation tax that has to be paid to the local jurisdiction.

For example, in the District of Columbia, where I practice law, if the property is appraised at more than $400,000, the local government will want to collect 2.9 percent of the appraised price. Normally, if you sell to a third party, each side will split these costs, paying 1.45 percent. (If the property is worth less than $400,000, the taxes are lowered to 1.1 percent each).

However, if you are married and transfer the property to your spouse, you do not have to pay either of these taxes. You pay only a nominal fee to record the deed -- usually less than $30.

So discuss this with your attorney and arrange to transfer the property before the divorce decree becomes final.

Second, what is your current mortgage interest rate? Rates are quite low today, so you might want to consider refinancing first, so as to take advantage of that lower rate. After that, you can have the property transferred to your wife. You will, of course, have to explain your pending divorce situation to the lender, but if you can qualify, there could be substantial monthly savings.

Finally, I strongly recommend that you advise your lender of your plans. Legally, it has no legal right to contest your decision, but it always makes sense to keep lenders informed before you take any steps to change the ownership.

DEAR BENNY: My family and I have lived in our current home for seven years. Do we qualify for the $6,500 tax credit for existing homeowners if we purchase a replacement principal residence? If so, please tell me where to find in the Internal Revenue Service regulations to file for it. --Don

DEAR DON: Last year, Congress expanded the tax credits available to homebuyers. The new law allows existing homeowners to buy a new house -- not to exceed $800,000 -- and so long as they owned and lived in their current home for at least five consecutive years out of eight years prior to the purchase date of the new home.

If you qualify, you can claim a tax credit equal to 10 percent of the home's purchase price, up to a maximum of $6,500. However, there are income limitations. If you are a single taxpayer, you cannot claim the credit if your income is over $125,000; the limit for joint taxpayers is $225,000.

One interesting fact of the new law is that you do not have to sell your existing home; if you can afford to keep it as a rental, this does not disqualify you from the tax credit. Also, the home does not have to cost more than that value of your present residence.

A tax credit is not the same as a tax deduction. The latter allows you only to reduce the amount of the tax owed by the percent of your tax bracket. A tax credit is a full dollar-for-dollar deduction of what you would otherwise owe the IRS.

For more information, go to federalhousingtaxcredit.com (sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders) or to the IRS Web site and locate Form 5405.

DEAR BENNY: Our home equity lender has instituted a new flood insurance requirement. They now require homeowners to carry coverage equal to either 80 percent of their hazard insurance coverage amount or the unpaid principal balance of all liens on the property, whichever is greater. If this amount is more than the maximum $250,000 of coverage available through the National Flood Insurance Program, the lender requires we carry the maximum $250,000.

My question: In our case, even the $250,000 coverage amount is much more than the unpaid liens on the property, which total about $155,000. Can the lender legally require a coverage amount greater than the total amount of unpaid liens? --Therese

DEAR THERESE: This is a common problem that homeowners face, not only with their home equity loan but with their primary (first) mortgage as well. I firmly believe that a lender can insist on insurance coverage only up to the amount of the moneys owed to them.

However, that's my opinion; not everyone agrees with me, especially mortgage lenders.

The answer to your question depends on the state law where your property is located. It is my understanding that many states have enacted legislation specifically prohibiting a lender from requiring insurance that exceeds the amount of the mortgage loan.

Talk with a local attorney about your situation. If there is no law, complain to your lender and send a copy of your complaint to your state attorney general. If enough people complain, the lenders may cave.

Benny L. Kass is a practicing attorney in Washington, D.C., and Maryland. No legal relationship is created by this column. Questions for this column can be submitted to benny@inman.com.

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Book Review
Title: "Sell Your Home Fast in a Buyer's Market: Secrets from an Expert Green Feng Shui Staging Designer"
Author: Norma Lehmeier Hartie
Publisher: Lingham Press, 2010; 232 pages; $17.95 amazon.com

In business, they say that when the market is bad or revenues slow down, entrepreneurs should fight the urge to cut costs when it comes to marketing -- in fact, upping the investment in marketing is one way businesses find they can counteract slow markets.

This counterintuitive truism also applies with real estate. While slow-market sellers generally want and need to pinch pennies, the investment of time, money and effort in strategic home staging often pays off in terms of getting your home sold -- period -- and certainly getting it off the market in a shorter time frame than its non-staged competition.

The aim of Norma Lehmeier Hartie's new book, "Sell Your Home Fast in a Buyer's Market: Secrets from an Expert Green Feng Shui Staging Designer," is to help home sellers use staging to best their homes' competition in a market where buyers have many more homes than normal from which to choose.

In distinguishing this book from the many others on staging, Hartie states that she "departs from traditional staging," which "seems fake." She explains that she will teach readers how to make buyers "want to step into the lifestyle that you have created," which intrigued (and confused) me a bit, as it echoed what Hartie deemed the "fake"-ness of traditional staging.

But Hartie elaborates that her approach to staging is designed to respond to the average buyer's basic senses of sight, sound and smell -- plus the sixth sense of "how it feels," which she addresses using the energetic precepts of feng shui, the ancient Chinese science of placement, aesthetics and energy, or qi ("chi").

Hartie acknowledges up front that price is the No. 1 factor that determines whether your home will sell, lest you think you could list your home at an unjustifiably high price and get it sold fast, just because the feng shui of the place is perfect.

She launches the book with two non-staging-specific chapters on preparing to sell your home, including finding and interviewing agents, creating an action plan, and photographing your home; and smart home pricing -- including a caution against the common trap of overpricing. These sections contain some useful sidebars and interesting insights from active real estate brokers and agents on the home features and pricing considerations in various regions around the country.

Then, as all good feng shui advisors do, Hartie moves into chapters on decluttering and cleaning -- helping readers first understand what clutter is (in the context of preparing a home for sale), why it's a problem, where it should go and how to go about getting it there.

When it comes to cleaning, Hartie's green tendencies begin to show, as she provides recipes for non-toxic, non-chemical cleaning solutions and a very detailed, step-by-step action plan for cleaning an entire home without chemicals. This might sound basic, but cleaning standards are so personal that it is very common for do-it-yourself sellers to inadvertently skip a step (or 10) or miss an element of housecleaning without a thorough checklist to guide them.

After teaching you "green" cleaning techniques, Hartie pleads her case for going green, incorporating thoughts from practicing real estate agents who have seen buyers' increased focus on green housing features like tankless water heaters and sustainable flooring materials.

She then explores the home improvements that have been shown to make a difference in getting homes sold, also offering a checklist against which sellers can evaluate their home's current toilets, front doors and the like to determine whether they might be worth replacing.

In a section entitled, "Present a Memorable First Impression," Hartie interviews a landscaping expert to generate tips on creating curb appeal and staging a home's outdoor areas. Then, she gives a primer on "negative energies" and how to get rid of them, through smudging, incense and sacred sound (e.g., cymbals, gongs, etc.).

Hartie closes the book with a massive section called "How to Make Your Home Look and Feel Great," which includes thoughts on using feng shui's rules and guidelines, creating positive energy and balance in a home, selecting eco-friendly finish materials and design products, furniture arrangement and various lists of "room-specific" staging tips.

In "Sell Your Home Fast in a Buyer's Market: Secrets from an Expert Green Feng Shui Staging Designer," sellers looking for a very complete idea of the energetic or green steps they can take to clean and otherwise prepare their homes for sale will find a useful tool.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of "The Savvy Woman's Homebuying Handbook" and "Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions." Ask her a real estate question online or visit her Web site, www.rethinkrealestate.com.

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Bank of America recently delivered the following message to its loan officers: "Policy Change: Effective with initial locks on or after Jan. 21, 2010, overages will not be allowed on either purchase or refinance transactions."

Some years ago, I had occasion to compare the marketing of home mortgages by lenders in the U.S. with the marketing of carpets in Middle Eastern bazaars. The comparison favored the carpet merchants, who didn't pretend their prices were fixed. Virtually all carpet buyers know that in the bazaar, bargaining is the rule.

While less-competent bargainers may pay a little more, they are paying for their incompetence, not their innocence of the rules. In contrast, a large proportion of mortgage borrowers did not understand that they were in a mortgage bazaar -- they paid for their innocence.

The price of innocence is called an "overage." It is the difference between the price a lender posts with its loan officers -- which is the price the lender expects to receive -- and the price the loan officer (LO) charges the borrower.

If the posted price is 5 percent and zero points, for example, and the LO charges the borrower 5 percent and 0.5 point, the 0.5 point is the overage. Typically, the LO will get half. Interested readers will find a full discussion of how overages work on my Web site.

We have not always had overages. In the 1920s, before there were secondary markets, consumers who wanted mortgages visited the offices of commercial banks, savings banks, or savings and loan associations, and dealt with salaried employees who had no discretion or incentive to adjust prices.

Overages arose following the development of secondary mortgage markets after World War II. Secondary markets made it possible to go into the loan origination business without becoming a regulated financial institution. Because you could sell loans as fast as you made them, all you needed was a little capital and a line of credit.

These firms are "mortgage companies," or (as they much prefer) "mortgage banks." I sometimes refer to them as "temporary lenders" as distinguished from "portfolio lenders" who hold the loans they originate in their portfolios.

Mortgage banking developed its own operating methods and a culture to match that were very different from those of depository institutions. They invested very little in physical facilities designed to attract walk-in traffic during business hours. Instead, they retained loan officers (LOs) to actively pursue clients, as opposed to sitting behind a desk waiting for clients to appear.

To develop purchase-loan business, LOs courted real estate sales agents, making themselves available to the agents wherever and whenever they were needed to take a loan application, which might be on the hood of an automobile on a Sunday morning. To develop refinance business, LOs might camp out in the office of a public agency that maintains records of deeds and liens, developing lists of borrowers who might profit from a refinance.

Because LOs did most of their work out of the office, subject to little supervision, they were compensated largely or entirely on a commission basis. While legally employees of the mortgage bank, LOs operated largely as if they were independent contractors. And the more loans they brought in, the more independent they were.

Overages were part of the package. Most LOs wanted to be free to charge what the traffic would bear, and profit from it. The lender who wouldn't tolerate overages would lose LOs, and the most successful LOs would be the first to leave.

The LO-based mortgage origination system made the depository office obsolete as a source of mortgage loans. Depository institutions that wanted to be major players in the home-loan market had to hire their own loan officers -- or acquire an entire mortgage banking firm as an affiliate.

The affiliate approach was the more popular because it avoided clash between very different cultures.

I recall my shock when I joined the board of a large savings and loan association some years ago and found that the CEO was the third most highly compensated employee of the association. The two who earned more were LOs who had not yet been moved into a separate affiliate.

The general attitude of most depository institutions has been that overages were a necessary evil that they would like to eliminate, if they could do it without losing their best loan producers. Bank of America has evidently decided that that time had come.

Not the least of the reasons is that under revisions to Truth in Lending recently proposed by the Federal Reserve, lenders will not be able to share overages with LOs. This will eliminate the financial incentive for LOs to charge overages.

My guess is that other major lenders will soon follow suit, if they haven't done so already. I won't find out about it until one of their LOs writes me, which is how I discovered the news about Bank of America. No lender is going to put out a press release announcing that they will no longer overcharge their customers.

The ending of the mortgage bazaar is not the beginning of the end for LOs. They will remain the dominant mortgage delivery system, and while borrowers will no longer be in a bazaar, they will be in a lottery in which those with winning tickets work with an excellent LO and those with losing tickets deal with clueless LOs. In a forthcoming article, I'll have some tips about improving your odds in this lottery.

The writer is professor of finance emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Comments and questions can be left at www.mtgprofessor.com.

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I'm not really sure exactly when investors got such a bad name. Once upon a time, every other person I met wanted to be one. Maybe it was the imprimatur of slick, infomercial-esque get-rich-quickness that kick-started the national anti-real-estate-investor antipathy. It probably didn't help when investors, only a small percentage of whom can accurately be called "flippers," ended up squarely on the wrong end of the foreclosure-crisis finger-pointing.

Probably wrongfully so, as the last numbers I could find -- from 2008 -- showed that only 20 percent of the foreclosures in America at the time were on non-owner-occupied homes, which is disproportionately low, considering that 33 percent of homes in America are owned by investors.

All last year, during the deepest depths of the foreclosure crisis, I saw buyer after buyer get outbid -- or underbid, but still bested -- by cash investors seeking to make the most of the decline in home values. While I felt deeply for the homebuyers who lost out, I also saw how investors played a big role in mopping up the excess inventory that was depressing values, and could appreciate their role in the market's recovery.

Then, in January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development lifted the FHA loan anti-flipping guideline, which had prevented buyers from using an FHA-insured loan to buy a home that had been bought within the previous 90 days.

Now, my buyer clients and I are seeing the maturation of the investor-buy-foreclosure phenomenon, as we see listing after listing that was purchased at foreclosure auction, rehabbed/remodeled/upgraded/primped to within an inch of its life, and put back on the market for resale, at an obvious -- and sometimes steep -- markup.

At this point, I've done this so many times I could script it:

Scene: Buyers enter the house: "Wow -- this is gorgeous. They did a ton of work. Oh my gosh -- look at those appliances. Is that Wolf/Viking/Kenmore Elite (depending on price range)? Gorgeous. All new bathrooms, too?! Distressed bamboo on the floors -- I love this. They made such great choices. We basically wouldn't have to do a thing to move in!"

Buyers leave the house -- "We'd love to make an offer. Will you run the comps for us and give us the background? Ta-ta! Talk to you soon! So excited!!"

I call the buyers -- "OK, well, I've sent you the comparables. This place is actually priced $10,000 below the nearest identical comparable that sold a month ago, and of course that one wasn't remodeled."

Buyers: "Fabulous -- it's totally worth that, at least. Do you think we'll need to offer more than asking to beat out the other buyers? We're OK with doing that -- we'd go up to $20,000 over asking. Oh -- quick question -- are the owners investors?"

Me: "Yes."

Buyers: "Can you find out what they paid for it?

Me: "Sure, I can research what they paid for it. Here it is -- they bought it on the county courthouse steps for X, before doing the work."

Buyers: "They paid what?!? But that's $100,000 less than the list price!! We want to offer $80,000 below asking. Write it up, please."

As much as we give sellers a hard time for overpricing their homes because they are confused about what truly determines the value of a home (hint: it's not how much you need to buy your move-up home), buyers are equally guilty, at times. The fact that a home was rehabilitated or is owned by an investor does not inherently lower the value of that home -- especially when the improvements made were quality improvements that truly added value to the property.

Apparently, no buyer wants to feel like someone is profiting off of them. However, the sudden plummeting in a buyer's sense of what a place is worth belies the reality of even the flippiest of flippers' investment in the home. It's not always just a matter of slapping the cheapest paint on the ugliest house.

Often, the investor paid out a large sum of cash or put down a lot of money to get a loan to buy the home in the first place, at a sizeable opportunity cost when you consider what else they could have been doing with the cash. Then, they paid closing costs (anywhere from 2 percent to 5 percent of the purchase price, or more), permit fees, city inspectors, carrying costs (mortgage interest and property taxes) and advanced big, huge lump sums of cash to do the very work that made the buyers ooh and ahh.

That is, the seller invested a large amount of cash that the buyer doesn't have and can't get, on today's mortgage market, to upgrade the home, so that the buyer won't have to. Oh, and the seller will pay all those fees again, plus the buyer agent's commission, when the home is resold.

And what's more -- a home is simply worth what it's worth! There's no room for sour grapes in real estate -- if someone else had the cash, the risk tolerance and the wherewithal to buy a foreclosed home at auction and rehabilitate it to a place where its value was much higher than what they paid, why begrudge them their profit and yourself a great house in move-in condition simply because you're mad?

If the work is shoddy or the value isn't truly there, that's one thing. But to throw a tantrum and lose out on a great home because you don't want someone else to profit? That's what I call cutting off your house just to spite your face.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of "The Savvy Woman's Homebuying Handbook" and "Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions." Ask her a real estate question online or visit her Web site, www.rethinkrealestate.com.

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Q: I have been a tenant in the same apartment for nearly 12 years. Last month was the first time I couldn't pay my rent on time because I was out of town longer than expected. I sent in my check as soon as I returned home, on the fifth, but my landlord now wants to charge me a $40 late fee.

I was surprised and I checked my lease. It says the rent is due in advance by the first of the month and there is no grace period. But there is also no mention of a late fee. I also noticed that the landlord didn't even cash my check for more than three weeks after she received it.

This doesn't seem fair and I am thinking that she can't arbitrarily demand a late fee without disclosing it to me in my lease. What is your opinion?

A: You sound like an ideal tenant and have a valid point. If there is no late charge stated in the lease, then the landlord would have trouble collecting one if she were to pursue the matter in small claims court or a limited jurisdiction court.

I am also surprised that any landlord in today's economy would immediately charge a late fee to a 12-year tenant who had an impeccable payment history. Most landlords would be thrilled to just have a tenant who pays on time.

Now I certainly understand that in this economy landlords need to be firm to avoid tenants taking advantage or making excuses. But with your track record you certainly don't seem to be likely to suddenly slip into a bad habit of paying chronically late each month.

A landlord who is more interested in collecting late charges than getting the rent on time is very misguided. The purpose of a late charge is to cover the additional costs that the landlord might incur in collecting the rent -- including time spent contacting you as well as the loss of the use of funds -- and it certainly serves as a deterrent for most tenants.

But, as you pointed out, your landlord didn't really incur any additional costs, as she didn't serve you any legal notices and apparently didn't suffer any hardship by not having your rent on or before the first of the month -- based on her failure to immediately deposit your check.

A more appropriate reaction would have been for your landlord to call you or send you a simple note or letter reminding you that the rent is due on or before the first. She could also modify the lease when it expires and include a late-fee clause if she is concerned about the potential of future late payments.

But since there is no late fee specified in your lease at this time I would suggest that you contact your landlord and politely bring this to her attention. Hopefully, she will realize just how very lucky she is to have such a great tenant who has paid on time for so many years.

Q: I am a renter and have been with the same landlord for several years. In that time I have planted many nice plants around my cottage, such as Australian tree ferns, daisies, special ground covers and exotic miniature palms. I have no plans to leave soon, but once I decide to move I would like to take these plants with me, as they will be very valuable. Is there any law that says I cannot remove what I put into the ground on property that is not mine?

A: Additions to the structure can be an issue, but I am not aware of any laws that specifically talk about plants. Clearly, the wholesale removal of these plants will leave the property bare and desolate and the landlord could be expected to be very upset if you did not have an agreement in advance about the required condition of the grounds for when you move out.

Generally, any landscaping improvements that you make will need to remain so if you would like to take the plants with you when you leave. It would be essential that you communicate this to your landlord and reach an agreement that is reasonable.

There is no requirement that you make the landscaping improvements, but there is also no protection that the landlord will not consider the removal of these plants as damage to the property. I am sure that there was some plant material there when you moved in, and it is reasonable for the landlord to expect that you will leave the property with at least that level of landscaping.

This column on issues confronting tenants and landlords is written by property manager Robert Griswold, author of "Property Management for Dummies" and "Property Management Kit for Dummies" and co-author of "Real Estate Investing for Dummies."

E-mail your questions to Rental Q&A at rgriswold.inman@retodayradio.com.

Questions should be brief and cannot be answered individually.

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A few months ago, one of my columns focused on the tie-in between unemployment in the financial sector and the high-end home market.

As it turned out, my theory that the formerly well-paid employees of giant financial firms had managed to stow away enough assets to withstand long-term unemployment, but after a year of no work would begin to wind down their savings -- with many losing their gorgeous homes -- has, unfortunately, panned out. And on a broader scale than I at first imagined.

I had been thinking too narrowly. It's not just former financial types who have lost well-paying jobs, but others throughout all industries all across the country have done so as well. These formerly well-paid executives are now facing the ultimate personal finance nightmare: a dead-end mortgage situation.

Truthfully, I would like to report otherwise, but recent statistics are bearing out this uncomfortable conclusion: Intransigent unemployment, with many states' jobless rates stuck in double digits, has meant an increasing number of families living in hill-crested, custom, historic, gated, scenic or mansion-like homes will meet the same fate of millions who have lost smaller homes in less manicured neighborhoods.

Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow.com, has been parsing foreclosure data and he has noticed an unusual surge in failed mortgages at the top of the market.

Foreclosures over specific price tiers had remained stable until about 2006, Humphries explains, with the bottom tiers of the housing market consistently making up at least 55 percent of all foreclosures, then 29 percent in the middle tiers and 16 percent at the high end. Then, between 2006 and 2009, a tsunami of change occurred, with foreclosures at the high end almost doubling to 30 percent of the market.

"Right now, each of the price tiers are (at) parity, with as many foreclosures coming from the low end of the market as the middle and high end," says Humphries.

What happened?

Before 2006, the reason for the lower end of the market experiencing upwards of 60 percent of the foreclosures had to with the traditional dynamics of failed mortgages -- quite simply, if problems occurred, lower-end homeowners had fewer financial resources to avoid losing the house. At the same time, as Humphries notes, "More affluent homeowners had more resources to navigate household crises that result in foreclosures."

The trouble is, after 12 months of unemployment, homeowners in high-end homes have worked through their considerable assets and now, too, have fewer financial resources to avoid losing a home.

Let's take a look at one market not generally considered a financial center: Dallas-Fort Worth.

In the tier of homes at $99,999 or less in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, there were 10,692 properties posted for foreclosure in 2008, but in 2009 that number declined by about 10 percent to 9,597, reports George Roddy, a principal in Roddy Information Services, an Addison, Texas, research company.

That was the completely opposite direction of homes in the high end of the market. In 2008, 597 homes in the $500,000 to $999,999 category were in foreclosure. By the following year the number pushed upward to 614 homes, about a 3 percent increase. In homes costing $1 million or more, in 2008 there were 132 homes in foreclosure and that increased to 161 homes in 2009, or a jump of 22 percent.

What's happening in Dallas-Fort Worth is the same phenomenon being experienced by other parts of the country. "At the high end of the housing market, homeowners generally have had greater resources to create staying power," Roddy explains, "whereas the rest of us down in the lower tiers are living month-to-month without a lot of reserves. It has taken longer for an individual in the higher-end homes to run out of money."

Unemployment is about 8 percent in Dallas-Fort Worth, compared with 10 percent in the country, but that's still a lot of people unemployed -- and a lot of jobs that have disappeared even at the executive level.

Also, at the top tier of the housing market, the psychological barrier against walking away from a home was much stronger than at the lower end of the market. This too, is giving way.

"If you live in a home where you borrowed $750,000 and now the market has created a degradation in home value across your neighborhood, then even you lose incentive to bust your butt to keep making those payments when your loan is in excess of the value of your house," says Roddy.

Roddy Information Services also surveys San Antonio and Austin, and Roddy says those cities mirror Dallas-Forth Worth in regard to foreclosure data. "These markets have stabilized," he says. "We expect the rate of foreclosures to continue through 2010 without any escalation, except in the higher-end homes."

Roddy seems to be suggesting that unemployment might pick up for those who in the past could afford homes of $500,000 in more in Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin. If that's true, he would be in the same camp as Humphries, who said, "Unemployment is picking up in that (higher-salaried) segment as well."

Still, Humphries doesn't expect the data to get much further out of whack in regard to house prices and foreclosures. With all price tiers at parity, he says, "I'm expecting that shift to flatten out."

If you're wondering how all this will affect housing prices, well, you can probably guess. With more of the higher-end stuff falling into foreclosure, expect traditional patterns to emerge -- that is, defaults and short sales -- to undermine existing pricing patterns. In short, this tier of the market should see not stabilization but further price erosion.

In high-end markets, says Humphries, "Prices are sticky on the way down (hence the lag time), whereas they are less sticky in less affluent areas because people can't ride it out. However, you are now seeing value declines in higher-priced communities; prices are falling."

Steve Bergsman is a freelance writer in Arizona and author of several books, including "After the Fall: Opportunities and Strategies for Real Estate Investing in the Coming Decade."

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The other morning I stopped at a local mom-and-pop coffee stand to grab some breakfast. I was about to settle for a toasted bagel when a charmingly hand-lettered sign near the register caught my eye.

"Homemade Breakfast Sandwich," it read. "A toasted English muffin with crispy bacon, fresh eggs and medium cheddar cheese."

Although I wouldn't dream of ordering such a thing from the typical fast-food joint, the handwritten sign and homey locale made it sound pretty enticing. Visions of bacon and eggs sizzling on the griddle wafted into my head.

Imagine my reaction when, perhaps 30 seconds after I'd ordered it, the proprietor handed me a scalding hot yet soggy something-or-other straight from the microwave. The "fresh eggs" were some sort of prefabricated, pale-yellow patty, the bacon a pre-fried strip of salt, and the "medium cheddar" a glossy orange square of Velveeta.

So much for a "homemade" sandwich.

Now, it happens that this shop's owners are recent immigrants from an Asian country famous for its fresh, healthy cuisine. Why, I wondered, would they even offer greasy, salty, precooked American pap that tastes like a simulation of actual food?

I think the answer is that we Americans, old and new alike, are slowly but surely resigning ourselves to accept fakery in everything we buy -- even those of us who, like the coffee shop folks, ought to know better.

The construction field is no exception. Wannabe building materials -- the architectural equivalent of junk food -- are rapidly becoming the default standard in remodeling and new construction alike. Consider the typical building project: On the outside are Styrofoam moldings meant to look like cement, or cement moldings meant to look like stone, or plastic moldings meant to look like wood.

On the roof you may variously find asphalt shingles masquerading as cedar, concrete ones masquerading as clay, or rubber ones pretending to be slate.

Exterior walls are liable to be dressed up in vinyl or pressed sawdust siding, usually embossed with an outrageous caricature of wood grain. Windows, more often than not made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic, will have fake grids thrown in to make them look more like the genuine wooden kind.

Inside you'll find pressed sawdust doors, also straining mightily to look like wood. Underfoot are "hardwood" floors that are actually plastic laminated over a photograph of the real article, or perhaps "linoleum" flooring that's made out of yet more PVC. The kitchen countertops might be "stone" conjured out of polymethyl methacrylate and aluminum trihydrate.

Now, many of these wannabe materials are ostensibly used to save money, and granted, they may sometimes be cheaper than the genuine article. Yet if you figure in the all-important cost of labor, there are plenty of fakes -- imitation stone countertops and artificial slate roofing are good examples -- whose price only just barely undercuts the real thing.

Not to mention that the lion's share of imitation materials, many of which are petroleum-based, are inherently less green than the things they seek to imitate. Which ought to make us think twice about what we choose to build with. Put another way: Do we hold out for real medium cheddar, or just settle for Velveeta?

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When it comes to shingles, there are choices galore. But one of the most attractive from a number of standpoints is the laminated composition shingle. Durable, reasonably priced and compatible with a wide range of architectural styles, laminated shingles have long ago destroyed the notion that composition shingles are suitable only for lower-end housing.

"Composition" refers to the fact that the shingle is made up from a composite of different materials. Most are made up of a flexible and durable fiberglass matt that's blended with asphalt. The fiberglass and asphalt layers are then topped with mineral granules, which give the shingle its durability, weather resistance and color. Virtually all composition shingles carry an Underwriter's Laboratories Class A fire rating, which is the highest available. This makes them a great choice for fire-prone areas as well.

The term "laminated" comes from the way that the shingles are layered. Originally, composition or the older plain asphalt shingles were a single, flat layer. Laminated shingles stack two or three layers together on the same shingle, sometimes uniformly, sometimes randomly. The result is a shingle with more shadow lines and more three-dimensional depth, which is considerably more attractive.

The extra lamination also makes the shingle heavier and denser. This keeps the shingle flatter on the roof, reducing its tendency to curl and making it less likely to be affected by high winds. Each shingle has a strip of adhesive on the back, which is softened by the heat of the sun after installation. This allows the upper shingle to bond to the one below it, sealing it down for additional resistance to wind lifting and ice damming.

The combination of heavier weight, fiberglass matting and thicker granule layers also adds to the shingle's life span and to the length of the warranties offered by the manufacturers. Laminated composition shingles typically offer 30- or 40-year warranties, and some are even higher.

Installation

Laminated composition shingles are installed over a base of plywood or OSB sheathing. A base layer of 15-pound felt is laid over the roof sheathing first. In ice-prone areas, an additional ice protection sheet is installed, extending from the eaves to a point past where the unheated eaves cross over the exterior walls of the house.

A starter course is laid first at the edge of the eaves. The first course of laminated shingles is then installed over the top of the starter course. Each subsequent course is staggered over the preceding course, in a pattern that's set by the manufacturer. This staggering -- called "stair-stepping" -- ensures that the butt joints in the shingles will not fall directly over the butt joints in the course below.

The shingles are fastened with standard roofing nails, or, more commonly, with wide-crown roofing staples shot from a pneumatic staple gun. Full installation instructions, including instructions for valleys, are included with each package.

Accessories and availability

For covering a roof's hips and ridges, most manufacturers offer matching ridge shingles. These shingles are the same style and color as the regular shingles, but are precut shorter for fast installation over ridge areas. Ridge shingles can also be cut onsite from regular shingles.

Special ridge vents that match the shingles are also available, or there are universal ridge vent materials that can be installed for ventilation and then covered with ridge shingles that match the roofing.

To complete the installation, some manufacturers offer accessory paint, which is formulated in colors to match the various shingle colors. The paint can be used for vents, flashings and other rooftop areas to help blend them in with the surrounding shingles.

Laminated composition shingles are manufactured by several different companies. You can see samples at roofing material suppliers, home centers, most lumberyards and some discount outlets. Many of the more popular colors and styles are kept in stock, and others are available through special order.

Remodeling and repair questions? E-mail Paul at paulbianchina@inman.com.

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Q: My wife and I have been house hunting with more or less urgency since this housing crisis began, around 2008. We really expected there to be lots of bargains and motivated sellers. We spent many hours house hunting in several different cities and neighborhoods. We made several offers on homes, and were always outbid. We were really surprised at how many of the homes sold for more than asking, and how few deals there were to be had.

My wife recently went back to work after staying home with our young children for awhile, and we decided to wait until her income can be considered toward our qualifications, so we can afford more. We've come to the conclusion that we just aren't going to find what we need in the price range we've been looking at. I feel like all this "buyer's market" stuff was misleading. Was there anything we should have done differently?

A: No.

On every factor that matters, you did what you were supposed to do. You were an informed buyer and paid attention to what was going on in the real estate market. You positioned yourself to act and then actually did activate your homebuying efforts when you learned about the (relatively) lower price opportunities and incentives like the tax credit that were generated by the housing crisis (for some)/opportunity (for others, yourself included).

Absolutely the only way to know whether what sounds like a market opportunity is, in fact, an opportunity for you is to do exactly what you did -- go out, look at houses and make offers. And the only way you ever could have truly found out to an appropriate level of satisfaction that the opportunity would turn out to be illusory, for you, was to get outbid and be unsuccessful.

Many times, agents try to show buyers less expensive homes so they can be competitive in multiple-offer situations, or show them list-price-to-sale-price data that documents that most homes in a given area are selling for more than the asking price. We brokers and agents often wish our clients would take our word (and the data) for it, to avoid the house-hunt heartbreak you are now experiencing.

But when it's you, and your (prospective) home and you believe you may be in a unique position and a unique spot in time to get a really great deal on a home, it's only to be expected that you would make every effort to stretch a "hot dog" budget to satisfy your cravings for a lobster-quality home.

And herein lies a key real estate conundrum of the tax credit and other efforts to stimulate homebuying -- governmental and otherwise. As a real estate broker, I'll claim some responsibility for this: All this stimulus kept trumpeting the "buyer's market" and the tax credit in an effort to churn up home sales.

While it did help stabilize the market, by whipping up some urgency (albeit mostly on the part of people who wanted to buy anyway), it may have unwittingly created unrealistic expectations about the size of the discounts that are possible. Given that real estate is hyperlocal, buyers in many areas never really stopped facing multiple offers, intense buyer competition and over-asking sale prices, even at the most intense spot of the buyer's market phase of this cycle.

Lest you get too upset about feeling misled, though, you must also take into account that home prices -- and whether they are a "good" value or "high" at any given time -- are totally relative to other markets. The mere fact that homes in your area are being sold over the asking price doesn't necessarily mean those homes aren't a good deal or that it's not a buyer's market. Those homes, even those that sell way over asking, might still reflect a real value if you compare their sale prices to what they sold for before this market dynamic emerged.

What I think we're dealing with here is a matter of shattered expectations. More accurately, inflated and then shattered expectations. Had you not expected bargain-basement pricing, you might have been mildly, but pleasantly, surprised with the relative discount the prices of the last couple of years have reflected almost everywhere, when compared with peak-market pricing.

Because you did expect massive discounts and that you'd be able to take your pick of homes on the market, you were disappointed. Consider yourself a reality-checked, seasoned homebuyer, now, without the fantasies and illusions you had before. Now -- well, when you two are ready -- you can really get started!

Speaking of your upcoming house-hunt restart, I would say you're doing the right thing. Rather than feeling hamstrung, obligated or pushed to buy any home, fast, in order to qualify for the soon-to-expire buyer's credit, taking a break while you and your wife equip yourself to afford the sort of home you truly want is a wise step.

From what you've said, I'm confident that your wise, informed and deliberate approach to homebuying, even in the face of some disappointing circumstances, will pay off, eventually. Best of luck.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of "The Savvy Woman's Homebuying Handbook" and "Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions." Ask her a real estate question online or visit her Web site, www.rethinkrealestate.com.

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Builders are doing an admirable job of incorporating universal design features in new homes, but baby boomers continue to be slow in accepting the need for them.

Perhaps you know the type ... people who do not want to accept the fact that they will eventually get old.

"I think universal design features can be likened to the first cell phones," said John Migliaccio, director of research at MetLife's Mature Market Institute. "At first, very few people used them. Now, they are ubiquitous. In fact, every kid has one. Consumers haven't really gotten the message on universal design, but we feel they will."

The slow acceptance is not unlike the responses to environmentally friendly homes. For example, only 12 percent of respondents to a Metlife survey said they would pay more for a "green" home.

The same folks are willing to pay an average one-time amount of $6,732 if it would save $1,000 annually in utility costs. While another 23 percent of respondents said they are concerned about the environment, it does not drive their decision to purchase.

The educational push by builders, architects and designers is to remove the "old" association from universal design, also known as UD. Universal design advocates that all built environments not only be accessible to people regardless of age, size or physical ability, but also that the features of these environments be compelling and appear seamless to the design of the home. These amenities and alternations can serve all ages, hence its name.

Builders are striving to create universal design applications that make it easier for someone to carry out daily activities such as preparing meals, climbing stairs and bathing, as well as changing the physical structure of a home to improve its overall safety and condition. These attractive amenities no longer sing out "An old person lives here!" -- and they can also enhance the resale value of the home.

The tools needed for homeowners to stay in their homes longer -- or "age in place" -- were brought to the forefront of the building community as a result of a cost survey of nursing homes, assisted-living communities, home care agencies, and adult day services in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., that included national figures and data from 87 individual markets across the country.

For nursing homes, private-pay rates for long-term (custodial) nursing care were obtained for both private and semi-private rooms throughout the U.S.

The Met Life study, produced by LifePlans Inc., was conducted by telephone between July and October 2009. Here are the key elements of the survey:

• National average rates for a private room in a nursing home increased by 3.3 percent from $212 daily (or $77,380 annually) in 2008 to $219 daily (or $79,935 annually) in 2009. National average rates for a semi-private room in a nursing home increased by 3.7 percent from $191 daily (or $69,715 annually) in 2008 to $198 daily (or $72,270 annually) in 2009.

• National average assisted-living base rates increased by 3.3 percent, from $3,031 monthly (or $36,372 annually) in 2008 to $3,131 monthly (or $37,572 annually) in 2009.

• The 2009 national average hourly rate for home health aides increased by 5 percent, from $20 in 2008 to $21 in 2009. The national average hourly rate for homemaker/companions increased by 5.6 percent from $18 in 2008 to $19 in 2009.

• Adult day services national average daily rates increased by 4.7 percent from $64 in 2008 to $67 in 2009.

At assisted-living communities, costs were obtained for room and board (at least two meals per day, housekeeping and personal care) in one-bedroom apartments or private rooms with private baths.

Home care rates were based on hourly rates for home health aides at licensed agencies and agency-provided homemaker/companion services. Adult day-service costs reflect daily rates at licensed facilities for the majority, though licensing requirements vary by state.

The bottom line is that there are not enough nursing homes to accommodate baby boomers' future needs ... even if they could afford the care. It's about cost and space. So, a good look at incorporating universal design applications may be just what the doctor ordered.

Helping at Home: Basic Home Modifications

Tom Kelly's book "Cashing In on a Second Home in Mexico: How to Buy, Rent and Profit from Property South of the Border" was written with Mitch Creekmore, senior vice president of Houston-based Stewart International. The book is available in retail stores, on Amazon.com and on tomkelly.com.

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Q: We have lived in our apartment, a ground-level unit in a new complex, for several years. Now my husband, who has multiple sclerosis, needs to use a wheelchair. Several of the doorways are too narrow to let the chair go through -- I have to help him up, support him, then fold and reopen the chair on the other side.

When we raised the issue with our landlord, he told us that modifying the doorways is possible, but that we'd have to pay for it. We don't have that kind of money. Do you have any suggestions? --Sarah and Tim S.

A: Your landlord is correct in noting that modifications to the living quarters of a person with a disability are usually the financial responsibility of the tenant. Widening doorways, lowering countertops and lowering light switches are among the modifications most often requested by tenants with disabilities.

In the majority of cases, the work required to implement changes like these is reasonable, and landlords must grant the request -- but they don't have to foot the bill.

Landlords can insist that the tenants obtain any necessary permits, do the work (or pay to have it done) in a workmanlike manner, and show that they have the resources to return the property to its original condition when they move out.

On that last point, landlords can't be unreasonable -- for example, it would be foolish to demand that a widened doorway be returned to its narrow configuration, or that a grab bar be removed, because these features won't diminish the value of the unit or cause problems for future occupants.

But before I admonish you to think creatively about how to finance this work, let's ask one key question: When was your complex built? More specifically, what is the precise date that tenants first occupied its apartments? If first occupancy began after March 13, 1991, it should have been constructed according to the federal accessibility guidelines. If it wasn't constructed properly, then any retrofitting of individual units is on the landlord's tab, not yours.

Your first order of business is to find out when your building was constructed and when it began accepting tenants. Go to your land use office (the one that issues building permits and performs inspections), and look for the final inspection date. If it was after March 31, 1991, you're in luck.

This building should have been constructed in accordance with accessibility guidelines. Perhaps the architect messed up, or the builder didn't follow the plans, or the owner intentionally disregarded the requirements -- as far as you're concerned, it doesn't matter who's responsible.

A major landlord recently learned this lesson the hard way. The A.G. Spanos Cos., after being sued by the National Fair Housing Alliance, agreed to retrofit 82 apartment buildings in 14 states, with wheelchair-friendly doorways, graded walkways and other improvements that will bring the buildings up to accessibility requirements. That's 12,300 apartments, and probably the largest settlement in the history of such lawsuits.

If your building should have had wider doorways in the first place, have another talk with your landlord and, if necessary, point him to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's information on the subject.

Its article, "Common Violations of the Fair Housing Act Design and Construction Requirements," restates the first-occupancy rule and spells out specific building practices that do not comply with the design and construction requirements. If that doesn't do the trick, go online to HUD and file a complaint.

Q: We make our living by buying, fixing up and renting single-family homes. One home is quite small; it has a modest master bedroom, a very small bedroom and a really small den. There's no garage and no yard. We feel it is suitable for four occupants, but were challenged recently when a family with two adults and three children asked to rent it. When we told them that we thought the house could not bear the wear and tear from this number of residents, they accused us of discriminating. Were we? --Don and Helen P.

A: You're up against the federal ban against familial discrimination. Landlords in most situations may not refuse to rent to families with children, and they may not indirectly exclude such families by setting overly restrictive occupancy limits (the law presumes that an occupancy policy that permits fewer than two people per bedroom is too restrictive).

For example, a landlord who insists on one person per bedroom will naturally end up turning away families whose children could easily and safely share a bedroom. Importantly, aggrieved prospects need not prove to a court that the landlord intended to exclude families; as long as the practice has the effect of discouraging or eliminating families, it's illegal.

The "two per bedroom" standard isn't absolute, however. As far back as 1989, HUD counseled that, in appropriate circumstances, owners and managers may develop and implement reasonable occupancy requirements based on factors such as the number and size of sleeping areas or bedrooms and the overall size of the dwelling unit.

If you intend to limit bedroom occupancy to fewer than two persons, you'll need to make your case under that standard, which boils down to a deceptively simple question: Is your policy reasonable?

We'd need to know more about your rental, and your plans for it, to answer this question. Do applicable building or zoning codes specify minimum square footage per person for sleeping quarters, and does your second small bedroom make the cut? What about three persons in the "master" bedroom? Perhaps those rooms simply cannot legitimately accommodate the prospects; and you might look into whether the "den" is big enough, too.

You might go further and argue that, for example, landlords in your neighborhood generally follow your practice (that is, dens remain dens and small bedrooms are not crammed with sleepers). But be forewarned of a strong argument against you, one that decries your reliance on genteel rental practices at the expense of housing families.

Your track record as a landlord will also be relevant should this matter come before a judge. If your other houses are filled with families, with two persons per bedroom (or, better, slightly more) appropriately living in them, it will be hard to cast you as a discriminating landlord (although your intentions, as noted above, aren't technically relevant, your past practices invariably become a factor).

Janet Portman is an attorney and managing editor at Nolo. She specializes in landlord/tenant law and is co-author of "Every Landlord's Legal Guide" and "Every Tenant's Legal Guide." She can be reached at janet@inman.com.

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Q: I worked with an attorney and applied for a loan modification. After about six months of making no payments, the bank gave me a three-month trial modification with a lower payment under the Making Home Affordable program.

I made all three payments on time, and have continued to make the reduced payment for the four months since the trial modification ended. I have called the bank dozens of times over the last four months, and they kept saying that the modification was still being reviewed.

I just got a letter in the mail saying that the modification was declined because my "income documentation was insufficient"! What do I do now?

A: You are experiencing what literally millions of other American homeowners are currently going through: the drawn-out suspense of waiting to get a loan modification, and the letdown when it doesn't happen as you were led to expect it would.

While the Making Home Affordable Plan was promising at the outset, unfortunately it has not yet manifested the projected results. Many borrowers are having their permanent modifications rejected after successfully completing their trial modifications.

Some think a conspiracy is afoot; the banks point to problems with borrower documentation. Either way, there are a number of steps you can take to resubmit your modification application and stack the decks in favor of its success.

Mindset Management

Outrage, overwhelm, the fear of losing your home, and the accompanying panic-based paralysis: all of these are normal and even appropriate emotional reactions to have in your situation.

So many modification applicants become frustrated at the process of being asked to submit and resubmit the same documents over and over again, which is a very common issue, or feel that the modification they seek is simply not in the cards for them.

I have personally witnessed the approval of modifications well over a year after documents have been submitted and resubmitted, and after wrangling with loss mitigation staffers and even flat-out denials. If you need your loan modified in order to keep your house (which you very well might, if you missed six monthly payments), gear up emotionally to resubmit your application and don't give up -- not yet.

Part of the problem here is that when the Making Home Affordable program was introduced, the expectation was created that loan modification would be transformed into a much kinder, simpler and easier-to-navigate process. That, unfortunately, has just not been the case.

Consider the last 10 months of your process as your education and initiation into what loan modification really entails. Then, decide not to be daunted and move forward. Expect glitches, snafus and repeated requests for the same documentation.

Keep a detailed communication log with notes of the individual you speak to every time you call (including their name and operator number, if they have one), the material discussed in each conversation, and what deliverables you owe them or they owe you, and by when. Staying organized, calm and all the way on top of all the details is the name of this game.

Need-to-Knows

The Home Affordable Modification Program was set up for easy access to get into the program. While banks ask for all your financial documentation up front, many review only the hardship letter and authorization to request tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service before putting borrowers in the trial modification program.

The modification application is not fully underwritten until a borrower successfully completes the trial modification and is in queue for the permanent modification.

This is good news for you, because if you go ahead and submit your application again now, it's likely you'll get another trial modification, which will press the pause button on any foreclosure proceedings you might be facing due to the missed payments.

The banks acknowledge that only between 2 percent and 20 percent of borrowers granted trial modifications are actually completing their trial successfully and successfully meeting all the other requirements to be offered a permanent modification.

The Obama administration is concerned about this, and has actually started to send Treasury Department staffers into the banks' loss mitigation departments to "police" the process and ensure borrowers are being given a fair shake. However, the banks actually point back at borrowers, stating that at least 50 percent of the time (or more), borrowers have provided "insufficient documentation" (sound familiar?) to qualify for a permanent modification.

The most common documentation problems cited by banks as preventing trial modifications from converting to permanent include:

• improper or incompletely filling out forms, especially omitting required signatures;
• including income from someone who is not a borrower on the mortgage, whose contribution to the household income cannot be verified by the lender;
• inadequately documenting hardships like death and divorce, or income like overtime or bonus pay;
• discrepancies between income shown on tax returns and income claimed on financial forms; and
• a change in income between the time the trial modification was approved and the time it ended.

Action Plan

1. Steel yourself, emotionally, to resubmit your loan modification application and prepare yourself with a whatever-it-takes attitude to get it done. There are no guarantees in the world of loan mods, but you can guarantee yourself that it won't be because you fell asleep at the wheel or didn't do everything within your power that your application is rejected again.

2. If possible, get someone from loss mitigation on the phone and see if you can get them to tell you specifically what was wrong with your income documentation. Were they missing something? Was there a discrepancy and, if so, what is it?

What would it take, in terms of documentation, to reconcile that? Was there simply not enough income? How much more would you need to make (or how much lower would your expenses need to be) to resolve that issue?

The answer could be critical to your success on the next go-round. And more than once, I've had these conversations with loss mitigation and been able to get them to reopen the rejected application and allow me to resubmit the documents you need. Ask, ask, ask.

3. Then follow up -- the answer might be that you need more income. If so, you may need to find a way to do that, or to cut expenses.

4. If you do have to resubmit your application anew, visit your lender's Web site and collect up every single document requested/required. Check and doublecheck the entire package for missing documents and signatures. It's very common for lenders to lose documents and request they be sent again. Never send a single document: Every single time you send them anything, send them everything.

5. Create a habit of calling a couple of days following sending documents in, and keep a communication log.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of "The Savvy Woman's Homebuying Handbook" and "Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions." Ask her a real estate question online or visit her Web site, www.rethinkrealestate.com.

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Scammers love to prey on consumers who are at their most vulnerable -- during difficult economic times -- and the timeshare business isn't immune from their damage, according to an industry leader who is warning would-be timeshare sellers to tread cautiously.

Indeed, attorneys general in Arkansas, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Oklahoma recently have issued warnings about dubious timeshare-resale companies -- particularly about reseller companies charging upfront fees that might run into the thousands of dollars, according to Howard Nusbaum, chief executive of the American Resort Development Association (ARDA), a trade group.

"This economy brings out the best and worst in people," said Nusbaum, who warns that timeshare owners who promise huge profits at resale aren't to be trusted.

Nusbaum estimates there are more than 5 million timeshare owners, representing properties at about 1,650 resorts in the United States.

Five things to keep in mind in order not to run afoul of resale hucksters, according to ARDA:

1. Many scammers operate by cold-calling or writing to timeshare owners who may not even have tried to sell their units, Nusbaum said.

"You might get a phone call from somebody saying, 'I have a buyer who wants to give you $20,000 for your timeshare,' " Nusbaum said. "And you say, 'Times are rough -- sure, I'll take it.'

"And then you give him your credit card (to pay upfront 'fees'), and guess what -- the buyer goes away," he said.

That request for a credit card is a red flag, Nusbaum said.

2. There are numerous unrisky ways to get the word out that you're interested in selling your timeshare, Nusbaum said.

He recommends first approaching the developer/operator of the resort where the timeshare is located, or its homeowners association. Those entities might have interested buyers, he said.

Plus, a homeowner can choose any number of print and online advertising vehicles, with costs ranging from free to hundreds of dollars. Just have a clear idea of what's included in their services and how long the advertising will run, Nusbaum said.

Some legitimate timeshare resellers' services include only advertising; they usually won't or can't help with sales contracts or negotiating with buyers.

3. There are legitimate resellers that employ licensed real estate agents, he said. In some states, they're permitted to charge upfront fees, or they may charge a commission that's a percentage of the sales price. Just as when selling a home, there also may be additional title and closing costs. The key is doing research to make sure they're legitimately licensed, Nusbaum said. 

He recommends checking on the licenses of individuals at the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials, which maintains a searchable database of licensees in 42 states at www.arello.com.

4. Scammers recently have been advertising falsely to would-be clients that they're affiliated with American Resort Development Association, Nusbaum said. The organization doesn't contract with, authorize or endorse any company's resale activities, he said.

In one recent scheme, a scammer told a timeshare owner he was acting as ARDA's agent to disburse refunds (collected by the Florida attorney general) for consumers who had been victims of fraudulent resale practices and that the consumer was entitled to the proceeds, but would have to pay a $2,000 fee to process this claim.

5. Before contracting for any help with a timeshare sale, shop around to compare costs and services. And verify identities. In addition to the aforementioned arello.com, some sources include:

• www.vacationbetter.org and www.arda.org/resales, both sites maintained by ARDA.
• The Better Business Bureau, which can provide company complaint histories and ratings.
• State attorneys general; state-by-state contact information can be found at the National Association of Attorneys General.

Mary Umberger is a freelance writer in Chicago.

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Q: I am removing the screws from our 10-or-more-year-old redwood deck. At about 1,200 square feet, it's a big job, and it's taking a lot of time to remove the screws, inspect the boards, then flip them over and screw them back down, replacing boards as needed. I am about halfway through with this project.

When finished, I plan to power wash the deck, then stain and seal. A neighbor told me I'm too late because the decking has turned gray and no stain or sealer will cover the gray. We don't really worry about the gray -- that is a natural color for wood to turn when sun and weather get to it.

Do you have any suggestions on what stain and/or sealer I should use to level out the color? Some of the boards are gray and on many you can see lighter areas where they were fastened to the joists every 2 feet. The power wash may help a little, but I know it can also damage the wood's softer grain.

A: Your plan is pretty much right on and your neighbor is dead wrong. Flipping the boards on a redwood deck the size of a small house will save you a ton of money and be worth the work you're putting into it. With a few simple steps and some caution with the power washer you'll have a deck uniform in color and ready for another 15 or so years of enjoyment.

You're halfway there on the first step. Flipping the boards is the lion's share of the work.

We suspect that the original decking contains most, if not all, heartwood. For that reason, use construction heart-grade boards for replacement. Also, as you replace the damaged boards, disburse them at different locations around the deck. If there is any color or finish variation when complete, they won't all be in the same place.

Ultraviolet radiation from the sun breaks down surface fibers of the wood, causing graying and surface erosion. Moisture encourages surface mildew and causes stains. Tannins in redwood also can discolor the surface.

After you flip the boards, your next step is a good cleaning with a pressure washer. Ten-plus years of exposure to dirt, dust and cobwebs need to be cleaned out. You're right -- caution is the watchword.

Be gentle with the wand. Wear safety glasses; hold the nozzle about 6 inches above the deck's surface and spray in line with the wood grain, overlapping your path. Make sure the spray is a fan shape and keep the wand moving. Leaving it too long in one place will dig at the soft wood fibers of redwood. You'll find that much of the gray color and perhaps some of the joist marks are removed with the washing.

Once you've done the initial pass, give the deck a few days to let it dry thoroughly.

The first line of attack on joist marks is a light sanding. A palm sander and 80-grit sandpaper will work best. But a sanding block and 80-grit sandpaper will do the trick and build some muscles, too. Make sure you sand with the grain and remember that a light sanding to remove the joist lines is all you're after.

Several products are available for dealing with any residual graying and stains. Commercially available powder or liquid concentrates have a base of non-chlorine bleach or oxalic acid. Bleach-based products eliminate mildew and acid-based materials handle graying and stains. Make sure you test any chemical in an inconspicuous place, as some products may darken the redwood.

Wear rubber gloves, eye protection and old clothes when working with these chemicals, and follow the directions precisely.

Leaching tannins or corroding hardware and nails cause non-mildew stains. For these problems, an acid-based deck restoration product is best. Pre-mixed oxalic acid deck cleaner and oxalic acid crystals can be purchased from a hardware store or home-improvement center. Make sure to follow manufacturers' instructions for use. Allow the deck to dry, and then rinse with clear water.

Before finishing, allow the deck to dry for a week or two. The best finishes are those that penetrate and soak into the wood. If you want to add color, a semi-transparent stain is the way to go.

There are three important characteristics to look for in a finish.

• The finish should be water repellent or waterproof, not just water resistant.
• It should offer UV (ultraviolet) protection.
• If mildew is a potential problem, the finish should contain a mildewcide, which a wood preservative does.

Regular preservatives should be reapplied once a year, but some newer and better products offer more UV protection and may last up to four years.

And, as always, buy quality materials and follow the manufacturer's directions.

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