It’s the time of year for weddings in faraway churches and family reunions in relaxing places. Perhaps friends (or friends of friends) have approached you about renting your home or vacation cabin when you are not using it this year. And, they are willing to pay — an amount in line with the best rental properties in the area.

Do you have to declare the income to the Internal Revenue Service on your annual income tax return? How much is too much before crossing into different tax threshold?

While many families don’t charge a fee for letting friends use their home or getaway retreat for a special gathering (hoping they’ll return the favor when your child gets married) you can pocket any fair-market rent as long as the term is 15 days or fewer and you don’t claim any of the tax deductions typically allowed on rental property, such as for depreciation or maintenance.

This option can come in handy for folks who do not want to be in the rental game, yet occasionally find they could rent their place. It happens all the time for annual golf tournaments, arts fairs, theatre festivals, auto races and jazz carnivals.

The rules change, however, if the getaway house becomes a designated rental or investment property. Under current federal tax laws, the owner can still use a rental vacation home for 14 days or 10 percent of the amount of time the house is rented, whichever is greater, without jeopardizing its status as a rental property and tax shelter.

The owner who designates his cabin as an investment property and rents “full time” is getting three benefits: First, the renters are buying the house for him. Second, he can cash in on any appreciation that might result from rapidly increasing property values. And third, he can depreciate the building — not the property it stands on — which can provide substantial tax benefits.

Depreciating an asset means you are taking a deduction for the value lost as an asset ages. According to the accounting firm of Ernst & Young LLP, the period of time over which you depreciate your property has long been the subject of controversy. Often, it depends upon when the property was put “in service.”

Investors in vacation homes must use the tax benefits from depreciation to cover their costs. What is left for them then is profit made from the appreciation in the value of the property.

The 14-day maximum-personal-use rule means a house at the ocean with a 90-day rental season can be owner-occupied for 14 days, instead of the nine days that would be allowed under the 10 percent rule. With longer rental seasons, however, the 10 percent rule can be a bonus.

For example, a mountain resort home near winter ski slopes and summer lakes might be rented for 250 days a year, allowing the owner to use it for 25 days. Personal use does come at a cost. Depreciation is limited only to the percentage of time that a house is rented. If you rented for 90 days and use it yourself for 10, you can take only 90 percent of the total expenses and depreciation.

But another way to catch a few hours at the beach without eating into or exceeding the 14-day or 10 percent limit is to clean the house yourself between renters. Days spent maintaining the house do not count toward the personal-use limit. And you can deduct travel costs to get to the house and expenses such as paint and cleaning supplies.

However, if the IRS determines that you were at the house more to sit in the sun than to clean the bathrooms and paint the porch, those days may be added to your personal use and could jeopardize your tax savings.

The house also must be rented at fair market value. If you rent to relatives at discount rates, the IRS may rule that the house is not actual rental property and disallow many of your deductions.

As home prices stagnate, real estate practitioners are more likely to face the question of when, how, and how much to disclose about a financially distressed property.

Such properties present two disclosure challenges—finding a reliable source of correct information about the physical condition of the property and deciding how and when to make a situational disclosure about the owner’s financial distress.

Disclosing Property Issues Is Critical

In a short sale, the net proceeds from the sale are insufficient to cover the mortgage debt and all other costs of selling. Home owners may already be in default on a mortgage or may recognize that they will not be able to continue to make payments much longer. Sellers in such circumstances may feel desperate and be particularly reluctant to disclose property defects.

A seller who is unable to pay a mortgage has often failed to maintain the property. In these situations, it’s critical to explain to the seller that withholding information will not improve the situation.

In addition, distressed sellers should understand that they will still be vulnerable to a buyer’s lawsuit if known defects aren’t disclosed.

Timing Is Tricky in Short Sale Disclosure

An agent for a distressed seller also faces the decision of when to disclose the owner’s situation and how much to disclose. In general, a salesperson representing the seller should advise prospective buyers about the property’s financial status before they sign a purchase contract because the need for the lender’s approval of such sales can affect the terms of the sale and the timing of the closing.

NAR’s MLS policy was amended earlier this year to require multiple listing services to give their participants the ability to disclose any possibility of a short sale to other MLS participants. Participants may also, but are not required to, communicate to other participants how any lender-mandated reduction in the gross commission stated in the listing contract will be apportioned between the listing and cooperating brokers.

The policy also gives MLSs discretionary authority to require participants to disclose potential short sales when participants have reason to believe that the transaction may result in a short sale. The policy provides that short sale information should be included in the confidential remarks field of a listing as soon as the listing broker knows about the possibility of a short sale.

In particular, practitioners must be careful not to compromise the seller’s chance of getting the best price possible for a home by disclosing the sellers’ distressed condition too early.

After a Foreclosure

Once a property has been foreclosed and is owned by the lender, there’s no longer an issue about disclosing the property’s distressed status. Foreclosures, after all, are matters of public record. However, getting reliable information about a foreclosed property’s physical condition becomes even more challenging.

When a property’s owner is no longer in possession, it’s extremely difficult for a sales associate to get the facts about property condition, in part because the lender may have little, if any, information about the property’s condition.

Lenders are usually required to disclose what they know about REO properties but are generally exempt from requirements to complete property condition disclosure forms required for sellers in many states. However, agents must still make all disclosures of known defects required by their state’s law. Associates should encourage buyers to have a thorough inspection of any property prior to purchase.
Providing such advice may help protect you from liability if the property is later found to have a defect. For example, in Reed v. Bank of America, 1995, a buyer whose lender had repeatedly advised him to get a home inspection, even though the practitioners involved did not notice any defects, lost in his suit against the bank because he chose to self-inspect instead of hiring a professional.

More Tips for Disclosures

•   Ask for copies of all relevant permits, repair receipts, and inspection reports from a home owner who is still in residence at a distressed property.

•   Take photos of any property defects you see, send copies to the lender, and get a written receipt.

•   Inquire about past-due condominium assessments or homeowners association dues that might create a lien.

A homeowner in Santa Fe, NM, recently decided to put his older home on the market. At the recommendation of his real estate agents, he ordered presale inspection reports on the property. The home inspector noticed sloping in the floors and out-of-plumb door frames — signs of settlement, which is not unusual for the area.

The seller informed the home inspector that an engineer had inspected the property when he initially purchased it. The seller, who was then a buyer, had been present at the time of the inspection, which is always a good idea.

The engineer found nothing unusual with the foundation, given its age. The settlement appeared to have occurred long ago and was not indicative of an ongoing problem. Based on this information, the buyer went ahead with the purchase.

Years later when this buyer, now a seller, searched for the engineer’s report to include with his disclosures on the property, he couldn’t find it. He then recalled that because he had been present at the inspection and was pleased with the results, he did not pay the extra fee to have the report put in writing.

This is a common occurrence in the home-buying business. Buyers are encouraged to have a property they are interested in thoroughly inspected before they go ahead with the purchase. The cost of having various inspections done can mount up.

Many buyers stretch financially when they buy, so the temptation is great to skimp on inspection costs. However, if defects are discovered during inspections, you would need written confirmation if you hope to negotiate a concession from the seller.

There are pros and cons to foregoing written inspection reports. One is that it usually costs less. Also, buyers who make an offer in a place like Santa Fe, NM, where multiple offers are still fairly common, are forced to pre-inspect the property so that they can make an offer without including an inspection contingency.

In this case, the buyers might pay for a verbal inspection to keep costs down until they find out if their offer is accepted. If it is, it’s a good idea to pay the extra amount for a written inspection report.

HOUSE HUNTING TIP: A benefit of having written reports on a property you’re buying is that it documents the condition of the property at a point in time. Then when you sell five or 10 years later, you can make this information available to the buyers. This can clear up uncertainty about whether or not an issue is new or was there many years ago and has remain unchanged.

The presale home inspector in the above example recommended in his written report that an engineer look at the foundation. The seller ended up hiring an engineer to do a presale inspection because he had no written record of the report done at the time he purchased.

As a seller, it’s usually in your best interest to order further inspections that are recommended, particularly ones that will be a concern to buyers. This way, you’re in control of who does the inspecting. A buyer can always get a second opinion, but at least you have a report to back up your position if the buyers try to negotiate the price based on inspections.

THE CLOSING: There are times when it makes sense to get verbal opinions. However, if you’re a seller and you’re going to make presale inspection reports available to buyers, they should be written. This way, the opinions on the property’s condition are coming directly from the inspectors and are not just hearsay from you. Note that seller disclosure laws vary from state to state.

The $300 billion housing bill signed into law on July 30 by President Bush helps stretched homeowners renegotiate their mortgages and provides tax credits to first-time buyers.

But it also addresses three major criticisms of reverse mortgage loans, which are increasingly popular among homeowners 62 and older who use the money for living expenses, health care, prescription drugs or to pay off an existing mortgage.

With a reverse mortgage, you can tap your home equity without having to make monthly payments. Instead the bank pays you. The loan comes due only when you die, sell or move away permanently. The amount you get depends on the home’s value, location, interest rates and the age of the youngest borrower if there are co-owners.

The new bill raises the amount you can get from the mortgage and lowers the cost of getting it.

Most reverse mortgages today are Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs), which are insured by the Federal Housing Administration. Up to now, HECM has capped a home’s appraisal, which affects the loan amount. The loan limit depends on the county where the home is located and ranges from $200,160 to $362,790.

While the new limit has not been finalized, the bill will increase the amount significantly. “The higher limit will give homeowners access to more cash from their home equity,” says Peter H. Bell, President of the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association.

A second criticism has been that the transaction fees for reverse mortgages are too high. An AARP Public Policy Institute study in December 2007 found that high costs were one of the main reasons why eligible homeowners decided against a home mortgage.

The new bill will make HECMs less expensive for many borrowers. Origination fees had been a flat 2 percent of the home’s value, but the new bill reduces that to 2 percent of the first $200,000 of the home’s value, and then 1 percent after that. Also, the fee is capped at $6,000.

And finally, the new bill puts an end to one of the main problems related to reverse mortgages: lenders cross-selling other financial products. The new law forbids requiring the purchase of an annuity, insurance product or investment product as a condition of the loan.

“These prohibitions will protect borrowers from aggressive marketers who try to get them to invest proceeds they receive from their reverse mortgages unwisely,” said David Certner, AARP legislative policy director. “For example, pushy marketing tactics used by some originators encourage borrowers to purchase deferred annuities or long-term care insurance products that are costly and generally not in the borrower’s best interest.”

But despite these changes, says Bell, “the most important safeguards remain talking candidly with your reverse mortgage counselor and dealing only with individuals and companies you know and trust, or have thoroughly checked out.”

Credit repair scam artists will charge you anywhere from $500 to $1,500 or more upfront, and promise you everything from a new Social Security card to perfect credit.

But these companies can’t do anything for you that you can’t do for yourself — for free — and they might ultimately do more harm than good.

What should you do if you have bad credit? Here are 10 tips that are designed to improve your credit history and raise your credit score:

1. Pull a copy of your credit history from AnnualCreditReport.com. Sponsored by the three credit-reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, AnnualCreditReport.com is the only place you can go to get a truly free copy of your credit history. Each credit-reporting bureau is required to give you one copy once a year. You should pull copies from each of the bureaus, since they sometimes collect different data.

2. While you’re there, buy a copy of your credit score from Equifax.com. Equifax offers a FICO score, also known as a Beacon score, which is from Fair Isaac, the company that created the concept of credit scoring. Most creditors will pull a FICO score, so you should see what they’re seeing. Your credit score will give you a snapshot of what your credit information means to your creditors. The FICO score runs from 350 to 850. The higher the number, the better. Your target should be to have a credit score of at least 720.

3. Check your credit history thoroughly. You’re looking for errors, misinformation and negative information that might count against you. File a dispute with the three credit-reporting bureaus if you spot any errors. Some credit reports have serious errors in them, so fixing these will boost your score.

4. Understand what kind of debt you’re facing. Make a list of everything you owe, the interest rate each debt carries, and the minimum payment due each month. Then, prioritize your debt: mortgage, real estate taxes, credit cards and medical bills should be paid in that order.

5. Negotiate with your creditors for a lower interest rate. Paying less in interest means more of your payment each month goes toward paying down your balance. If you have a good credit score (over 720 is a starting point), you should be able to find other credit cards featuring zero percent to 5 percent in interest for the first year, or for the life of a balance transfer (check out sites like CardRatings.com and CardTrak.com to compare credit-card offers.) Just be sure you read the fine print: Some credit cards require you to charge on the new account each month or face a stiff fee.

6. Pay down the debt with the highest interest rate first. Pay your mortgage and home equity loan and lines of credit in full each month. Then, make sure you have enough cash to make all of the minimum payments due on your debt each month. Then, throw any spare cash at the debt that carries the highest interest rate first. Once you’ve paid down that debt, transfer all of the extra cash you’re paying each month to the debt with the next-highest interest rate, and so on.

7. Pay everything on time, even if you can make only the minimum payment. The most crucial component of your credit history and credit score is your ability to pay your bills on time each month. Paying on time shows your creditors that you take your debts and obligations seriously. Even one late payment can seriously damage your credit history and credit score, even though it can take a year’s worth of on-time payments to start to heal your credit history and raise your credit score. It doesn’t seem fair, but that’s how the credit industry works.

8. Don’t charge more than 25 percent of your maximum available credit limit. If you carry a credit-card balance that is a higher percentage of your available credit limit, your credit score will go down. Why? Because creditors believe if you charge the maximum on your credit cards, it means you can’t properly manage your credit. You’re better off spreading out your debt between three or four different cards than having it all piled on one card.

9. Don’t open and close a lot of accounts. Again, a credit score tells current and future creditors how likely it is that you won’t pay back your debts. It assesses how risky a borrower you are today. Every time you apply for a new credit card, that creditor pulls a copy of your credit history from the credit-reporting bureaus. That “inquiry” gets reported on your credit history. Too many inquiries in a short period of time signals that you may be getting low on your available credit and need more cash. Even though you might be interested in getting 10 percent off your first purchase for opening a new account, it looks different to a prospective creditor.

10. Don’t share credit (except with a spouse). It’s easy to tell someone that you’ll “co-sign” a credit card, student loan or a mortgage loan application, especially if it’s someone you’ve known for a long time. But it’s also easy to wind up in a situation where that friend or relative stops paying his or her bills (for whatever reason) and your credit will take a big hit. Once you’re a co-signer for a loan, you’re legally obligated to make those payments — whether or not you can afford them. So think carefully before you agree to co-sign a loan, and nip the problem of bad credit before it begins.

Shortly before Lynn Sugarman of Teaneck, N.J., bought her summer home in Lake George, N.Y., two years ago, a routine inspection revealed it had elevated levels of radon, a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. So she called a radon measurement and mitigation technician to find the source.

“He went from room to room,” said Dr. Sugarman, a pediatrician. But he stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, which had richly grained cream, brown and burgundy granite countertops. His Geiger counter indicated that the granite was emitting radiation at levels 10 times higher than those he had measured elsewhere in the house.

“My first thought was, my pregnant daughter was coming for the weekend,” Dr. Sugarman said. When the technician told her to keep her daughter several feet from the countertops just to be safe, she said, “I had them ripped out that very day,” and sent to the state Department of Health for analysis. The granite, it turned out, contained high levels of uranium, which is not only radioactive but releases radon gas as it decays. “The health risk to me and my family was probably small,” Dr. Sugarman said, “but I felt it was an unnecessary risk.”

As the popularity of granite countertops has grown in the last decade — demand for them has increased tenfold, according to the Marble Institute of America, a trade group representing granite fabricators — so have the types of granite available. For example, one source, Graniteland (graniteland.com) offers more than 900 kinds of granite from 63 countries. And with increased sales volume and variety, there have been more reports of “hot” or potentially hazardous countertops, particularly among the more exotic and striated varieties from Brazil and Namibia.

“It’s not that all granite is dangerous,” said Stanley Liebert, the quality assurance director at CMT Laboratories in Clifton Park, N.Y., who took radiation measurements at Dr. Sugarman’s house. “But I’ve seen a few that might heat up your Cheerios a little.”

Allegations that granite countertops may emit dangerous levels of radon and radiation have been raised periodically over the past decade, mostly by makers and distributors of competing countertop materials. The Marble Institute of America has said such claims are “ludicrous” because although granite is known to contain uranium and other radioactive materials like thorium and potassium, the amounts in countertops are not enough to pose a health threat.

Indeed, health physicists and radiation experts agree that most granite countertops emit radiation and radon at extremely low levels. They say these emissions are insignificant compared with so-called background radiation that is constantly raining down from outer space or seeping up from the earth’s crust, not to mention emanating from manmade sources like X-rays, luminous watches and smoke detectors.

But with increasing regularity in recent months, the Environmental Protection Agency has been receiving calls from radon inspectors as well as from concerned homeowners about granite countertops with radiation measurements several times above background levels. “We’ve been hearing from people all over the country concerned about high readings,” said Lou Witt, a program analyst with the agency’s Indoor Environments Division.

Last month, Suzanne Zick, who lives in Magnolia, Tex., a small town northwest of Houston, called the E.P.A. and her state’s health department to find out what she should do about the salmon-colored granite she had installed in her foyer a year and a half ago. A geology instructor at a community college, she realized belatedly that it could contain radioactive material and had it tested. The technician sent her a report indicating that the granite was emitting low to moderately high levels of both radon and radiation, depending on where along the stone the measurement was taken.

“I don’t really know what the numbers are telling me about my risk,” Ms. Zick said. “I don’t want to tear it out, but I don’t want cancer either.”

The E.P.A. recommends taking action if radon gas levels in the home exceeds 4 picocuries per liter of air (a measure of radioactive emission); about the same risk for cancer as smoking a half a pack of cigarettes per day. In Dr. Sugarman’s kitchen, the readings were 100 picocuries per liter. In her basement, where radon readings are expected to be higher because the gas usually seeps into homes from decaying uranium underground, the readings were 6 picocuries per liter.

The average person is subjected to radiation from natural and manmade sources at an annual level of 360 millirem (a measure of energy absorbed by the body), according to government agencies like the E.P.A. and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The limit of additional exposure set by the commission for people living near nuclear reactors is 100 millirem per year. To put this in perspective, passengers get 3 millirem of cosmic radiation on a flight from New York to Los Angeles.

A “hot” granite countertop like Dr. Sugarman’s might add a fraction of a millirem per hour and that is if you were a few inches from it or touching it the entire time.

Nevertheless, Mr. Witt said, “There is no known safe level of radon or radiation.” Moreover, he said, scientists agree that “any exposure increases your health risk.” A granite countertop that emits an extremely high level of radiation, as a small number of commercially available samples have in recent tests, could conceivably expose body parts that were in close proximity to it for two hours a day to a localized dose of 100 millirem over just a few months.

David J. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University in New York, said the cancer risk from granite countertops, even those emitting radiation above background levels, is “on the order of one in a million.” Being struck by lightning is more likely. Nonetheless, Dr. Brenner said, “It makes sense. If you can choose another counter that doesn’t elevate your risk, however slightly, why wouldn’t you?”

Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking and is considered especially dangerous to smokers, whose lungs are already compromised. Children and developing fetuses are vulnerable to radiation, which can cause other forms of cancer. Mr. Witt said the E.P.A. is not studying health risks associated with granite countertops because of a “lack of resources.”

The Marble Institute of America plans to develop a testing protocol for granite. “We want to reassure the public that their granite countertops are safe,” Jim Hogan, the group’s president, said earlier this month “We know the vast majority of granites are safe, but there are some new exotic varieties coming in now that we’ve never seen before, and we need to use sound science to evaluate them.”

Research scientists at Rice University in Houston and at the New York State Department of Health are currently conducting studies of granite widely used in kitchen counters. William J. Llope, a professor of physics at Rice, said his preliminary results show that of the 55 samples he has collected from nearby fabricators and wholesalers, all of which emit radiation at higher-than-background levels, a handful have tested at levels 100 times or more above background.

Personal injury lawyers are already advertising on the Web for clients who think they may have been injured by countertops. “I think it will be like the mold litigation a few years back, where some cases were legitimate and a whole lot were not,” said Ernest P. Chiodo, a physician and lawyer in Detroit who specializes in toxic tort law. His kitchen counters are granite, he said, “but I don’t spend much time in the kitchen.”

As for Dr. Sugarman, the contractor of the house she bought in Lake George paid for the removal of her “hot” countertops. She replaced them with another type of granite. “But I had them tested first,” she said.

Where to Find Tests and Testers

TO find a certified technician to determine whether radiation or radon is emanating from a granite countertop, homeowners can contact the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists (aarst.org). Testing costs between $100 and $300.

Information on certified technicians and do-it-yourself radon testing kits is available from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Web site at epa.gov/radon, as well as from state or regional indoor air environment offices, which can be found at epa.gov/iaq/whereyoulive.html. Kits test for radon, not radiation, and cost $20 to $30. They are sold at hardware stores and online.

Back when the real estate market was hot, sellers barely had to make their beds and do the dishes for their houses to attract buyers. Any extra effort often elicited multiple offers for over the asking price.

In today’s cool market, however, those same extras can mean the difference between getting one offer or none at all, says Lisa LaPorta, cohost of HGTV’s “Designed to Sell.”

Sellers frustrated with the stagnant market should consider turning their anxiety into action. As inventory grows, a few inexpensive moves can make your house stand apart.

Here are 12 cheap tricks real estate experts recommend sellers consider to speed sales:

1. Get the right mindset. Once you list your home, detach yourself. Treat the house as a commodity, which means making changes that will broaden its appeal but that may erase some of your personal style. “I tell sellers in our first meeting that I may say things that offend them, but if I do it’s because I feel it’s for the benefit of the sale,” says Dan Verbin, general manager of Re/Max Marquee Partners, which oversees 14 offices in the South Bay and throughout Greater Los Angeles.

2. Start at the curb. Look at what people see when they pull up, says Sandy Fish, broker owner of Re/Max Ranch and Beach in San Diego, where she’s been selling real estate for 20 years. Trim hedges, prune trees, mow the lawn and plant oodles of colorful flowers. If the mailbox is tired and the address numbers are falling off, replace them. Walk around the house. Get all debris — old patio furniture, rusty barbecues — off the property. Everything outside should look perfect.

3. Paint — it’s money in a can. Outside, if a good power wash isn’t enough, a coat of paint is one of the best facelifts you can give a house for a relatively low price. If you don’t want to paint the whole house, do the trim. Inside, paint walls a soft neutral such as warm beige, sage or gold. Paint not only says new start, but it also masks odors.

4. Focus on the entry. Put some energy into the front door, because it makes a strong first impression. A few years ago, LaPorta fixed up a Pasadena home for her show. The home had a traditional old-fashioned front door, which looked like all the other doors on the street. She bought a stock door from a lumber supplier, painted it glossy burgundy, put a pediment over it, thick molding around it and flanked it with two large potted topiaries. The whole upgrade cost $2,000. The result? After the listing agent saw the improvements, she raised the original asking price by $40,000 to $739,000. The owners received multiple offers and sold in the high $700,000s, LaPorta said, “because we made an ordinary entry look stately and elegant.”

5. Catch up on maintenance. Get around to the repairs you should have been doing all along. “Fix the little stuff,” Re/Max Marquee Partner’s Verbin says. “Repair the cracked tile in the bathroom and torn screens. Replace broken light-switch covers and burned-out lightbulbs. Tape up or pin wires from audio systems and computers.”

These easy fixes show potential buyers that you pay attention to detail, which signals that you must care about the big stuff too.

6. Look for alternatives to expensive or messy upgrades. “Don’t take on a big remodel when you’re thinking of selling,” says Reva Kussmaul, a remodel coach and owner of Eye for Detail, in Pasadena. “Keep improvements small and manageable. A major project creates more mess and can take up time you could be on the market.”

However, do investigate small ways to get big results. If your tile is 1950s pink or 1970s brown, look into companies that can spray tile to make it a new color, she says. Miracle Method, for example, gives a clean, fresh look without the demo, dust or fat price tag.

If dated cabinets still work well, consider painting or staining rather than replacing them. Today’s house hunter prefers either dark wood cabinets in shades of espresso or ebony, or painted cabinets. Mid-toned browns and grainy golds are out. A dark stain over light, coarse-grained wood will quiet busy grain and make wood a color more people prefer, as will painting. Put on some new knobs, and for a couple thousand dollars, your kitchen will look as though it had a $20,000 makeover.

7. Consider new appliances. In LaPorta’s experience, sellers typically get every dollar back that they spend on new appliances. “When people see new kitchen appliances, they often see a new kitchen,” LaPorta says. “That rates high on people’s radar, especially men’s.”

8. Add some house bling. Make anything metal in your home look new and shiny. “People see shiny new metal and say ‘Oooh,’ and it’s not that expensive,” LaPorta says. You can pick up a new dining room light fixture for $200 and one for the porch for $40; people will notice. Change the front-door handle, faucets and curtain rods if they’re worn and dull. These should all look fresh.

If you have an ’80s shiny polished brass fixture, try painting it with an updated metallic that looks like oil-rubbed bronze, brushed nickel or iron. If you have metal grills on your stove, spray them their original color, using paint meant to withstand high heat.

9. Start packing. “The average home would show much better if it had 50% less stuff,” real estate broker Fish says. Since you’re already going to move, give yourself a head start by packing away all the clothes, books and dishes you won’t need for the next few months. Thinning out bookcases and closets lets buyers actually see and appreciate the space and gives the illusion that the house offers more-than-adequate storage.

Take out extra furniture, especially if it’s blocking the flow of foot traffic. “It’s better to have just a corner of a room decorated nicely with a little vignette than an overcrowded space, or a room where the furniture is of mixed styles or not to scale,” LaPorta says. If you can get all the stuff off-site in a moving pod or in storage, do so. If not, stack neat, labeled boxes in the garage.

10. Remove the “you” factor. Sorry but home buyers don’t care about your trophies, your hobbies, your taste in art or your photos. Pack all that away. Depersonalizing a home lets buyers imagine themselves in the house. “You want people looking at your house, not your wedding photos,” Fish says. “Those are just a distraction.”

Once personal art is off the walls, patch and paint over holes. While you’re at it, clear countertops. In kitchens, leave out just one appliance and, on your desk, just a phone and a lamp. Think nice hotel.

11. Clean house. “Clean is a relative term,” says LaPorta, “but we often don’t notice our own dirt. Look hard, starting with the switch plate by the front door. Wipe it down along with all light switches, doors and baseboards. If you’re not the best housekeeper, hire a service. . . . Every surface should sparkle.”

12. Banish smells. When people first walk in, they should either smell nothing or a nice scent, like cinnamon or citrus. Set out potpourri, fresh-cut flowers or subtle air fresheners. Have carpets — if not replaced — professionally cleaned and deodorized.

Some carpet-cleaning companies will also clean hardwood, tile or stone floors and grout and buff countertops. “For a 3,000-square-foot house, expect to pay under $1,000,” says Fish, adding that it’s money well spent.

Besides making suggestions as to what buyers can or should do to get a “sold” sign out front, real estate experts also suggested a few things not to do:

* Don’t avoid an upgrade with the idea that you’ll give the new owner a carpet or paint credit.

Most buyers are tapped out and don’t want to spend a lot the minute they move in. Plus, that’s one more hassle for them. They want clean surfaces when they move in. And many people lack the imagination needed to picture how much better the place will look with new carpet. Your job is to make buyers say, “I could move in tomorrow.”

* Don’t ignore the competition. Fish helps clients get realistic about their homes by showing them what else is on the market in the same price range.

“When they see what they’re up against, including new homes, that often motivates them to get real about their price and what they should fix up,” Fish says.

* Finally, don’t get so carried away making improvements that you forget the original goal: Be a bargain.

“The best way to sell your house quickly in a down market,” real estate agent Verbin says, “is to be the best deal out there.”

In the biggest bank failure of the housing downturn to date, federal banking regulators closed IndyMac Bank FSB on July 11, 2008, naming the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as conservator.

The FDIC said it will transfer insured deposits and “substantially all the assets” of IndyMac Bank, to a newly created successor, IndyMac Federal Bank, which will be operated by the FDIC.

Insured depositors and borrowers will automatically become customers of IndyMac Federal, FSB and will continue to have uninterrupted customer service and access to their funds by ATM, debit cards and writing checks. Depositors of IndyMac Federal Bank FSB will have no access to online and phone banking services this weekend, but will regain access to them on Monday.

IndyMac was one of the nation’s largest independent mortgage lenders, and had been hard hit by delinquencies and foreclosures. Parent company IndyMac Bancorp Inc. announced Monday that it was no longer considered “well capitalized” by regulators and had stopped making most mortgage loans (see story).

In a statement, OTS Director John Reich said the immediate cause of the closing of IndyMac Bank FSB was a run on deposits that began when a June 26 letter Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., sent to federal bank regulators voicing concerns about the thrift’s “financial deterioration” was made public. Schumer said IndyMac posed “significant risks to both taxpayers and borrowers” (see story).

In the 11 business days following the public release the letter, Reich said depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion from their accounts.

“This institution failed today due to a liquidity crisis,” Reich said. “Although this institution was already in distress, I am troubled by any interference in the regulatory process.”

OTS said IndyMac is the largest thrift it regulates to fail and according to FDIC data is the second largest financial institution to close in U.S. history.

IndyMac Bank, FSB had total assets of $32.01 billion and total deposits of $19.06 billion as of March 31, including about $1 billion of potentially uninsured deposits held by approximately 10,000 depositors. The FDIC will begin contacting customers with uninsured deposits to arrange an appointment with an FDIC claims agent by Monday.

The FDIC will pay uninsured depositors an advance dividend equal to 50 percent of the uninsured amount. Based on preliminary analysis, the estimated cost of the resolution to the Deposit Insurance Fund is between $4 billion and $8 billion.

In a statement, American Bankers Association president Edward Yingling called it “a sad day for IndyMac” but said insured depositors “should know that their money is safe. The FDIC insurance fund is huge, with more than $52 billion in assets to protect bank depositors. In this year alone, the fund will add an additional $5 billion from assessments on banks and interest earnings.”

The FDIC said IndyMac Bank is the fifth FDIC-insured failure of the year. The last FDIC-insured failure in California was the Southern Pacific Bank, Torrance, on Feb. 7, 2003.

The FDIC has established a toll-free number for customers of IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB. The toll-free number is 1-866-806-5919 and will operate today from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. (PDT), and then daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. thereafter, except Sunday, July 13, when the hours will be 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Customers also may visit the FDIC’s Web site at http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/IndyMac.html for further information.

The National Association of Realtors trade group forecasts that resale home prices and sales will both fall about 6 percent this year compared to 2007. After peaking at a record 6.48 million resale home sales in 2006, this pace dropped 12.8 percent to 5.65 million in 2007 and is projected to drop to 5.31 million this year and then rise 5 percent to 5.58 million in 2009, according to the forecast report. The median price of resale homes is expected to fall from $218,900 last year to $205,300 this year, and to rise 4.3 percent to $214,100 next year.

The previous NAR forecast report, released in June, anticipated a 6.4 percent drop in the median resale home price and a 4.5 percent annual drop in resale home sales this year compared to last year. Single-family home sales are expected to plunge 32.3 percent this year and 3.4 percent next year, following a 26.3 percent slide in 2007 and an 18.1 percent drop in 2006, with new-home prices dropping 3.2 percent this year and rising 5.3 percent in 2009.

Pending sales index falls in May:
An index that gauges pending sales of resale homes, based on contracts signed in May, dropped 14 percent compared to the same month last year and was down 4.7 percent compared to April 2008. The Pending Home Sales Index rating in May was below Wall Street expectations. Regionally, the index dropped 22.1 percent in the South, 16.4 percent in the Northeast and 13.8 percent in the Midwest while rising 2 percent in the West in May 2008 compared to May 2007. The index was down 7.1 percent in the South, 6 percent in the Midwest, 2.9 percent in the Northeast and 1.3 percent in the West in May 2008 compared to April 2008. Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said in a statement, “The overall decline in contract signings suggests we are not out of the woods by any means.”

FHA expansion plan back on track in Senate:
A proposal to expand Federal Housing Administration loan guarantee programs by $300 billion to help troubled borrowers refinance into more affordable loans is moving toward a Senate vote this week after a 76-10 vote Monday to limit debate on the bill.

The FHA expansion plan — which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated could help 400,000 borrowers at a cost of $680 million over 10 years — is part of the sweeping “Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.” The bill would also create a new regulator for mortgage financers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and assess them more than $700 million a year to provide affordable housing and cover the cost of expanding FHA loan guarantees.

Ten Republicans voted against moving forward on the bill Monday, with presidential candidates John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., among the 14 senators who did not cast votes. The bill passed a similar procedural vote on June 24, only to be delayed by a failed attempt by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., to attach an amendment providing tax breaks for renewable energy. If approved by the Senate this week, the bill faces a veto threat by President Bush.

Before the bill reaches the president’s desk, it would also have to be reconciled with competing legislation in the House. While the Senate bill would not allow Fannie and Freddie to purchase or guarantee single-family mortgages larger than $625,000, the House proposes to make permanent a temporary increase in the conforming loan limit to $729,750 set to expire at the end of the year.

OFHEO: Fannie and Freddie finances are sound:
The federal regulator that oversees the safety and soundness of mortgage financers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said Tuesday that a proposed change in accounting methods will not force the companies to raise $75 billion in additional capital.

A report by Lehman Brothers speculated that a proposed revision of rule FAS 140 by the Financial Accounting Standards Board might force Fannie and Freddie to raise billions in additional capital. The report helped send shares of the government-chartered companies into a tailspin on Monday, as investors worried that the companies would raise capital by issuing common stock and dilute the value of existing shares, Reuters reported.

James Lockhart, director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, said Fannie and Freddie are “prudently” growing their purchases and guarantees of mortgage loans, and that it was “hard to imagine” what prompted investors’ panicked sell-off Monday, Reuters reported.

Both Fannie and Freddie “are classified as adequately capitalized,” Lockhart said in an interview on CNBC. “They have raised significant capital — Fannie has raised close to $15 billion — and going forward that should allow them to ride out the problems of the past years and underwrite this year what should be a very profitable book of business. Freddie has already agreed to raise $5.5 billion more, and we expect them to raise that before the summer is out.”

Kids get burned in mortgage meltdown:
First Focus, a children’s advocacy organization, reports that about 2 million children will be directly affected by foreclosure during this mortgage crisis, according to a report that appeared in the Los Angeles Times. The article notes that kids’ education can suffer when foreclosure pulls them away from their familiar schools, and children can also lose access to services, and their physical and mental health can be compromised.

Rents climb in Q2:
Real estate research firm Reis Inc. reports that apartment-complex vacancies were unchanged in the second quarter while rents rose 1.1 percent, the Wall Street Journal reports, which was down from 1.3 percent rent growth in the same quarter last year. Rents dropped in four of 79 markets tracked by Reis, according to the article, and these markets all had home-price declines: Detroit; Miami; Palm Beach, Fla.; and Ventura County, Calif.

The current housing slump is far from over and is shaping up to be the worst in 50 years, according to an annual report on the state of the nation’s housing markets from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

Drastic production cuts and deep price discounts in 2005-2007 helped shrink the inventory of unsold new homes from a mid-2006 peak of more than 570,000 to less than 500,000 in early 2008. But the number of homes entering foreclosure nearly doubled to 1.3 million last year, and vacant homes for sale rose 46 percent over two years, to 2.12 million.

“Until the number of vacant for-sale units on the market … falls enough to bring vacancy rates back down, house prices will remain under pressure,” the report said. “Working off the oversupply will require some combination of the following: housing starts fall even further, prices decline enough to bring out new bargain-seeking buyers, interest rates drop enough to improve affordability, job growth improves, consumer confidence returns, and mortgage credit again becomes more widely available.”

Single-family home prices in the first quarter of 2008 were down 12 percent from their October 2005 peak — 18 percent in real terms, after adjusting for inflation. A “dispiriting picture” of housing affordability issues nevertheless remains.

The report, “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2008,” is more optimistic about medium- to long-term prospects, estimating that unless there’s a serious, prolonged economic decline or a marked cutback in immigration, the nation will gain 14.4 million new households between 2010 and 2020, compared with 12.6 million between 1995 and 2005.

For now, center director Nicolas Retsinas said mortgage rates have “barely responded” to aggressive easing by the Federal Reserve. While the supply of for-sale vacant units continues to grow, tighter underwriting standards have locked many would-be home buyers out of the market. And with home prices falling in most metropolitan areas, homeowners are remaining on the sidelines, he said.

“At some point demand will bounce back,” Retsinas said in a press release announcing the release of the report. “Historically, housing markets recover only after the economy has entered a recession and a combination of falling mortgage interest rates and house prices have improved housing affordability. It is difficult to judge how far away from these conditions we may be. It will take longer this time to rebound given the unusually high levels of foreclosures and constrained credit markets.”

If the economy slips into a severe recession, the prolonged contraction could drive down the sustainable level of housing demand by slowing the loss of older units, forcing more households to double up, and reducing sales of second homes, the report said. But in the case of a mild downturn, which most economists expect, the fundamentals of demand are likely to drive a strong rebound in housing once prices bottom out and the economy begins to recover.

How bad is the downturn? The report noted that sales of existing homes fell 13 percent in 2007 to 4.9 million, and sales of new homes were down 26 percent to 776,000, the lowest level since 1996.

The 500,000 unsold new single-family homes available in early 2008 was down from a mid-2006 peak of more than 570,000, but the slower rate of sales translates into an 11 month supply — an overhang not seen since the 1970s. A supply of more than six months is considered a buyer’s market, and the inventory of existing single-family homes rose to 10.7 months in April.

Housing permits fell 24 percent nationwide in 2007, with single-family permits down 29 percent and multifamily permits down 9 percent for the year. The total decline from the 2005 peak was 35 percent, including a 42 percent reduction in single-family permits.

The report said that it’s hard to gauge with certainty how far home prices have fallen, as each of the three most commonly used measures paints a different picture.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) national median single-family home price declined 6.1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006 to the fourth quarter of 2007, while the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index fell 8.9 percent during the same period.

The narrower purchase-only repeat sales index from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight — which excludes mortgages too large or too risky for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — fell 0.3 percent during that time.

The national statistics don’t reveal the larger price drops in many metro areas, the report said, and mask the speed declines spread across the country. At the beginning of 2007, quarterly data collected by NAR showed prices rising in 85 of 144 metro areas. By the end of the year, only 26 metro areas were still seeing price appreciation. In the fourth quarter, prices in 33 metro areas had fallen by 10 percent or more from their peak.

NAR’s figures showed fourth-quarter nominal house prices falling back to 2006 levels in 12 metros, to 2005 levels in 35 metros, to 2004 levels in 19 metros, and to 2003 or earlier levels in 16 metros.

How does the current downturn stack up against others in recent memory? The 12 percent drop in national home prices since the October 2005 peak (18 percent in real terms) exceeds the downturns of the early ’80s and early ’90s. Two and a half years after real prices peaked in November 1989, the real median price was down just 4 percent and the nominal price was up 6 percent. Two and a half years after the May 1979 peak, the real median price had fallen 8 percent and the nominal price had increased by 20 percent.

Those price drops may not have produced meaningful improvements in affordability, the report said.

Between 2001 and 2006, the number of “severely burdened” households spending more than half of their income on housing grew by nearly 4 million, to 17.7 million — or 16 percent of households. Another 39 million households were “moderately burdened” paying more than 30 percent of income on housing.

At current interest rates, the national median price would have to fall an additional 12 percent from the end of 2007 to bring the monthly payments on a newly purchased median-priced home back to 2003 levels, the report said. In 40 metros, prices would have to fall more than 25 percent.

If interest rates were to come down by a full percentage point, the report estimated that the national median home price would still have to decline by 2 percent, or by more than 25 percent, to return to 2003 affordability levels.

Repeat home buyers would not see affordability gains from such price drops because they would have to sell their homes at discounts similar to those on the home they would buy, the report said.

The boom-bust housing cycle has been reflected in the home-ownership rate. From 1994 to 2004, the home-ownership rate surged by five percentage points, peaking at 69 percent. Since then, home-ownership rates have fallen back for most groups, including a nearly two-point drop among black households and a 1.4-point drop among young households. The number of renter households increased by more than 2 million from 2004 to 2007, lowering the national home-ownership rate to 68.1 percent.

Once the oversupply of housing is worked off and home prices start to recover, the use of automated underwriting tools, a return to more traditional mortgage products, and the strength of underlying demand should put the number of homeowners back on the rise, the report said.

Although the short-term prospects for a recovery remain uncertain, in the long run the downturn is unlikely to slow down the creation of new households — unless the economy enters a sharp, prolonged recession that dampens immigration or slows household formation, the report said.

A weak economy could slow the rate of immigration, which is largely driven by the availability of U.S. jobs. The report identifies the main risk to the long-run outlook as a dip in the level of immigration from its recent 1.2 million-a-year pace due to weaker labor markets.

Minorities contributed more than 60 percent of household growth in 2000-2006, and they now account for 29 percent of all households, up from 17 percent in 1980 and 25 percent in 2000. The minority share is likely to reach about 35 percent by 2020, the report said.

The report projected that minority household growth among 35- to 64-year-olds should remain strong in 2010-2020, while the number of white middle-aged households will begin to decline after 2010 as baby boomers reach retirement age.

People living alone are expected to account for 36 percent of household growth between 2010 and 2020, and 75 percent of the 5.3 million projected increase in single-person households will be among those 65 and older.