Yesterday, the Boston Globe brought up an off-beat use of the internet for home-town searching. Find out who is trash-talking the town on line. That seems like fun, but there are readers who are looking for real information.

I ran the “Living Well is the Best Revenge” series from January through May this year. Then I ran out of reporters who would tell you all about their towns. My problem is two-fold. First, I know where I work and I don’t know about other towns. Second, the people I can call are agents. Most of them supply me with sales-talk, which I decline to pass on to you.

So, I still get questions I can’t answer. N.P. asked me about East Boston and Winthrop, but I came up blank of good information. T.M. wants to know about Waltham, Watertown, Westwood, Melrose and Malden.

Hey, back during the boom, it sounded like a good idea.

Developers rushed to convert Nantucket’s grand old hotels in luxury vacation condos.

The plan was to tap into demand from the merely wealthy looking to vacation on the elite resort island for which buying a multimillion-dollar waterfront villa is out of reach. Plus buyers would get all the comforts of a resort hotel as well, and no need for pesky household maintenance.

Of course, like all promising ideas in real estate, once one developer got the idea – I’m thinking Newton real estate mogul Steve Karp and his purchase of the White Elephant – everyone and his brother rushes in.

Now we are starting to see the fallout from this gold rush gone bust, with TD Banknorth moving to foreclose on its $40.5 million construction loan to developer Robert Mathews and his half completed conversion of the historic Point Breeze hotel into a vacation retreat for the Nantucket summertime wannabes.

Bill Wendell at the Real Estate Café has been a consumer advocate for real estate consumers since before it was popular. Another ally, Erle Rowlins, wrote these “Real estate consumer’s Bill of Rights” in 1999. They are on the Real Estate Café web site.

1. Right of information access without limitation.
2. Right not to be coerced into using products or service providers.
3. Right to be respected as an individual.
4. Right to a full disclosure of all material facts known.
5. Right to have advance, competent legal advice.
6. Right to legal remedies for wrongful actions.
7. Right to protect confidential information.
8. Right of access to alternative service providers.
9. Right for an advance disclosure of all fees and to pay for services based on the value of the service received.
10. Right of security for all electronic transactions, communications and information seeking.
(Copyright 1999, Erle Rawlins III, 214-363-7400)

OK, what is it with sports stars and real estate?

Anyway, here’s another example of a big name jock losing millions in the real estate market.

Soon to be Cavs star Shaquille O’Neil just lost $3 million on the sale of his palatial Miami estate.

Shaq recently unloaded his nearly 20,000 square foot waterfront palace – complete with a pool emblazoned with the Superman logo – for $16 million.

Sounds like he made out, right? Wrong.

The NBA superstar had shelled out nearly $19 million for the estate in 2004, before putting it on the market the next year for a whopping $32 million.

MA PASS is a property showing service that many brokers use. When I call MA PASS, they verify that I am a member of MLS, and then the operator arranges the showing for me.
I have gotten used to how bored the operators can be. They read the instructions out to me in a dead-pan voice. Usually, the instructions will be things like, “in wet weather, please remove shoes upon entry,” “please lock all doors, including the one to the porch,” “the dog’s name is Fred; he will be crated in the office.”

One request is still making me scratch my head. It was in a three-family house:

First floor showings only with an Offer.

My buyers were puzzled, too. I put the best face on it. I hypothesized for them: Maybe the seller doesn’t want to be bothered because most people don’t ask for a second showing. Maybe the tenant (or owner) on the first floor is old, or infirmed, or has young children.

The new Case-Shiller numbers are out and there’s a big sigh of relief.

Home prices fell 18 percent in April compared to the previous year, down from 19 percent over the winter.

Whew. Well we definitely dodged that one.

Seriously, I guess that’s how bad things have gotten when there’s rejoicing among some industry analysts over a nearly 20 percent drop in home prices.

Still, to give those trying to find a silver lining in these numbers their due, it appears to be a sign that at least the rate of decline is slowing.

In hopes of better protecting the consumer, our government has changed regulations that govern residential mortgages. I heard from Jill Buzny at Wells Fargo Mortgage about the changes that are afoot:

These changes are meant to protect consumers by not allowing lenders to charge fees until the application is completed, requiring that the consumer gets a copy of his/her appraisal in a timely fashion, and requiring that the Truth in Lending Statement be accurate and presented in a timely fashion to the buyers.

As these changes come into practice, expect delays in your loan processing. There will be times when the time-table will need to be shifted back because consumers need to get information before they can be charged for application fees (delaying the application), and closing may be delayed to give consumers ample time to review their appraisal and to get a correct Truth in Lending Statement.

I’m still getting used to the feel of my new and improved Natick fixer-upper.

We moved into the new addition back in early May and while the furniture is in and the carpet is down, there is still a lot to be done to make it homey.

One of the nice surprises, though, has been the home office.

It’s the smallest room in the house and the one that I probably gave the least thought to beforehand.

Of course it is also where I now spend the most hours in any given day.

Sam Schneiderman, Broker-owner of Greater Boston Home Team continues his Monday series.

The time after the home inspection is a critical time during a transaction. Buyers are often overwhelmed by the inspection and sellers are nervously waiting to hear if their property “passed” inspection.

Since there are many systems and components, a home rarely “passes” an inspection. In older homes, defective windows, improperly installed insulation, roof venting, plumbing or electrical issues are common. New construction issues often include defective door and window installations, defective plumbing and electrical components or installation, and poor finish work.

Presumably, an inspection is for the buyer to assure himself that he is getting what he was expecting when he made the offer. The challenge is that since most people don’t buy property often, they don’t always have realistic expectations about what they should get for their money or the age of the property. First time buyers that are buying older property have the biggest challenge because they don’t understand what constitutes normal wear and tear vs. what constitutes deferred maintenance or neglect. I’ve worked with many repeat clients that expressed concerns about certain “defective” items on their first purchase and didn’t even raise an eyebrow about the same item when they moved up to their next property years later (i.e. leaky faucets and routine maintenance items like exterior paint).

Check out this Reuters piece.

The analysis piece questions whether Wall Street and the investment community have been too hasty to embrace the potentially hazardous idea the worst is over for the housing market.

Certainly it would not be the first time Wall Street was wrong on the housing market.

I started writing here at Boston.com on June 20, 2007. Since then I have written to, talked to, and met readers. But rarely do I meet them at open houses.
Saturday, some house-hunters spotted my name on the sign-in sheet. They asked the broker doing the open house if she was Rona Fischman. She pointed them in my direction… This is the second time in two years that this has happened.

I introduced myself and shook hands. I thanked them for reading and asked if they comment. No, neither one comments. They read me; they know what I think. Now, they know what I look like. I bumped into them a few times with my clients in the open house and again while we were walking the route to the Red Line. I felt a little self-conscious.

The broker at any open house works for the firm that has the listing for that property. Sometimes he/she is the seller’s agent, sometimes not. In either case, it is bad form for me to pick up new buyers at someone else’s open house.

Open houses are more effective in collecting the names and email addresses of new buyers than it is at selling property. Therefore, I pay attention to the needs of my clients and have very little chit-chat with other buyers at the property. I hope I wasn’t rude to those readers.

Home builders aren’t the best loved guys on the block in many parts of the country.

The Boston area, for the most part, dodged the overbuilding bullet. Not so, of course, for once hot markets in Florida, California, Nevada, which are now struggling to dig out after being buried in an avalanche of empty new homes after a frenzy of overbuilding by the big, publicly traded home builders.

But you have got to hand it to these guys, some of the same builders who created the mess are coming up with some creative ways of cleaning it up.

Realtors take note here.

Last week, Bill Wendel at the Real Estate Café wrote to me and to Scott. He had a legitimate complaint. Bill got a Google Alert saying that one of our commenters called his business “scary.” Bill’s rebuttal got stuck in our junk filter (which blocks anything with a full URL.) I have known Bill and The Real Estate Café model since I started in real estate in 1991. Bill has been working a fee-for-service model for years and years before anyone else I know. I like Bill. Here’s the URL to his rebuttal.

I don’t find Bill or his business scary at all. The fee-for-service model is perfect for a consumer who is self-motivated and interested in doing a lot of his/her own footwork and research. I offer a fee-for-service contract, too.

That roughly what my newly hired landscaper has told me, in so many words.

First, let’s bring things up to date. My wife Karen and I recently wrapped up work on a two-story addition to our Natick fixer-upper.

OK, so my house looks great, but the yard is a war zone, a sprawling mud patch torn up by tired tracks and littered with unearthed rocks and old bottles from old trash heaps.

Anyway, we’ve hired Joe, a local guy with a landscaping business on the side, to whip our yard into shape.

After taking a look around, Joe came to the conclusion that was both unsettling and logical: If we want a lawn instead of a mud patch, most of the trees that ring our yard will need to go.

While his assessment makes sense, I have mixed feelings.

The New York Times had an article about our triple-deckers this month. Besides quoting what Dennis Lehane thinks of them, Abby Goodnough quoted these statistics about foreclosure in this kind of housing:

In Boston, three-family homes represent 14 percent of the housing stock, but made up 21 percent of foreclosed property in 2008, according to the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development… Ms. [Evelyn] Friedman, [chief and director of the Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development] believes the foreclosure rate on triple-deckers is even higher than the data indicate, because many were converted into condominiums in recent years. These are counted in a separate category that made up 48 percent of the city’s foreclosed properties last year.

I am a huge fan of owner-occupied multi-family housing. The Times’ reporter reiterates what I think:

Best of all, three-deckers put homeownership within reach of the working class. Buyers could live in one unit and rent out the others, assuring they could afford payments and upkeep for years to come.

Forget about home prices for a minute.

If you want something to worry about, take a look at overall sales volume.

The latest decline in single-family home prices in Massachusetts are all over the headlines today.

The Warren Group, the Boston-based publisher and real estate data firm, reports the median home price fell 13 percent in May from last spring, to $280,000. The Massachusetts Association Realtors pegs the decline at just under 12 percent.

Not much new there.

But you have to go back to the dark days of the early 1990s to see home sales activity this low.

John responded to my entry about making low offers with a good link showing the continuing foreclosure crisis. The seller I was facing-off with over an $80,000 difference of opinion about price was not a lender-owned or short sale property. But John’s point remains. He wrote:

Hi Rona, Have a look at the graph in the middle of this page:

There's the reality of your post at the macro level. I drive past several unkept properties, likely abandoned, on my current 12 mile back road commute. When banks get serious about selling these, I think we're looking at the next leg down...

I get John’s point. Those foreclosed and unsold properties are sitting around. They are hard to buy. Frequently, they are not worth buying. At least not yet. John sees them every day on the way to work. I see them every week at work.

Last week, I also wrote on appraisal hassles. Foreclosed properties that are used as comparables are also driving down the price that lenders will cover for mortgages.

OK, I probably do too much moaning and groaning about the real estate market.

But for all the trouble the market’s woes have generated for millions of homeowners and for the global economy, it is also a time of unprecedented opportunity out there for at least some folks.

If you are a renter with a few bucks in your pocket, you have the opportunity to buy a home or condo at prices we haven’t seen in years.

But you also have some great deals out there now on the rental side as well.

Renters are increasingly finding themselves in the driver’s seat as the number of vacant apartments rise to levels not seen in years, the Globe reports.

Sam Schneiderman, Broker-owner of Greater Boston Home Team continues his Monday series. One of my clients asked me about this yesterday!

Many years ago, I represented buyers that were buying from an estate. The final price included items like the washer/dryer, refrigerator, etc. The heirs wanted to keep other personal items (like furniture) that the buyers wanted. The Purchase and Sales agreement detailed all the minutia of the sale, and the buyers happily signed the Purchase and Sale agreement.

Prior to closing, I accompanied my buyer-clients to the final walk through. The wife, Elizabeth, was beside herself when she did not see the Peony plant by the front steps. She turned to me and asked what happened to the plant. Of course, I had no idea whether it was stolen by a plant thief or removed by the sellers, but it really didn’t matter because Elizabeth considered it a good luck omen when she saw on her first visit to the property. Now that omen was gone!

Whether it’s a Peony plant, lighting fixture, shed or stove, I’ve seen this story re-played numerous times. Sellers think that they can take what they want as long as they leave the house, and buyers expect that aside from furniture and art work, what they see is what they will get when they close.

A new report out today from Harvard researchers takes a look at the state of housing market.

And the study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies offers a reality check of sorts.

Sure, there are signs housing starts and sales are starting to stabilize.

But housing prices continue to decline and foreclosures are still on the rise in most areas.