When it comes to the little things that sellers do to make their homes stand out from the competition, a new splash of paint is usually at the top of the list. Sprucing up the front yard and removing the clutter you have learned to live with over the years also rank high.

But the No. 1 step you can take, according to a recent survey of real estate agents, is cleaning the place from top to bottom. Spending a few hundred bucks for cleaning supplies, rolling up your sleeves and getting to work will pay huge dividends, dollar for dollar, according to nearly all the 500 agents who participated in the HomeGain poll.

Actually, cleaning has ranked as the top home improvement suggested by realty professionals ever since HomeGain began asking the question in 2003. In the latest survey, the agents said spending $400 on cleaning is likely to gain sellers $2,000 more at closing. That's a 400 percent return on investment.

Of course, there is clean and then there is really CLEAN! Here are some tips gleaned mainly from the folks at The Maids, a residential cleaning service with about 150 franchises in 40 states, with suggestions from Mary Moppins thrown in for good measure:

-- You may not look up when you walk around your house, but would-be buyers do. They look everywhere, so knock down any cobwebs, clean the blades on the ceiling fans and remove the dust that has built up on the top of window and door frames, as well as other places it tends to accumulate.

Now look down and clean your baseboards.

-- Wash the windows, inside and out. Professional house cleaner Mary Findley, aka the aforementioned Mary Moppins, cleans windows with a 32-ounce spray bottle filled with 1/3 cup white vinegar, 1/4 cup rubbing alcohol and the rest distilled water.

For best results, wash on a cloudy day. Sunlight dries the glass quickly, causing streaks.

-- You'll want to shower your place with light to show it off, especially at night, so remove the bugs that have accumulated in your light fixtures and clean the glass. Replace the bulbs with new ones. That way, Findley says, you won't have a burnout during a showing.

-- Clean the stove and oven. If you have burner drip trays, replace them. The cost is minimal, and they will make the range sparkle. As an alternative, Findley suggests placing dirty drip pans in a plastic bag with a 50/50 mixture of water and ammonia. Let sit for a day, then scour and rinse.

Don't overlook the range hood -- not just the top, but also underneath where grease tends to accumulate. Spray foaming tile and tub cleaner, wait a few minutes and wipe.

-- Window treatments tend to trap dust and odors. Dry-clean or at least vacuum drapes. Roll up blinds to remove them. Then loosen and wash in a tub of warm, soapy water with a cup of white vinegar. Rinse and lay flat on a towel outside to dry.

Alternatively, hang the blinds outside with the slats facing down. Spray from bottom to top with foaming tub and tile cleaner, a Findley favorite. Sponge off with water, then flip them over, turn the slats in the other direction and repeat. "Sparkling blinds in 15 minutes," Findley says.

-- Eliminate lingering odors in the dishwasher by running it with a couple tablespoons of Tang, the powdered breakfast drink.

-- Decluttering goes along with cleaning. Since lookers will peer in your kitchen cabinets and drawers, take everything out, pack away what you're not using and neatly restack what's left -- but not before wiping the shelves and drawers clean.

-- Cabinet doors don't need to be replaced or resurfaced, just cleaned, Findley says. Start with a wood cleaner to deep-clean the doors, than apply a wood restorer to replenish the finish.

-- Shampoo carpets and then vacuum daily. "Nothing screams 'clean' like visible carpet pile lines," according to The Maids.

Wood and tile floors should be mopped. Clean the grout, too. If your linoleum floor no longer holds a shine, strip it with a janitorial-grade wax remover and redo with janitorial non-yellowing wax, which Findley says holds up longer than most store waxes. That way, if it takes longer than expected to sell, at least you won't have to rewax.

-- In the bathroom, clean showers, sinks and tubs. Remove hard-water spots and soap scum by spraying them with undiluted, heated white vinegar. Let soak 15 minutes before scrubbing.

Alternatively, Findley suggests applying a concentrated orange-based cleaner full-strength. Give it at least an hour to dissolve soap residue. Then use a white scrub pad -- only white; any other color will scratch the surface -- to remove the buildup.

-- To get rid of water rings in the toilet bowl, drain the bowl and saturate several heavy-duty shop paper towels with either orange cleaner or white vinegar. Plaster the sides of the bowl with the towels and let sit for several hours. For a quicker solution, try the stuff you use to clean tile grout.

-- Wash shower curtains and liners. Wash glass doors as you would showers and tubs above. Treat fiberglass walls with a Molly Moppins product called Gel Gloss, available in the bathtub section of hardware stores.

Hit mildew with straight hydrogen peroxide as opposed to bleach, the fumes of which can be overpowering in small spaces.

-- Walls and ceilings should be dusted. For textured surfaces and rough wood, slip three lint roller tubes over a paint roller and roll.

-- Wipe down front and back doors, including screens. Remove oil spots from garage floor and driveway. Polish doorknobs, hinges and drawer handles, and clean your trash cans.

Thinking about fudging on your application for a mortgage?

Maybe inflating your income a tad? Checking the box to indicate you're going to live there when you're really not? Exaggerating your job description?

Don't.

Not long ago, people could get away with little white lies like these to obtain financing. But not anymore.

Nowadays, the tools are in place to nab fibbers who just want to buy a house, as well as out-and-out perjurers looking to bilk lenders out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

There are "more fraud checks than ever, and it's on every loan, not just a sample," says David Kittle, a former lender from Kentucky who chaired the Mortgage Bankers Association in 2009.

More important, perhaps, the focus now is on preventing fraud rather than dealing with it after the fact. "The responsibility for catching fraud is definitely moving up the loan production chain," says Bruce Backer, president of LoanSifter, a pricing engine that lenders use to make sure they comply with federal regulations.

"If we let the money go out the door," adds David Montoya, inspector general at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, "we're pretty much chasing the wind."

Sometimes the fraud check is as simple as a quick call to the customer right before the loan is closed to verify information supplied on the loan application. Such a call to an otherwise unsuspecting borrower can sometimes uncover a lie perpetrated by a corrupt loan officer who's in it for the commission -- or more.

"Nobody wants anyone else to talk to their customers, but we do it in a conversational, nonconfrontational way," says Kittle, who now works for IMARC, a firm based in Santa Ana, Calif., that provides post-funding quality control audit services.

If the chat goes something like this -- "Are you borrowing $500,000?" "No, I want to borrow only $300,000," or "Do you earn $200,000?" "No, I make only $100,000" -- the auditor can stop the process in its tracks. You don't get tagged as a con artist, the dishonest loan originator and his cohorts don't fatten their wallets and the lender doesn't lose any money.

In other cases, lenders are using sophisticated databanks to spot the crooks. "There's a tremendous wealth of data being deployed," says Becky Walzak, a quality assurance consultant based in Deerfield Beach, Fla. "There are tons of databases available to validate the information you give us."

For example, one website provides salary data on the type of work you do so the lender can determine if you are overstating your income. If you say you earn $250,000 a year but the site indicates the typical wage for your position in your town is just half that, it's a red flag that something might be amiss.

Another site provides historical wage data, and yet another checks the information supplied by self-employed borrowers, including whether the borrower's company exists, who the principals are, the number of employees and the annual revenues.

"You can't lie about income anymore," says Walzak. "There are too many ways we can find out whether or not you are telling the truth."

There also are sites that will tell lenders whether there are judgments against you or liens against other properties you might own, while others reveal the number of properties you own, when you bought them and for how much. And there are systems available to review appraisals to spot inflated valuations.

Platinum Data Solutions in Aliso Viejo, Calif., offers lenders a comprehensive review and valuation system that, among other things, looks for hidden relationships between the buyer and seller. CEO Phil Huff says he's working on a program that will search out collusion between real estate agents, loan officers, appraisers, title attorneys and others in the lending food chain.

In addition, Fred Melgaard, executive vice president of DRI Management Systems in Newport Beach, Calif., says his firm has plans to offer scorecards on all vendors and service providers, including individual appraisers and real estate agents. And that's on top of real-time -- less than 60 seconds -- credit reports, automated bankruptcy notices and up-to-the minute lien watch services that let lenders know what you may be doing with other lenders.

"If you shine enough light in the little dark corners, the cockroaches will run," Melgaard says.

Even the Internal Revenue Service is getting into the act. The IRS already electronically delivers copies of would-be borrowers' tax returns to lenders so they can verify incomes. Soon the agency will be speeding up the process -- and making it more secure -- by switching to e-signatures and eliminating the paper version of the form borrowers sign that allows lenders access to their records.

None of this is to say that mortgage fraud is being eradicated. Hardly. The FBI pegs the cost of mortgage fraud at roughly $3 billion a year. And that's a "very conservative" figure of the losses to lenders and investors, concedes Christa Greco, a senior intelligence analyst at the agency.

At the same time, though, the most recent figures from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network indicate that lenders are becoming more adept at uncovering fraudulent loans before putting them on their books. Indeed, in 40 percent of the suspicious activity reports submitted to the network in fiscal 2011, the lender turned down the applicant -- whether it was for a new mortgage, a refinancing or a short sale -- because it smelled fraud.

So again, a word to the wise: Don't lie, even a little. Lenders don't catch everybody, but they are getting better at sniffing out fraud. And the next one they nab could be you.

Anyone who has ever fought with a lender over a "lost" or misapplied house payment should be heartened by the latest news from the new federal mortgage industry watchdog.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to propose a straightforward approach to loan administration that should benefit consumers and "servicers," which are the firms that loan owners hire to collect payments, disburse taxes and insurance, and chase after delinquent borrowers.

The fledgling bureau, which is not yet a year old, will propose the new rules this summer and expects to put them in place in January. Servicers could be given up to a year to make the final rules a part of their routine, which means consumers may not see the benefits until about January 2014.

For some, though, that can't come soon enough.

"For too long, mortgage servicers have not been held accountable to their customers, and the result has been profoundly punishing to homeowners in distress," said Richard Cordray, the former Ohio attorney general who heads the young agency. "It's time to put the 'service' back in mortgage servicing."

Even before the housing crisis and mortgage meltdown, consumers reported issues with sloppy record-keeping and unresponsive servicers. And because lenders, not homeowners, choose the servicers, those companies had little incentive to actually serve borrowers.

If the servicer is indifferent to your problem, the results can be disastrous. It can harm your credit, obliterate your finances and possibly even lead to foreclosure, all through no fault of your own.

The rules the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is considering are aimed at tackling what it sees as two underlying issues -- the lack of transparency and the lack of accountability. Its goal is "no surprises." Borrowers, the bureau believes, should not be kept in the dark, nor should they be given the runaround.

Here's a brief look at what the agency has in mind:

-- Understandable monthly statements: Servicers would be required to provide regular statements with the payment broken down by principal, interest and any fees and escrows. It also would state the amount due and the due date for the next payment. For delinquent borrowers, statements also would have to include alerts and information about financial counseling agencies.

-- Rate adjustment warnings: If the loan has an interest rate that can change occasionally or regularly, the servicer would be required to provide advance disclosures and offer a list of alternatives the borrower can pursue if the new payment will be unaffordable.

-- Insurance options: Servicers are responsible for ensuring that adequate fire insurance is maintained on the mortgaged property. If it isn't, they have every right to purchase coverage to protect the collateral. This is known as "force-placed" insurance, and it is typically more expensive -- often much more expensive -- than a borrower can purchase on his own.

Consequently, the bureau is looking at a rule that would require servicers to give advance notices and pricing information before charging consumers for coverage.

-- Foreclosure options: Servicers would be required to make good-faith attempts to contact delinquent homeowners and inform them of the options available to avoid even deeper delinquency and foreclosure. And if borrowers contact the servicer because they are having financial issues, the servicers would have to provide timely, complete and accurate information about options.

To make sure servicers are held accountable if borrowers are not treated fairly, the consumer protection bureau is considering these rules for handling customer accounts:

-- Servicers would have to credit accounts promptly. While this should not be an issue, many consumers have complained that payments haven't been credited to their accounts until after the normal five- or 10-day grace period has expired. Such a practice makes the payment late and requires the borrower to ante up a significant late fee.

-- Servicers would be required to set reasonable policies and procedures to minimize errors, prevent the "loss" of documents, provide accurate information to borrowers and help resolve errors.

If you believe there has been an error with your account, for example, your servicer would be required to acknowledge your inquiry, conduct an investigation and inform you of how it intends to resolve the problem -- all within a reasonable time frame.

-- Servicers would have to provide delinquent borrowers -- or those asking for help to avoid being late -- with direct, easy and ongoing access to employees who are dedicated and empowered to help troubled borrowers.

The agency plans to engage extensively with consumers and the industry to further develop these and other rules to address servicing issues. If you would like to offer your two cents' worth, find the "Tell Your Story" tab on the agency's website, www.consumerfinance.gov, or write the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, P.O. Box 4503, Iowa City, Iowa 52244.