In the 1970s, clothing shoppers were advised in a popular advertising jingle from the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union to "look for the union label." In that same spirit, anyone shopping for an energy-efficient home today would be well-advised to look for the sky-blue Energy Star label.

No disrespect toward LEED, Energy Performance and GreenPoint, all of which are fine rating systems in their own right, but Energy Star seems to have become most popular among homebuilders looking to differentiate themselves from the competition. More important, Energy Star provides a way for consumers to compare one home against another.

"Every home we build from coast to coast is a 100 percent Energy Star-certified home," says C.R. Herro, vice president of environmental affairs at Meritage Homes, one of the country's largest builders. Pulte and K.B. Home are other big Energy Star builders.

Energy Star is "the most recognizable and meaningful" of the energy performance labels, says Gene Myers, chief executive officer of New Town Builders in Denver. "We've looked at them all and gave up on all of them except Energy Star. It proves our homes cost less to operate."

To Rene Oehlerking of Garbett Homes, which builds in Utah, Wyoming and Idaho, Energy Star is "a no-brainer."

"Consumers can really see the dollars they are saving," Oehlerking says.

Energy Star is a joint program of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy that helps consumers identify energy-efficient products. To earn a coveted Energy Star certification, a new home built today must include features that make it at least 15 percent more efficient than homes built solely to the 2009 model energy building code, otherwise known as the International Energy Conservation Code.

Pasted to the home's electrical box, the Energy Star label is loaded with important information, including annual usage estimates for electricity, natural gas and CO2 emissions. It also projects the owner's yearly energy savings. But for most buyers, the key is the HERS rating.

HERS stands for Home Energy Rating System. It has been around since 1995, when a group of mortgage lenders, state energy officials and Energy Rated Homes of America created the Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET). Along with creating HERS, the independent nonprofit network is dedicated to creating a market for home energy ratings and to training independent contractors to rate homes fairly and consistently.

Myers, the Denver builder, compares the HERS rating to the miles-per-gallon sticker on new automobiles. With cars, though, you want a higher number, while with houses, you are better served with a lower number.

The HERS rating system runs from 150 to zero. A home built 20 years ago might earn a 133 rating, whereas a more efficient house built 10 years ago might receive a 123 rating.

The standard new home, built to the 2009 IECC with no special energy features, would rate a 100, says Steve Baden, executive director of the San Diego-based RESNET. The HERS score drops if builders do anything more than what is required in the way of energy efficiency.

Each one-point decrease in the HERS index corresponds to a 1 percent reduction in energy consumption. Houses with a 72 rating are 28 percent more efficient than a standard house; a house with a 50 rating would be 50 percent more efficient; and one with a zero rating would be 100 percent more efficient.

Myers says his company's homes are consistently in the 40s, which means they are super-efficient. To see how his homes measure up to the competition, buyers can simply compare New Town's HERS scores with those of other builders.

"All you have to do," Myers says, "is say, 'Show me your HERS score.'"

Unfortunately, not all builders' homes are rated by a RESNET-trained energy auditor. That's becoming less of a problem, however. Last year, according to Baden of RESNET, about 40 percent of all new homes sold carried a HERS rating. "We have gone from certifying a few hundred homes (a decade ago) to 120,000 in 2011," he says.

In June, Meritage, the big builder based in Scottsdale, Ariz., built the 1 millionth house rated by a HERS technician. "We use HERS scores because they allow customers to make substantive comparisons in an apple-to-apple way. If you build something better, you need to validate it and then convert it to currency," says Herro of Meritage.

"We've staked our future on HERS," adds Oehlerking, the marketing director at Garbett Homes. So have members of the Lexington, Ky., homebuilders association, which last month signed a memorandum of understanding with RESNET committing to encourage every member to participate in the Energy Star program.

All Energy Star homes are now constructed with a complete thermal enclosure system for comfort and lower utility bills, an HVAC system designed and installed for optimal performance and a comprehensive water management system to protect the building envelope from moisture intrusion.

Incidentally, an energy rating is not the same as an energy audit. An audit, or assessment, pinpoints where and how a home loses energy, which systems are working inefficiently, and the cost-effective measures that can be taken to improve performance. A rating, on the other hand, provides an analysis on how efficiently a home operates compared with other houses.

WASHINGTON -- Investors know a good thing when they see one. That's why they are lining up in droves to get their hands on thousands of government-held problem loans and foreclosures under Uncle Sam's mortgage-to-own initiative.

The deal makes sense for the government and investors, most of them private investment funds. The government moves its bad FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans off its books, while investors have an opportunity to buy these assets at a deep, deep discount.

The investors will work the bad loans, trying to get people to pay. But if they can't, owners will be offered the option of staying on as renters instead of moving out. Nonpaying "guests" who haven't made a mortgage payment in months also will be offered the opportunity to remain as renters.

It's all designed to clear the "shadow" inventory that hangs over the housing market, create something of a floor for home prices and push the market back into gear. Even lenders are getting in on the act, allowing at-risk borrowers to remain as tenants as an alternative to foreclosure.

But is mortgage-to-lease a good option for consumers? As usual, it depends.

Certainly it is a more compassionate option for financially strapped owners, who can use the tool to move on with whatever dignity they have left. They can rent their homes rather than move out.

If, after a few years, they straighten out their credit records and get back on their feet financially, perhaps they can buy back their homes. If they still can't afford the place, perhaps they can find something else they can afford, or move to another rental.

But renters beware. There could be pitfalls:

-- Under what terms can you repurchase the house? It's impossible to say what the place will be worth in the future, so setting a price now is probably out of the question. But the contract needs to contain some kind of formula for determining the eventual selling price. Whether you and the landlord agree that the selling price will be a certain percentage of a future appraised value or come up with some other way to determine the price, you need to decide on the method upfront and get it in writing.

-- What are the terms of the lease? Obviously, the length of the lease is a major factor. A year may not give you enough time to get back on your feet.

Bank of America's pilot program in Arizona, Nevada and New York allows delinquent borrowers to remain in their homes up to three years. Under the more conventional House-to-Home lease-to-own program operated by Landsmith, a San Francisco-based real estate fund, tenants have six years to complete the deal.

Another key clause: Will the rent increase from year to year? If so, by how much or what percentage?

-- What kind of fees will be involved? Will you be required to put down a security deposit? Will there be an exit fee?

Also, will any part of your rent be counted toward the down payment or purchase price if you decide to buy back your place? In a typical rent-to-own program, a portion of the rent is set aside as the tenant's equity in the place. But that might not be the case in a mortgage-to-lease program, or the set-aside might be an add-on.

-- Who will manage the property? Who will be responsible for maintenance and upkeep, and who will be responsible for major repairs?

Judging by the problems some jurisdictions have had with getting lenders to maintain their REO, or real estate owned (a euphemism for foreclosures), banks have not been very good at property management.

James Breitenstein at Landsmith says that is changing. "Expertise in (property management) is coming up very quickly," he says.

But still, it's not like the houses involved in a rent-to-own program will be side-by-side in a single development. Rather, the properties will be scattered across a large geographic area, making them more expensive to run. So it may prove difficult to get a faulty water heater or broken window replaced.

-- Will the investor sell the home to another, possibly less benevolent, investor? While investors tend to buy and hold, hoping the property will increase in value, lenders who offer mortgage-to-lease programs probably will want out as soon as possible.

Once lenders "stabilize" the property with a qualified renter, they will want to cut their losses and run. So you want to make sure that any subsequent owners will be bound by the terms of your lease.

-- Will you continue to owe any part of your outstanding loan balance? In return for being allowed to remain in the house as a tenant, you will be required to sign over title to the property. It's a cleaner break than an eviction, or even simply handing the keys and deed back to the lender and moving out.

But will the investor forgive what you owed on your mortgage? How much -- all or just a portion? And under what terms will you have to pay back the rest?

"Why would anyone consider participating in a mortgage-to-lease program unless their mortgage debt was completely canceled?" says Joe Buczkowski of LeaseRunner, a Web application that combines leasing and rent collection into one paperless process.

Realize, too, that any amount of mortgage debt that is forgiven is considered taxable income by the IRS. Under the Debt Relief Act of 2007, you can exclude as income up to $2 million in canceled debt. But the exclusion expires at the end of the year, and as of now, there seems to be no appetite in Congress to extend it.

-- What is your exit strategy? If you opt to remain as a tenant, the experts agree that you should plan for the worst, just in case. Use your time as a renter to save as much money as you can. That will allow you to make a smoother transition into new digs if you have to move on or put more cash into repurchasing your home.

"Start saving now," advises Alex Matjanec of MyBankTracker.com, a consumer-centric website that brings transparency to the often clandestine banking world.

There's no question that the Internet has changed the way most people shop for homes. You can find houses online, take a virtual look around and plot their locations in relation to your kids' schools, the church of your choice or even your favorite coffeehouse.

Now the Web is taking it up a notch with software that allows new homebuyers to "build" their dream house. You can pick our your favorite lot, choose from several models and customize the place to your heart's content, all while sitting at your computer.

Then you can print out the final results, take them to the sales office and you're off and running.

Not every builder offers customization portals. In fact, they are far from universal. But enough companies are starting to adopt the concept that it is becoming a trend.

While online simulators like Blu Homes' 3-D Configurator or Kova Solution's WebPro aren't likely to replace honest-to-goodness model homes, at least not altogether, they seem destined to change the way builders operate. After all, research shows that today's buyers, especially the younger ones, want an interactive experience.

Blu Homes, a builder of novel modular homes, is no stranger to innovation. The company ships its products anywhere in the country from its factory in Vallejo, Calif. The modules are 8 feet wide instead of the standard 13, so shipping costs are much cheaper than conventional, wide-load sectionalized houses. The modules are also built on sturdy steel frames and unfold when they arrive to 19 feet, with ceilings as high as 16 feet. Each section comes almost completely finished, including plumbing and electrical systems, and they are assembled by Blu's own construction crews.

But even more inventive is the software the company employs that allows would-be buyers to pick and personalize any of its seven precision-built models. Blu's realistic, three-dimensional configurator is very similar to the software used by such elite industrial giants as Ford and Boeing, according to co-founder Maura McCarthy.

"We are a technology company that builds houses," says McCarthy, who was trained as an economist at Georgetown University and has worked with Alan Greenspan. "Boeing used to build test planes. Now it builds virtual test planes, and we do the same thing with our houses."

With the configurator, you can change finishes, appliances, cabinets, hardware, countertops, window treatments, lighting packages and flooring, all until you find exactly what you are looking for.

Several more traditional "stick" builders are using similar software.

S&A Homes of State College, Pa., uses interactive smartPLAN technology developed by San Francisco-based Graphic Languages. The system allows users to pick a community, pick a house and then make changes, such as adding a fireplace or extending the breakfast room.

The program, which even lets you virtually furnish bedrooms, living rooms and dining rooms, "has been very, very popular; very successful for us," says Ashleigh Shetler, head of marketing for S&A.

Oakwood Homes in Denver, American West Development in Las Vegas and Hayden Homes in the Pacific Northwest are among a handful of builders that use Kova's end-to-end software system. It guides buyers through product and community options, including selecting the site, plotting the house, picking the elevation, making changes and selecting upgrades. It even allows you to pick a color scheme.

"Our homebuyers are fully involved in the customization process," says Kendra Saffle of American West.

Not only does the interface allow you to see floor plans and elevations, but it also tracks which options interfere with others. You might not be able to select a second-floor bonus room, for example, if you've picked a vaulted ceiling for the room below.

"This technology ensures that the options the buyers choose are compatible with the homes they have picked," says Ray Appel, senior IT manager at Oakwood.

And it is completely mobile, available anytime from a smartphone or iPad. That view-it-anywhere flexibility can benefit both buyers and sellers. America West almost lost a deal when a long-distance buyer could not envision the plan he wanted being flipped around, but when he was able to see the reverse plan of the house online, the sale was saved.

Once you've settled on your dream house, you can print out a brochure and take it to the sales office, where an agent has already been assigned to you. Here, your house, just as you picked it, becomes a contract and then a sales order that is the basis for estimating, bidding, purchasing and scheduling, so there is less room for errors along the line.

The program follows the sale all the way through to customer service warranty work after you've moved in.

If there is a drawback with virtual homebuilding, it's that some builders fail to include pricing. Kova says its clients purposefully leave out prices for competitive reasons. But truth be told, they want you in their sales office before they talk about costs.

S&A, the Pennsylvania-based builder, shows base prices only. You'll have to talk to a live person to price any changes. Blu, on the other hand, is completely transparent, showing not just base prices but how the cost changes with each and every item that is moved, selected or deleted.

But buyer beware: Playing around online could be costly. Blu's McCarthy says that buyers are spending $25,000-$50,000 more per house ever since real-time pricing was implemented. Why?

"Because when they control it," she said, "they feel more comfortable with it."