Are you thinking about buying a foreclosure as an investment property and wondering how much the place might rent for in the open market?

Are you an owner whose house has been on the market so long that you would consider turning it into a rental if you knew how much it would bring in every month? Or are you a renter who doesn't want to pay more than you have to for a house in a nice neighborhood with good schools?

You can gather all this information and more at RentRange.com, a provider of single-family rental market intelligence that's little known outside the B2B world.

The site claims to be the nation's largest, most comprehensive rental data warehouse. It holds information on 20 million one- to four-family residences available for rent, including 13 million single-family houses, says CEO Wally Charnoff.

It delivers an assortment of geographical data, analytics and valuation services to financial institutions, asset managers and institutional investors, among other customers. But individuals also are welcome, and the first couple of reports are free.

After that, a basic report costs $6, and an advanced report costs $12. That could be money well spent if you are in the single-family rental market, either as an investor or a renter.

Say you are one of the millions of former owners who have been displaced by the housing market upheaval -- that's a nice way of saying that one way or another, you lost your house -- but don't want to slide all the way back to apartment renter status. You'd like to rent a house or town house but have no idea what a fair price would be in the area where you'd like to live.

At RentRange, you can plug in the address of the place you like best, plus basic information such as the number of bedrooms and baths, and a world of information pops up that can help you make the right decision.

A basic report will give you the high, low and median rents for the ZIP code, as well as the high, low and median rents nearby -- within a half-mile radius if the property is in the city, within one mile if it is in the suburbs and within 2.5 miles if it is in the country.

The core report also will show the average rental rate for similar properties in the area as compared with similar apartments, the average cost on a square-foot basis and the average cost of Section 8 subsidized properties. (Section 8 is a federal housing voucher program for low-income households.) And it will show the three closest rental comparables, plus the historical rental rates for the last 12 months.

Armed with this information, you can dicker with your prospective landlord by telling him his asking price is too high compared to similar rentals -- or tell him to take a hike. You can gobble up the place if the rent is set lower than it should be. Or you can simply look elsewhere.

An advanced report digs even deeper into the RentRange database. It locates the 10 closest matching properties instead of just three, plus it shows the vacancy rate in the area for similar properties and the percentage of houses in the area that are rentals vs. owner-occupied.

It also presents a rental rate change summary for the previous one, three and 12 months, and it gives a good, bad or indifferent rating for the area rental market.

The advanced report springs from a larger database of about 27 million addresses, going back 44 months. It is designed to help investors decide whether a market or subject property would be a good investment, Charnoff says. But the core report, which looks at the data on 65 percent to 70 percent of the single-family houses for rent nationwide, is "more than enough" for renters who are trying to figure out what they are going to pay, according to the CEO of the Westminster, Colo., company.

You can search the rental house market by location, such as city or town; the number of bedrooms and/or baths; or by property type, say, a stand-alone house or a unit in a four-family property. And of course you can search by price.

You also can filter places by whether they accept pets -- and if so, what kinds -- and whether they have a pool or even a hot tub.

"There are some pretty intuitive search features once you get into it," Charnoff says.

If you lost your home during the housing recession -- and have not completely soured on homeownership -- your ability to qualify for another mortgage may not be as compromised as you think.

It used to be that a bankruptcy, foreclosure or other major black mark on your credit record meant you could not hope to obtain financing to buy another house for seven years. Now, for the most part, the rules say you must wait just three years. Depending on the reason you lost your house, the wait could be even shorter.

Although financial difficulties remain part of your record forever, you can qualify for a mortgage as soon as 24 months after the fact if your issues were the result of "extenuating circumstances" over which you had no control.

These are "life-changing events that made it impossible" to continue making payments, explains Matt Kovach, product development manager at Envoy Mortgage in Houston. Job loss counts as such a circumstance, as does serious illness or the death of a wage earner. But divorce isn't considered a life event, at least not by lenders. Neither is a business failure or the fact that you were simply overwhelmed by too much credit.

Even if you suffered through a life event, you won't automatically qualify for a new loan after the required waiting period expires. You also have to demonstrate that you can handle credit and afford the payments.

"You need an extremely clean credit history after a significant derogatory event," Kovach says. "Poor credit is not a good indication you've learned from your mistakes."

One of the biggest missteps made by people who have had major credit issues is to close all their accounts and trade only in cash. While the idea seems sensible, especially if you fear finding yourself in the same difficulties again, you need to redevelop a good payment history to obtain a mortgage.

"There's nothing wrong with a cash-only mentality, but it makes it more difficult to qualify," Kovach says. "It's possible to develop an alternative credit report using your rent payments, utility bills and cellphone payments. But most lenders want to see trade lines and a credit score."

Within those parameters, the length of time that rebound buyers have to wait to obtain financing depends on the mortgage they are seeking. Generally, the wait is shorter with government-backed financing.

Take mortgages insured by the Department of Veterans Affairs, for example. Since the VA's rules do not specifically address short sales, it could be possible to obtain a VA-insured loan immediately after selling your house for less than the amount you owe on it. But as noted, you first will have to re-establish credit and then keep your nose clean.

If you declared bankruptcy under Chapter 13, the minimum wait for VA financing is just 12 months, as long as the bankruptcy trustee approves. If you declared a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the wait is usually 24 months, but it could be shorter with extenuating circumstances. It's the same two-year wait if you went through a foreclosure or handed the lender your deed in lieu of a foreclosure.

Since VA loans are only for armed forces veterans and service personnel, most people who have suffered a major financial setback look for loans with low down payments insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

The FHA has essentially the same rules as the VA regarding bankruptcies -- at least one year for Chapter 13 and two (or less) for Chapter 7. However, the wait is at least three years if you went through a short sale or foreclosure, or if you handed the keys back to your lender to avoid a foreclosure. If there were documentable extenuating circumstances, the waits could be shorter.

For conventional loans -- these days, that essentially means mortgages purchased by either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac -- the waiting times are tiered.

For example, borrowers who suffered a life event must re-establish credit for 24 months after a short sale, a Freddie Mac spokesman says. If there are no extenuating circumstances, that kicks it up to 48 months.

Here's what Freddie Mac's guidelines say when the borrower's financial issues were due to his mismanagement: An acceptable credit reputation must be re-established for at least 84 months if he was foreclosed upon, 60 months if he filed more than one bankruptcy petition in the past seven years, 48 months after the discharge or dismissal of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and 48 months after conveyance of a deed in lieu of foreclosure or a short payoff related to a delinquent mortgage.

The wait also is 48 months for all other significant adverse or derogatory credit information. But it is just 24 months from the discharge date of a Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

If extenuating circumstances can be shown, and if there is evidence on the credit report that the borrower has re-established an acceptable credit reputation, he still will have to wait 36 months if he went through a foreclosure or filed more than one bankruptcy petition in the past seven years.

But the wait is just 24 months if his bankruptcy was discharged or dismissed, if he went through a short sale or deed-in-lieu, or if he suffered another significant adverse or derogatory credit event.

Public companies aren't the only ones that have to be concerned about quiet periods. So do mortgage borrowers.

In the world of finance, "quiet period" refers to the few weeks immediately before companies report their earnings when they are not allowed to say anything. In the mortgage world, it's the time after borrowers are approved for financing but before they close on their loans.

During that period, borrowers shouldn't do anything that might damage their credit scores or change their debt-to-income (DTI) ratios. Loan officers warn borrowers to "lay low" for a few weeks and not do anything dumb. But even so, according to a recent report from Equifax, almost one in five borrowers opens at least one new "trade line" during the quiet period.

Many borrowers don't understand that opening new credit accounts can severely impair their chances of closing. After all, lives go on. Borrowers still have to use credit cards to buy gas, clothing for the kids and maybe even an occasional meal out.

Traditional underwriting guidelines and ratios take into account everyday living with existing credit lines. But they do not consider new accounts or major purchases of such big-ticket items as automobiles, furniture or even boats. Sometimes folks even try to take out other mortgages.

Lenders look at this as undisclosed debt. And since it can push credit scores and debt-to-income ratios to levels well beyond what lenders now find acceptable, most lenders monitor borrowers by pulling a new credit report immediately before closing.

Lenders have never reported their quiet time findings. But Equifax analyzed two extensive database samples -- one of 110,000 anonymous mortgage applicants, and another of 105,000 mortgage borrowers from a major residential lender. What it found was not only surprising, the credit information repository says in its white paper, but also "disturbing."

It turns out that a significant number of borrowers do stupid things. It's no wonder that in German, the word for "quiet period" is usually translated as "silly season."

Equifax found that one in every eight borrowers obtains new credit during the weeks it takes to close their home loans. While "most trade lines are not worrisome because most borrowers do not use the available credit," the company says, 20 percent of mortgage applicants who acquire new credit incur immediate installment obligations.

The analysis also revealed that the average monthly payment of a single new, undisclosed debt was $251. In one-third of the instances where one new credit account was opened, the borrower's DTI ratio increased by at least 3 percentage points, the amount that lenders consider the line in the sand.

The DTI ratios of 60 percent of the borrowers who opened two new accounts rose by 3 percentage points or more. And the ratios of nearly 80 percent of borrowers rose 3 percentage points or more when they opened three trade lines.

Say you buy a new television set. That's not unusual, but if you buy it on time, according to Equifax, your typical new monthly recurring debt would be $26, and you'd need $867 in "new" income to keep from exceeding the DTI tolerance.

If you also open a new credit account to buy furniture, your average payment might be $100, for which you'd need $3,333 in new income to absorb the new payment without setting off an alarm with the mortgage company. If you also purchase that hot new convertible you've always wanted, your payment would run $447 on average, and you'd need $14,900 more in income to keep from going beyond the DTI benchmark.

Buy those three things -- a new TV, furniture and a car -- and you'd need $19,100 in extra income to remain within acceptable underwriting rules. Not many borrowers can do that.

It's no wonder that lenders now monitor the quiet period. Investors -- the entities that purchase mortgages from primary lenders -- and banking regulators are watching, too.

For example, Fannie Mae now requires the lenders from which it buys loans to verify that borrowers have not incurred new debts and liabilities, review their DTI ratios and requalify those who obtained additional credit before closing. If the DTI ratio rises by 3 percentage points or more, lenders are required to completely re-underwrite the file.

If lenders fail to take these steps and borrowers default, lenders will be required to repurchase the loans. That's the last thing lenders want, so they are being extremely careful.

Again, most pull a last-minute credit report -- aka a "pre-close report," "compare report" or "look-back report" -- to make sure nothing has changed. As an alternative, Equifax is offering a new service -- the reason for the white paper -- that continuously monitors credit inquiries, as well as new accounts and monthly payments as they occur during the closing process.

Lenders who use the ongoing service can receive daily alerts, often in plenty of time to meet with the borrower and change the terms of the loan, gather additional documentation to satisfy underwriters or craft "another resolution."

According to Equifax, the average borrower who opens a new credit account does so 28 days before closing on his mortgage. That gives the lender and borrower four weeks to put their heads together and figure something out.

The choice is easy, says Greg Holmes of Credit Plus, a credit reporting agency that offers the Equifax tool to lenders: "Lenders can either address undisclosed debt in a timely fashion or go through a fire drill 72 hours prior to closing."