Homebuilders are fighting back!

For as long as there have been hammers and nails, builders have waged the battle for customers among themselves, all but ignoring existing homes as true competitors. But now, with many markets still flooded by foreclosures and with the possibility that millions of wannabe sellers will list their properties once the logjam of distressed properties finally clears, builders across the country are about to change their strategy.

Starting next month, a group of perhaps 1,000 or more builders will launch a multiyear, multimillion-dollar, multifaceted advertising campaign aimed at persuading potential purchasers that new is better than used.

Not that it will take much arm-twisting. Research by Builder Homesite Inc. (BHI), a group of like-minded large builders that came together a dozen years ago to try to figure out how to sell more effectively, shows that a solid 19 percent of all homebuyers already believe new is better. An additional 35 percent are agnostics who don't have a preference one way or the other.

"That's a much larger share than we thought," says Keith Guyett, vice president of marketing with BHI, which is owned by a consortium of 32 of the nation's largest builders. If builders were able to sign just one out of every five of those buyers, they'd be selling 900,000 houses a year.

As it is, builders accounted for just a 7 percent market share last year, which equates to fewer than 400,000 sales.

Tim Costello, CEO of Builder Homesite Inc., says builders' wounds are largely "self-inflicted."

"It's not that people aren't buying; it's that they are buying existing homes," he says. "It's not a demand problem; it's a marketing and messaging problem."

The goal, then, is to "change the search path" by creating advertising around quantitative research that shows, among other things, that the quality of new construction is better, that new neighborhoods are safer and that new homes have better floor plans, cost less per square foot and are less expensive to maintain.

"We're not trying to convince more people to buy," says Guyett. "We just want our share. And we think we can really move the needle if we concentrate on the 35 percent of the market that is indifferent and forget the 46 percent who think existing homes are better."

The coming ad campaign is labeled "Start Fresh, Buy New." But in that the campaign will emphasize the notion that owners of spanking-new houses will enjoy the freedom to do more of the things they want in life, you could call it the "Got Milk?" campaign for the new-home market.

"We're trying to make the 'joy gap' as wide as possible," says Guyett, tossing out such catchphrases as "Everything Is New and Perfect" and "Do the Things You Want to Do, Not Have to Do."

With a new home, "You can be the first and only one to soak in your whirlpool tub or lie on your carpet," says Guyett.

His boss is a little more graphic. "People don't want to sit on someone else's toilet seat," Costello says. "Or pick someone else's toenails out of the carpet."

Will it work? Can builders pull together to speak in one voice while still drawing important distinctions between their own particular models?

BHI thinks so, if only because it plans to enlist the aid of local brokers and agents, the real estate professionals who hold sway over the vast majority of would-be buyers.

Research shows that 84 percent of all buyers are either working with an agent or plan to engage an agent to help find a house and negotiate terms. But for one reason or another, agents tend to be a thorn in the side of most builders. Until recent years, most builders were reluctant to pay agents full commissions. Agents aren't particularly fond of builders, either, largely because they lose control of the process when a builder is involved.

Either way, says Guyett, 84 percent is "a statistic we can't ignore."

The research shows that agents want to sell new homes and have better relationships with builders. But they need more information, information that often can't be found in the local multiple listing service because homes can't be listed until they are finished, floor plans can't be shown, and community information can't be listed at all.

So, as part of the "Start Fresh" campaign, BHI plans to engage realty pros more deeply and give them the education and knowledge they need to sell new homes against their normal bread-and-butter inventory of existing houses.

Will it work? A pilot effort conducted in Phoenix last fall to test BHI theories indicates it will. "The response has been phenomenal," Costello says. "In seven days, we fundamentally changed the relationship between builders and agents" and new vs. used.

Homeowners will see increases in the rates they pay for flood insurance soon, if they haven't already, with owners of vacation homes seeing the biggest jump. But that isn't reason enough to drop coverage. Flood insurance is one of the best deals going.

Though floods can bring walls of water 20 feet high, even a few inches of water can cause thousands of dollars in damage. Between 2007 and 2011, the average flood claim fielded by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was nearly $30,000. The cost of the typical flood policy is about $625 a year.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that your homeowner's policy has you covered, or that a flood won't happen to you. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which operates the flood insurance program, flooding occurs practically every day, practically everywhere. And it is costly, racking up $2.9 billion in losses between 2002 and 2011.

Fact is, flooding is the nation's most common natural disaster. About 90 percent of all disasters in the U.S. involve flooding, and flash floods happen in all 50 states.

In areas prone to flooding, there is a 26 percent chance a homeowner will be hit by a flood of some kind at least once during the life of a 30-year mortgage. And flood damage can just as easily result from overburdened or clogged drainage systems and drainage from new development as from major storms.

"New roads and housing developments reduce the land's natural ability to absorb water," says The Woodlands, Texas, insurance agent Gordy Bunch. "Runoff can multiply as much as six times when the land is paved over."

Just because your house lies in the 100-year flood plain doesn't mean your home is safe for the next so-many years, either. That's a common misconception that lulls people into a false sense of security, says Bunch, whose agency, The Woodlands Financial Group, has been recognized by FEMA for its work with flood insurance.

"The 100-year flood plain simply means your home or business has a 1 percent chance of flooding every year," the insurance pro says, "not once in every 100 years."

Another common misunderstanding about flood coverage, particularly among new owners, is that standard homeowner policies cover homes for flood damage. They do not. So if your home is damaged by a hurricane, tropical storm or even heavy rains, you are not covered unless you have a separate flood policy.

Every inch of the country is mapped into one of two risk-based flood zones. By law, federally regulated and insured lenders must require flood coverage on properties in high-risk areas, where there's a 1 percent or greater chance of flooding in any given year. Lenders must tell you whether the property is in a high- or low-risk area.

Lenders typically do not require coverage on properties in low- to moderate-risk areas. But coverage is still recommended; one in five claims come from folks outside a high-risk zone.

Fortunately, everyone -- even renters and business owners -- can buy a flood policy. The lone caveat is that the property must be in a community that participates in the NFIP, which Congress created in 1968 to fill a void in coverage that most private companies would not offer. About 20,000 communities participate.

There's no need to shop for flood insurance. The NFIP sets all the rates, which factor in location, structure type and whether the property has a basement. But rates are rising.

Under 2012 legislation that reauthorized and reformed the underfunded program, owners who have paid subsidized rates for second homes, business properties and properties that have incurred repeated and severe losses must now pay the full actuarial cost of the insurance. Rates for these properties will increase by no more than 25 percent a year until the premium meets the full cost.

Rates that other policyholders pay are rising, too. The bill raised the ceiling on premium rate increases from 10 percent to 20 percent. And it requires that premiums on new policies for properties not currently covered be based on actuarial rates.

According to the new law, premiums on any property located within an NFIP-participating area must accurately reflect the current risk of flooding. But throw up your hands in frustration; that determination won't be made until the effective date of any revised or updated flood insurance rate map.

Also, any increase in the risk premium will be phased in over five years, at a rate of 20 percent a year. Ditto for properties located in an area not previously designated as one with special flood hazards; the premium will be phased in over five years at 20 percent per year, following the effective date of the remapping.

While last summer's legislation calls for higher rates, it allows policyholders who are not required by their lenders to have their premiums escrowed every month to accept payment in installments. Previously, a single annual premium was required.

Still on the fence? Here's one more factoid that might make a difference: Federal disaster assistance is typically in the form of a loan. A $50,000 loan at 4 percent a year will run $240 a month for 30 years. At the same time, a $100,000 flood policy costs about $33 a month.

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.