Mortgage rates are on the rise, making it even more difficult to finance a house. But that doesn't mean the market will flounder before it has had a chance to really get going.

For one thing, loan volumes usually boom when interest rates start to rise. That's the period when all those would-be buyers and refinancers who have been sitting on the fence decide it's the proverbial "right time" to take the plunge. After all, prices are still down substantially from the market peak. While you may no longer be able to nail a rate of 4 percent or less, a loan at 4.5 percent is still better than one at 5 or 6.

Real estate and mortgages have never been totally predictable. While rising rates should choke off refinancings, there are always niche markets that are going to go the other way. And the government has extended its popular HARP refinancing program so there will be a market, though no one can guess how large, for refinancing --regardless of what interest rates do.

Another niche currently booming is housing bonds. According to Thomson Reuters stats in The Bond Buyer, a trade newspaper, housing bond volumes have doubled so far in 2013. Last year through May, $3.1 billion of these instruments had been issued through 101 offerings. This year through May, that number is $6.2 billion through 140 offerings.

In general, consumers can't invest directly in housing bonds, but low- to moderate-income buyers and first-timers can still benefit from them. Housing bond proceeds are used by state housing finance agencies to buy down interest rates on residential mortgages for qualified borrowers.

When rates got down as low as 3.5 percent, how much of a break could there be? In other words, how low can you go? In New Mexico and some other states, the answer is: as low as 1 percent.

Housing finance agencies (HFAs) always manage to offer healthy discounts, even in a low-rate environment. And now that rates are rising, these state agencies will have a little more wiggle room to offer even more options. The result should be increased demand for more housing bonds.

But even before rates have made a serious turn upward, housing bonds are receiving a bump from a new structure that copies probably the most successful mortgage bonds of all time: the mortgage-backed security. The structure is called a "passthrough," and it is for investors who buy these securities in a "secondary" mortgage market designed to pump more lending cash into the system.

A passthrough functions much the way it sounds: The bank or agency that collects the mortgage payment takes a cut for its trouble and then passes through the rest of the money to the investor.

Trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities have used this structure. But with housing bonds, the passthrough has a provision investors are going to like:

In the typical passthrough, when a mortgage that has been bundled into the security prepays -- say, for instance, you sell your house and move, paying off your original mortgage and getting another one somewhere in its stead -- the money returns to the housing agency, which reinvests it in more affordable housing. But with the new structure, the investor receives the money, not the HFA.

Last year, according to The Bond Buyer, Minnesota became the first state to use a housing bond passthrough. Illinois, Indiana and Florida have since followed.

The HFAs are important players in the rental market, too. They administer a key federal program called the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, a major boon to the construction of new, affordable multi-family units.

Here's how this program works: HFAs take applications from developers in their states and, through a complex points system, decide to fund projects with the highest scores. Packagers called syndicators sell the tax credits to investors. Any investor can buy tax credits, whether or not they have any real interest in housing, and many do because they receive a double benefit. Not only do they get a tax credit, they can buy the credits at a discount that varies depending on market conditions.

But the net effect is that the investor is buying an equity-stake in these lower-income rental projects, helping to make them possible. Often, their investment is not enough to fund the deal completely. But in most cases, financing packages are cobbled together using tax credit money, money from the Affordable Housing Program of the nearest of the 12 Federal Home Loan banks, the Department of Housing and Urban Development's HOME funds and other sources.

This is how affordable housing projects get stitched together like the quilts your grandmother used to make. And because these finance quilts are made through the hard work of dedicated people all over the country, many families get to stay warm in new or existing houses or apartments they are able to afford -- no matter if interest rates are going up or down.

How hard do you think it might be to obtain a mortgage on a patch of real estate in Yellowstone Park? If you answered "pretty difficult," you'd be right.

But there are more than 40 million acres of land in the United States where it has been nearly as daunting to get a piece of the American Dream as it would be to put up a house next to Old Faithful.

The land in question is called trust land, and it is owned by the federal government, much as our national parks are. It is held "in trust" for American Indian tribes on their reservations.

Just how hard is it to get a mortgage on trust land? The Government Accountability Office did a survey some years ago and found just 91 mortgages were made on all of the country's reservations during the five years between 1992 and 1996. And Indian Country, in aggregate -- not all reservation land is in trust; there is private property there as well -- is about as big as Utah. In short, Indian Country has been a mortgage nonstarter.

That's been changing in the years since that GAO survey. Lenders and tribes have come up with workarounds, like the leasehold mortgage. There, the tribe assigns a lease to one of its members for reservation land. The lender gets a security interest only in the improvements, not the land.

But for the most part, lenders aren't happy with half of their usual collateral.

Enter the federal government. In 1995, the Department of Housing and Urban Development started the HUD 184 mortgage. This was an effort to duplicate the kind of private mortgages most Americans can get in their neck of the woods. It's a pretty sweet deal for the lender, too. Uncle Sam guarantees 100 percent of a lender's outlay. That's right: It's practically impossible for a lender to lose money on a HUD 184 loan.

From a slow start, the HUD 184 has developed into a considerable success story. As of the end of the last federal fiscal year, HUD had guaranteed $2.7 billion in mortgages to individual American Indians and Indian tribes.

Granted, not all of that was on reservation trust land. In fact, the majority of the loans have been on private property, called "fee simple" by the lawyers. But according to Tom Wright, who heads the program at HUD, most of the loans have been either on reservation or within a few miles of tribal homelands. And the credit quality of the loans has been sensational. As of the end of fiscal 2010, less than 1 percent were in foreclosure.

Some 2,000 mortgages have been made on trust land since the program's inception. Compared to the 91 in the GAO survey, that's a twentyfold increase. And in addition to the HUD program, a Department of Agriculture mortgage has also made some inroads into Indian Country. The Rural Housing Service Section 502 and Section 504 mortgages include both guaranteed loans and direct mortgages from lenders.

Who takes an interest in these remote rural areas with their scattered populations? Well, at least 100 lenders have qualified to do HUD 184s, including Wells Fargo and other large lenders. Why? For a nationwide lender, reservations are part of their footprint, no matter how remote. And these are primo loans when it comes time for complying with the Community Reinvestment Act.

The Census Bureau estimates that as of 2011, there were 5.1 million American Indians or Alaska Natives in the United States, including those who classified themselves as members of more than one race. More than a million of them live in Indian areas. Moreover, the Native population is growing by leaps and bounds -- 27 percent between 2000 and 2010. And there is pent-up demand on reservations among the tens of thousands of people who hold government or casino jobs.

A complication with reservation land is that not all of it is trust land. Over the years, tribes and individuals have sold off land to raise cash, leaving a "checkerboard" effect. The sold-off land then reverts to private property, or fee simple, status. Often enough, lenders take the path of least resistance and make mortgages on the private property parts of reservations where the land issues aren't as complicated.

One case where mortgages have taken a true foothold into trust land comes from the Bay Mills Indian Community in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The 3,400-acre reservation, nestled on the shores of Lake Superior, isn't checkerboarded. And its leaders have adopted homeownership as a public policy.

Cheryl Causley, housing director for the Ojibwe tribe, said that as of last year, 74 of 324 homes on the reservation have mortgages on them. And she knows of six more mortgages closed for tribal members this year. That means 20 percent of the houses on tribal trust land have mortgages -- quite a high percentage.

What's the key to this success? Unemployment is fairly low, 12 percent or so, with the tribe's two casinos providing jobs to lots of tribal members. A job, you might remember, is a very hopeful sign that a borrower will repay a mortgage. And the tribe has built relationships with several lenders through the HUD and USDA mortgage programs.

There are still real estate issues at Bay Mills. For one thing, the reservation is landlocked, despite being on the shores of one of the Great Lakes. There aren't a lot of lots on which to build. Why? When Uncle Sam drew up the reservation boundaries, he included lots of what's officially known as wetlands. You would call them swamps, and they're not great for homebuilding.

But where there's a will, there's a way. The tribe negotiated a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service for a nice dry hilltop site where it will build 78 single-family homes and a commercial area, once it can raise the estimated $6 million pricetag.

There's another successful mortgage strategy that can be brought to bear on Indian Country. Remember those 91 mortgages made during five years of the 1990s? They were made to just two of our more than 500 tribes. One of the tribes was in Wisconsin, the other in the Pacific Northwest, but they had something in common. They were part-owners of the lenders who extended their members the mortgage finance.

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 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 windows 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.