Be patient. Hang in there. Keep trying.

In one form or another, that's the advice some real estate experts give buyers in dealing with this overheated housing market.

Yes, it is a good time to buy in terms of house prices and mortgage rates. If you find a good house at a good price and a loan at a good rate, go for it.

But the inventory of available homes for sale is extremely low, for any number of reasons.

In many markets, regular buyers are competing with investors who are willing to pay cash to turn properties into rentals. At the same time, some home builders are "metering" or constraining sales to take advantage of rising prices. That's one reason the inventory of new homes is at a 30-year low.

Even the number of distressed properties has shrunk because lenders are slow at processing foreclosures. And on top of all this, the expected rush of pent-up sellers who were thought to be waiting, waiting, waiting to put their places on the market has never materialized.

Yes, this is, indeed, a seller's market and the typical buyer is at a disadvantage. Some are being rushed to make decisions, which can quickly lead to remorse over paying too much for a house. Or the place may not be in as good of condition as expected.

Hence the admonition: Take your time.

"It is important to stay patient," advises Svenia Gudell, senior economist at Zillow.

And don't get "over-invested" or obsessed with just one house, "because a lot of times," Gudell said, "you'll get involved in a bidding war. It gets so crazy that (some buyers) end up at a price they aren't comfortable with."

Six months to a year from now, as the market shakes out, the inventory of unsold homes should improve markedly. Investors probably will have left the market at that point. Financing may be a little more expensive, but it should be somewhat easier to qualify. And appraisals may not be the deal-breakers they are now.

For now, the housing sages say, leave the market to local and Wall Street-backed investors, who are driving prices up in many places because they are willing to pay more than list price.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but that may actually help buyers in the longer term, according to Rick Sharga, executive vice president at Auction.com.

While investors are accelerating the housing recovery, Sharga pointed out that appraisals generally trail rising values, a fact borrowers discover when the valuation on the property they intend to purchase comes in too low.

At the same time, cash buyers are resetting property values every time they buy a house. And as comparable property values reset, borrowers will be able to obtain a higher-value loan on subsequent sales. "It will make it easier for them to compete," Sharga said of patient purchasers.

Once prices reach a point where it doesn't make sense for the big investors, they will move on to other markets. But "they are not causing a bubble," the longtime mortgage industry executive added. "The (higher) prices are sticking after they leave the market."

In the midst of this strange market, buyers need to be patient for one more reason: It is going to take some time for the inventory of homes for sale to reach more normal levels. Lawrence Yun, chief economist at National Association of Realtors, said it may take two years before that happens.

Currently, according to many sales indices, prices are rising at an annual rate of 10 percent or so. But next year, Yun expects sales and prices to moderate.

"It will be less hectic," the economist ventured, noting that buyers should not be hurried into undertaking such a large financial transaction as buying a house.

"This time next year, there will still be a shortage in inventory but not the degree of tightness we have been experiencing. It will provide consumers with additional time to make that decision," he offered.

That doesn't mean you should stop looking. If you are not turned off by the current state of things, Joan Patterson of Keller Williams Realty in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., is one of many realty pros who suggest that you need to be persistent. "Be ready, willing and available to look at homes" as soon as they hit the market, she says.

Noting that it has become the norm for buyers to make several offers on different properties before one is accepted, Steve Bachman of RE/MAX Gateway in Chantilly, Va., agrees. "Buyer patience combined with a willingness to act decisively when the right home becomes available is critical in today's challenging market," he says.

Lastly, there's this reminder from Don Kanare of RE/MAX Premier Properties in Reno, Nev.: From time to time, a peach of a listing comes on the market -- perhaps due to a divorce, death or job change.

"Every year, buyers who are patient and monitor the market will find a certain amount of new listings in each price range that are superb values," Kanare says. "Being patient and waiting for the rare gem to come on the market is only half the battle. Equally critical is being decisive."

Thinking about refinancing? A second lien may be a factor in whether or not you can.

If you've taken out a second lien on your home, it is subordinate to your primary mortgage and must be dealt with. It can't be ignored, and it doesn't matter whether it's a home equity line of credit, a home equity installment loan or any other kind of loan.

"You have one of two options" when dealing with subordinate financing on your house, says Scott Stein, president of Xetus, a technology company that helps mortgage originators manage second liens. "You either need to pay off that second, or you need to get the lien-holder of that second to agree to remain in a subordinate position to the new first."

Back in the days when home values were "always" going up, borrowers would use the cash they received on top of their new first mortgage to pay off the second.

"It was no big deal," says Stein. But since the housing crash, "people haven't had nearly (enough) equity in their homes to do that. ... So they have, more and more, chosen the path of going to the second lender and getting him to agree to remain" in the second position.

Getting the second lender to agree can be tricky, though, Stein warns.

"At some financial institutions, the answer has been, 'No, we won't do subordinations.' They won't approve a request," he says.

Others "will not decline, nor will they approve you. Or they might say they will approve, but reduce the line amount."

If second-lien holders are willing to consider maintaining the second's subordination with a new first mortgage holder, they will be looking at the risk of being in a secondary position if you should fail to make your payments. That means if you default, the second lender won't receive any money until the first lender is paid in full.

And recently, says Stein, that's something that banks have "taken a much closer look at."

One factor is whether you are taking any cash out of the deal, a situation lenders now look at with reluctance. Another is the loan-to-value ratio of not just your new first mortgage, but of the new first and the second taken together.

Stein says the best bet for refinancers is to have cash on hand or in reserve. "The more you can bring to the table on the refinance, the better your ratios are going to look," he says.

Some borrowers, either honestly or dishonestly, do not think to mention the fact that they have a second lien when they try to refinance. But it will not be overlooked, because the second lender almost always takes a hard look at your credit record, liabilities and the title to or liens on the property.

"It's always best to mention it upfront," Stein says. "It's going to come up."

It is not your responsibility to contact the second-lien holder when you start the refinance process. That's the primary lender's job. But it is to your advantage to understand the process and the thinking involved.

While banks may be cautious when it comes to changes that could affect their risk, they also often have an interest in retaining current customers. That could work to your benefit, particularly now that there has been a run-up in mortgage rates and new loans are in shorter supply.

Some banks are so concerned about this they have been using systems like Xetus, which processes second-lien subordination requests. The program looks for second liens and identifies the owner or lender. If the primary lender also holds the second, the system alerts the bank's call center to contact the borrower in an effort to retain the loan.

Banks "are more likely to approve subordination if they hold the first lien," according to Stein. But if not, they may offer you a sweeter deal on a new first mortgage in order to keep your business.

Don't expect your bank to take the first step, though. If you want to make sure you will be offered the best terms possible, you should be proactive.

Banks today are "after wallet share," Stein says. "So it never hurts to check multiple sources for loans. It's so easy to do that online for potentially a significant amount of savings over the life of the loan."

With interest rates slowly on the rise, that means bad news for homebuyers and good new for renters, right? After all, aren't the single-family and multi-family markets countercyclical?

In the words of the old song, it ain't necessarily so. Here's why:

The number of renters increased by more than 1.1 million during the 2011-12 period. That marked the eighth straight year of expansion, according to a Harvard study, which finds that there is currently an "unprecedented strength of rental demand."

For those of you who took Economics 101, the trend is clear: An increase in demand means an increase in prices -- or in this case, rents -- no matter what is happening on the buying side.

According to the Census Bureau's Housing Vacancy Study, the median asking rent for vacant units last year was at an all-time record of $720 per month. And MPF Research found similar strength in the country's metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs).

If you are a renter in Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Tucson or Greensboro, your rents went down last year. But if you rent in any of the other 89 MSAs tracked by MPF Research, your rent went up. Significantly, in some places.

Living the good life in Honolulu cost renters a hefty 8.5 percent more last year. And Bay Area cities like San Francisco (up 8 percent) and San Jose (an increase of 7.7 percent) weren't far behind.

Vacancies have come down sharply the last couple of years, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies' latest "State of the Nation's Housing" report. Last year's vacancy rate was 8.7 percent, down from 10.6 percent in 2009. Econ 101 applies here as well: fewer vacancies, more demand, higher rents.

Larger apartment properties showed the biggest drop in vacancy, to just 4.9 percent in 2012 for professionally managed buildings with five or more units, according to the report.

Someone must be benefiting from this current rental market, and if it's not renters, a good guess is owners. The report cites a study by the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries that shows institutional owners saw a nice 6.1-percent increase in revenues for 2012. That's below 2011's 10.4-percent increase but "still above the historical average and marking a significant improvement from the losses in 2009-10," the report said.

Delinquency rates are also down for apartment loans made by banks and thrifts, those held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and those packaged into commercial mortgage-backed securities.

The annual Harvard report notes that last year was a very strong year for multi-family loans. The number of loans to builders, owners and investors was up 36 percent, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The fourth quarter was even better, at an increase of 49 percent. The total amount of multi-family debt also grew, but much more modestly, at 2 percent.

The so-called mortgage secondary market agencies -- Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, which help increase the amount of lending money by buying mortgages from primary lenders -- remain the big players in the multi-family lending market. Their outstanding debt went up by $24 billion last year.

"Still, other institutional sources of financing began to step up, with banks and thrifts increasing their multi-family loans by $11 billion," the report notes, with insurers and pension funds also stepping up their holdings.

The Federal Housing Authority is becoming a multi-family powerhouse as well, the report details. The FHA, the originations arm of the loans Ginnie Mae purchases, "moved from an annual level of new commitments of just over $2 billion in fiscal 2008 to $14.6 billion in fiscal 2012. In terms of the number of rental units financed, this jump translates into an increase from 48,000 in 2008 to more than 200,000 in 2012."

With lenders emptying their pocketbooks for apartment developers, new construction added some 186,000 new rental units to the mix. But that brings with it another layer of affordability issues, because the vast majority of new properties are in the higher-priced categories.

"The typical new unsubsidized apartment completed in the third quarter of 2012 had an asking rent of $1,185," Harvard points out. "To afford such a unit at the '30 percent of income' standard, a potential renter would need an annual income of more than $47,000."

At the same time, though, low- and moderate-income renters benefit: If higher-income renters move up into newer units, their former apartments open up.

An especially important facet of new apartment construction is the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. A federal program administered by state housing finance agencies, the program provides tax credits to investors that provide equity in multi-family properties.

Another important supply-side factor is the "REO to rental" movement, in which formerly owner-occupied single-family units are converted into rentals. Renters now occupy one in every six single-family homes, the Harvard report says.

Despite all the new activity, the report is not optimistic that rents will recede in the coming years. "Vacancy rates continue to edge down and rental rates are moving up," it says, "providing no suggestion that supply has begun to outstrip demand."