Two major banks have now agreed to originate a new 15-year mortgage under pilot programs aimed at low- and moderate-income borrowers.

In addition, the creators of the so-called Wealth Building Home Loan (WBHL), which allows homebuyers to build equity at a much faster clip than they would with a standard 30-year loan, are planning to bring their ideas to 10 other institutions over the next few weeks.

Still, Edward Pinto thinks it might take months or even years for the product to become universal, if it becomes a regular offering at all. But Pinto and his co-conspirator, Bruce Marks, generated major buzz when they introduced the WBHL at a mortgage conference in North Carolina in early September.

As it usually does, the trade press jumped on the announcement, saying the loan was the proverbial best thing since sliced bread.

But the loan also won the endorsement of several high-profile industry executives, including Lewis Ranieri, who is generally considered to be the father of the mortgage-backed security, and Joseph Smith, the former North Carolina bank regulator who was appointed to oversee the National Mortgage Settlement that created new mortgage servicing standards and provided some relief for distressed owners.

So what is everybody so excited about?

The Wealth Building Home Loan is a 15-year mortgage with a fixed interest rate that can be bought down to zero. In addition, little or no down payment is required, there are no additional fees and underwriters will pay far more attention to your residual income than to your credit score.

Typically, the monthly payment on a 15-year loan is more expensive than that on a 30-year loan. But the loan amortizes much more quickly, meaning you build wealth -- or equity -- faster.

To make the payments more affordable, the offering rate will be about three-quarters of a percentage point below the 30-year FHA rate. And the rate can be bought down even further. For every 1 percent of the loan amount the borrower puts up as a down payment, the interest rate will be lowered by half a percentage point, which is twice as much as usual.

Consequently, a $6,000 downpayment on a $100,000 mortgage at 3 percent would bring the rate down to zero, meaning that every penny spent on the monthly payment would go to principal.

But here's the key: Underwriters will want to make sure you have enough money left over after you make your house payment to cover all your other monthly expenses. That way, should you have a financial setback, there will be enough money coming in that you can still make your payments and won't fall into foreclosure.

Pinto and Marks are strange bedfellows. Pinto is a conservative gadfly who is a thorn in the side of the conventional mortgage market, while Marks is a liberal consumer advocate who thinks nothing of gathering his followers to picket the homes of banking executives to persuade them to do more for low-income borrowers.

But while on an industry panel together in May, Pinto, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Marks, who heads the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, had a "meeting of the minds." They decided to work together to create a vehicle that would help low- and moderate-income borrowers build wealth rather than just accumulate debt.

In a sense, the result is a throwback to the long-forgotten early years of the Federal Housing Administration. For its first 20 years or so, the FHA insured mostly shorter-term, 15- to 25-year mortgages and required 20 percent down payments, a full review of a borrower's household budget and rigorous appraisal standards.

But beginning in the late 1950s, U.S. housing policy shifted, and lenders started to rely on ever-looser underwriting standards. The result: Low- and moderate-income borrowers are pushed into overwhelmingly high-risk loans. If something should go wrong in the borrower's life -- job loss, major illness, divorce -- there is little equity for him or her to fall back on.

In the first three years of the WBHL, according to Pinto, 77 percent of the monthly payments go to paying off the loan's principal, whereas 68 percent of the payments of a standard 30-year mortgage pays interest to the lender.

And after 15 years, you own the home free and clear. And starting in year 16, there is no longer a house payment at all, so you have extra cash flow for life-cycle needs such as your children's education. With a 30-year loan, on the other hand, you could be making payments well into retirement.

"This is an opportunity to spend a little more each month but build wealth much more rapidly," Pinto said. "But even better, there is only a small probability of going into foreclosure. If house prices should go down, you're covered because you have some equity to fall back on."

Initially, the Wealth Building Home Loan will be made available through NACA's 37 offices. NACA acts as mortgage originator for Bank of America under a $10 billion contract. NACA is also talking to other lenders about starting pilot programs for their own employees and to meet their community reinvestment requirements.

Bottom line: The WBHL could be a good option for some, but there's still nothing wrong with a longer-term mortgage. In any case, homeownership can be a wonderful way to build equity. According to the latest Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, an owner's net worth is 36 times greater than that of a renter. The survey found that the average owner's net worth is $194,500, whereas a renter's is $5,400.

How many homes should buyers look at before making a decision?

That's a question every real estate agent worth his or her salt has heard, most more than a few times. And there is no right answer. Some folks fall in love with the first place they see, while others look for years and never find their dream home.

Generally, the ones who make what seem like "lightning decisions" have already done their homework online before venturing forth to take first-hand tours of their favorite offerings. Those who must see lots of homes usually don't know exactly what they want, or fear that if they stop looking, the next house would have been even better than the last.

According to the latest National Association of Realtors' Profile of Home Buyers, the typical home search takes 12 weeks -- almost a full quarter-year from beginning to end. Buyers usually spend two weeks looking at houses for sale on the Web before contacting an agent, and then after doing so, they look at a median of 10 houses before making their choices.

A whopping 43 percent found the house they ultimately purchased on the Internet. Real estate agents are now the second most common source for finding houses, according to the profile.

Still, when you get down to it, the most difficult part of the homebuying process, for most people, is finding just the right house. And the question of how many houses to visit came up the other day on ActiveRain, an online real estate community.

As usual, the responses were all over the ballpark. But a post from Ann Wilkins of East Bay Sotheby's International Realty in Oakland, California, summed it up.

"Most buyers have done extensive online research and open house research before even contacting an agent," Wilkins wrote. "I have had clients buy a house the first time we have gone out looking. Doesn't happen often, (but) they know what they want and have been watching the inventory (online) and stepped up to the plate the first time out."

At the same time, the agent said she has been working with a few clients for a year who have yet to the pull the trigger and are "still looking."

"It really depends on the client and how specific they are in their requirements," she said.

Claude Labbe of Real Living in Washington, D.C., agreed. "Isn't it like dating? You look until you find the one you know is 'the one.' Some people walk down the aisle at 19, some at 23 and some at 31."

Several agents who joined the discussion said some buyers, typically first-timers, have been led astray by those reality shows in which people look at one house, then another and finally a third. After just three, they are ready to make an offer. Should it always be that easy?

"Only on TV," commented Mark Robinson of America's First Funding Group in Beachwood, New Jersey.

Then again, sometimes it really does work that way.

"I have had buyers who bought the first house we looked at, and I had one buyer who looked at more than 50 before he made the decision to buy," said Maria Morton of BHG Real Estate in Kansas City, Missouri. "He actually would have bought the second house we looked at, but waited two months to tell me that was the one. By that time, the house was sold."

Ritu Desai of Samson Properties in Ashburn, Virginia, said that clients of hers recently asked how many houses they should look at. "They loved one of the homes they previewed, but wanted to confirm they are ready to make a decision or (know if) they should see more homes," Desai said.

But, as Norma Toering of Charlemagne International Properties in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, pointed out, "There's no magical number. They have to shop until they find the 'right one.'"

One of Eve Alexander's clients certainly knew. They were scheduled to view eight houses, but after the third, they were finished. They had found that elusive "one."

"I tried to encourage them to look at the rest, but nope, they were done," said the agent, who works with Buyers Broker in Windermere, Florida. "Bought house No. 3."

Agents tend to agree, though, that with all the information that's available on the Internet, it doesn't -- or at least it shouldn't -- take as long to find the right house as it used to.

Rod Pierson of Coldwell Banker C&C Properties in Redding, California recommends looking at many houses on the Web, then narrowing your choices to a handful, then doing a few "drive-bys" to narrow your list even further. At that point, it's time to start touring.

"I used to spend weekends showing many properties to one client," he said. "By the time we were done, they didn't remember the first property."

Said El Silva of RE/MAX Professionals in Waterbury, Connecticut: "With the amount of information online ... it doesn't take long for many buyers to feel 'at home' once they get inside."

Once you've reached this point, your instincts should take over. In other words, trust your gut. And once you've found "the place," act quickly, agents advise.

"You need to buy it, as it may not be available the next day or next week," warns Ric Mills of Keller Williams Southern in Tucson, Arizona. "I have had many hesitate, thinking there might be a better (house) and lose their first choice.

"If it is the right home -- even if it's the first home you see -- don't wait, or you could miss out."

If you thought the evil "bad guys" had left the mortgage business for greener pastures, think again. The thieves are still out there, ready to separate you from your money. But at the same time, many of us are still not above stretching the truth a little when we are trying to obtain financing.

First, the business bad guys, represented today by the Amerisave Mortgage Corporation, which the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered to pay $19.3 million for perpetrating a deceptive bait-and-switch scheme on would-be borrowers.

The CFPB found that the Atlanta-based online company, which lends in all 50 states, lured consumers by advertising misleading interest rates, locked them in with costly up-front fees, failed to honor its published rates and then illegally overcharged them for affiliated third-party services.

Here's how it worked, according to the CFPB: Since 2011, the company advertised inaccurate rates and terms in online banner ads and searchable rate tables on third-party websites, inducing consumers to pursue a mortgage with Amerisave. Once at Amerisave's website, the company gave consumers quotes based on an 800 FICO score, even when they had previously entered a score well below 800 on the third-party site that led them to Amerisave in the first place. The result: misleading quotes.

The company also required consumers to pay for an appraisal before it would provide a good-faith estimate, then it ordered the appraisal from an affiliated company. Borrowers weren't told that salient fact until later.

Then, at closing, Amerisave charged its customers for something called "appraisal validation" reports without disclosing that that service was also provided by an affiliated company. They also weren't told the fee was marked up by as much as 900 percent.

In its investigation, the CFPB found that Amerisave and its owner, Patrick Markert, pocketed more than $3 million in indirect profit distributions by overcharging unknowing borrowers. The validation reports cost $20, but Amerisave charged $100, with the $80 windfall finding its way to Markert's wallet.

Markert, by the way, has been ordered to pay an additional $1.5 million personally.

Not all lenders are such scoundrels, of course. Heck, most of them are honest and forthright.

But at the same time, it's your money and you'd better take the necessary precautions to protect it.

"By the time consumers could have discovered the advertised low rates were too good to be true, they had already committed to pay hundreds of dollars," CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in a statement.

Next comes the Ocwen Financial Corporation, which has been called on the carpet by the New York Department of Financial Services. According to an open letter by DFS Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky, Ocwen has been running a "complex arrangement" that "appears designed to funnel as much as $65 million in fees annually from already-distressed homeowners" to an affiliated company for minimal work in providing force-placed insurance.

No charges have been filed, and no guilt has been found -- at least not yet. But Lawsky has asked the company to explain itself. After all, the Federal Housing Finance Agency has banned banks and mortgage servicers from accepting commissions on force-placed policies issued by affiliated companies.

Now this from Interthinx, a provider of risk-mitigation solutions for the financial services industry. Interthinx reports that occupancy fraud, while down somewhat from last year's third quarter, is still significant. At the same time, valuation fraud is on the upswing.

An explanation, as those terms may not mean much to the average Joe: Occupancy fraud is when the would-be borrower says he will occupy the property -- when he has no intention of doing so -- in order to obtain the better rates and terms that are reserved for owner-occupants. And valuation fraud is an attempt to create instant, nonexistant equity in a property by artificially inflating value, then extracting it from the proceeds of a larger loan than would otherwise be granted.

Another report, this one from mortgage giant Fannie Mae, shows an alarming increase in income misrepresentation and a lesser, though no less important, jump in falsification of social security numbers. Put all these together and you have a real catch-22: You cheat me and I'll lie to you.

Occupancy and valuation fraud are typically the province of investor-buyers of foreclosed properties, whereas faking how much the borrower earns is usually a crime perpetrated by individuals.

So, while those of us on this side of the transaction would do well to deal carefully with those on that side, those on that side need to be just as vigilant -- otherwise they'll be taken in by the shady among us. You know who you are.