Calculating people are always looking for ways to separate the rest of us from our money. Such, it appears, is the case with Home Title Lock, an outfit that promises to "protect" you from home title theft.

Home title theft is when a criminal gains the title to your home and either sells it or takes out a mortgage on it. The bad guys do this by simply forging your name on a deed and recording it with county officials. The county recorder is obligated to place the title in the records, but not to verify its legality. Unless the deed is obviously fake, it is recorded as a matter of course.

To "protect" homeowners from this scam, Home Title Lock says it will monitor a subscriber's title, 24-7, and notify them right away if anyone tampers with it. The cost: $19.95 a month.

There's no telling how often home title theft occurs. But the company, whose spokesmen include defrocked attorney Rudy Giuliani and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, maintains it happens with regularity. Indeed, the company claims that the FBI classifies home title theft as "one of the fastest growing" crimes in America.

ABC News has thoroughly trashed that claim, along with the unsubstantiated claims of two supposed victims of the crime. In a major story published in mid-June, the network said the FBI has no evidence of ever making such an assertion. Another Title Lock spokesman, former FBI agent Art Pfizenmayer, provided a document to ABC to try to justify the claim. But the document he provided was nearly two decades old and "wasn't about home title theft at all," but rather mortgage fraud, ABC found.

As the network points out, the two are entirely different: "Mortgage fraud involves lying to lenders to obtain loans, while title theft involves filing fraudulent documents with county authorities to claim ownership of a property."

ABC also checked with numerous sources to see just how prevalent title theft really is. While some jurisdictions said it is not common, others said it was epidemic.

But Steve Gottheim, general counsel for the American Land Title Association (ALTA), told ABC that his members are "not seeing (title theft) nationwide."

Others say the same.

"If it comes up once a year, I'd be surprised," Nathan Bossers of Boston National Title told me.

"From what I've been able to find, this is rare," Colleen Taylor of the Old Republic National Title Insurance Co. wrote in a trade magazine in March.

ABC asked Home Title Lock how many cases of title theft it has found, as well as any situations in which the service has helped someone reclaim a stolen title and how much was spent covering a customer's legal fees. No such information was forthcoming, the network says.

And here's the rub: Even if Home Title Lock notices something's amiss with your title, you are pretty much left to deal with it on your own.

It would be "extremely valuable" if a company paid the legal fees necessary to clear the title of a forged document, real estate litigator William Maffucci told Smart Business Philadelphia. "But that's a huge 'if.' I'm not aware of any providers of 'title theft' protection" that do that. If they did, Maffucci said, the service "would almost certainly cost much more."

Diane Tomb, CEO of ALTA, agreed. "Paid monitoring services send alerts to customers when any type of document is filed," she told me. "These companies are not title insurers and typically don't pay to help protect a consumer's property rights."

Instead of subscribing to Title Home Lock or a similar service, savvy owners can check with their recorder's office as often as they like. In some places, you can sign up to receive free notifications if any type of document is filed against your property's address.

Even if a forged deed is filed on your property, Maffucci says, the document conveys nothing because it is not legal.

Agrees Tomb, "A false deed does not actually cause the current owner to lose his property rights."

Nevertheless, title theft can have a "devastating impact" on the homeowner, Maffucci said. Homeowners must hire an attorney and file suit to clear the title, which could be a lengthy, expensive process.

First, though, think back to when you purchased your house. If you needed a mortgage, you almost certainly purchased title insurance to protect your lender against any defects in your home's lineage that could cloud your ownership. You were likely also given the opportunity to purchase a separate title policy that protected you.

Because regular title insurance protects against defects that occurred up to the day you took ownership, it won't help with title fraud. But so-called enhanced policies usually cover post-policy forgeries and other possibilities.

Quotes for enhanced policies range from 10% to 40% more than the premium for a regular title policy. Make sure the policy covers title theft before you sign up.

If you didn't purchase such coverage at closing, you can buy it now, Bossers tells me. If you want to cover the cost of your house when you purchased it, coverage will cost roughly the same as it would have then. If you want to cover the current value, though, you'll pay more.

Meanwhile, regular title insurance will protect a buyer who unknowingly purchases a house from someone who used a fake deed to pretend to be the owner. But buyers also might want to consider enhanced coverage. After all, it you were a victim buying in, you also could be a victim selling out.

You've paid an ungodly amount for your house. You've also paid more than you can believe in closing costs. But if you are like the typical homebuyer, your spending isn't over.

Based on its analysis of Census Bureau pre-pandemic data, the National Association of Home Builders says a buyer of an existing single-family house generally lays out $13,718 for new appliances, furnishings and remodeling during the first year of ownership. But surprisingly, someone who purchases a newly built place spends even more: $18,155, on average.

Buyers of new homes spend the most on property alterations and repairs. Most of that money -- $9,288 -- is used for outdoor features such as patios, pools, walkways, fences and landscaping. The rest is split almost evenly between appliances and furnishings.

In the appliances category, these buyers spend the most on televisions, followed by washers and dryers, lawn equipment, refrigerators and freezers. As for furnishings, they spend most on sofas and mattress sets.

Most of the typical existing-home buyer's outlay -- $7,391 -- also goes to property alterations and repairs. This group tends to spend more on remodeling, painting, wallpapering, flooring, roofing, windows and HVAC work.

For what it's worth, homeowners who stay put also spend big -- $8,908 a year -- again, mostly for property alterations and repairs.

Another sign of the apocalypse: A condominium association at a luxury property in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., requires residents to deposit a fecal sample from their pets with the front office. That way, if someone fails to clean up after their animal, the "poop police" can trace the droppings back to the offender and its owner by matching the animal's DNA.

With their ability to raise money, large, publicly owned homebuilders are all but taking over the markets they serve by snapping up huge numbers of building sites.

The lack of finished lots ready for crews is one reason builders have been unable to keep pace with demand for new houses. But the big national companies have more than enough sites on their books to keep going for years.

Housing economist Tom Lawler says the three largest builders have boosted their lot holdings during the pandemic. As of the end of March, D.R. Horton has 574,000 lots under its control, up from 329,300 in March 2020.

Two years ago, Lennar either owned or had options on 307,806 sites. Now, it controls 481,102. And the Pulte Group has upped its lots over the same period from 159,841 to 234,542.

Rick Palacios, research director at John Burns Real Estate Consulting, reports that public builders have collectively increased their lot holdings by roughly 33% of late.

Many of their sites are still under contract but not yet owned, meaning that as the market slows, builders could back out of their deals. That would put lots back on the market for others. Only time will tell, but the giants of the building business are so well-heeled that they could simply hang on.

Your car's warranty isn't the only thing expiring: Your home warranty might be, too. And the scammers of the world are happy to let you know about it.

One of Coldwell Banker agent June Piper-Brandon's clients got a letter recently about renewing her warranty, but it wasn't from the right company. During her research, Piper-Brandon found a notice on a local bank's website, warning bank customers about mailings from this same company. The mailings indicated that their home warranties were ending soon, whether they actually were or not.

The outfit in question is a legit company, the bank said, but "it appears their business practices are less than reputable."

In an effort to beat back competitors during the pandemic, many buyers waived independent home inspections. If you're one of them, that doesn't mean you can't still have the place gone over with a fine-toothed comb.

Consider hiring an inspector after you close, but before you move in -- or even after you take occupancy. That way, at least you'll be alerted to any major defects that you didn't spot earlier, or that the seller didn't disclose. In the latter instance, if the damage is significant and the law where you live requires that sellers must reveal known defects, you could have a legal case against the seller.

Beyond that, an inspection is a good way to get to know the condition of the house in general. You'll learn whether the water heater is on its last legs, how long you can expect the roof to last and perhaps even the useful life of the appliances. Also, the exam could reveal potential safety issues such as faulty wiring, a blocked fireplace or other issues that you'll need to address sooner than later.

America's housing stock is aging gradually, if not gracefully. In 2005, the median age of our houses was 31 years, according to Census Bureau data. In 2019, the median had jumped to 39 years.

The main reason is that construction has continued to lag demand since the recession of 2008. There's been a shortfall of some 1 million to 1.5 million houses needed to keep the market running.

While the demographics point to continued strong demand for newly built residences, the aging trend likely means a strong remodeling market because older houses usually need updating. As their houses age, owners need to replace appliances, maybe add a new room or change out their roofs, among all manner of other improvements.

Three out of four homebuyers start their house hunt online. But if that's the extent of your search, you could be missing out on any number of places that fit your parameters.

Some years ago, for example, listings in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, were extremely hard to find online. Agents and homebuyers alike were frustrated when their searches only pulled up listings in nearby Littleton.

The reason: unforgiving technology, said Denver agent Steve Scheer, who summarized the issue on ActiveRain.com back in 2007. A quirk in the software behind the local multiple listing service meant that when an agent entered the data for a new listing in any of Highlands Ranch's ZIP codes, the MLS set the city to "Littleton" by default. If the agent wasn't aware of this detail and didn't manually change the city, that listing would not appear when users searched for homes in Highlands Ranch.

So, if you'd been a buyer then and were doing your own online search, you would have found 218 listings in Highlands Ranch, Scheer said. But there were actually 499 houses for sale at the time.

"BIG difference," he said. (The problem has since been fixed.)

This is not to say online searches are worthless. Far from it. Many buyers find their dream places online at one of the numerous MLS aggregator sites. But while technology has improved greatly since the example above, some sites are still more user-friendly than others.

Although all aggregators take their information from the same source -- the MLS -- each one decides what data to show and in what format. They also differ in what they call "data fields."

Consequently, your "assumptions can be way off," says Virginia broker David Rathgeber.

"The search sites are a great help, but compared to the search an agent can do, all the sites are rudimentary," says Rathgeber. Many agents have access to sales data that isn't available to the public, and they may be able to show you homes that don't appear on search websites.

Beyond that, there are some things you should know about online searches. For instance, if you click on a property you find interesting, you're just as likely to be connected with an agent who paid a fee to the website as you are to the agent who actually listed the property.

That first agent, Rathgeber says, likely "knows no more about (the listing) than you do." So make sure you find the actual listing agent.

House hunters also must realize which data fields are reliable and which are not. Since you can search by practically any criteria, you have to proceed cautiously. You don't want to miss promising listings, nor do you want to waste time on houses that don't suit your needs.

As Rathgeber explains it, when agents enter listings into Bright MLS -- a huge mid-Atlantic service that represents some 85,000 agents from New Jersey to Virginia -- they are required to fill in certain parts of the form, but other fields can be left blank. Some fields are populated automatically; some fields are equipped with "pick lists" or "lookup" functions; some fields can be filled manually.

There are hundreds of fields and thousands of possible entries, the broker says. Consequently, "you are at the mercy of the computer literacy of the listing agent."

You can't always count on the photographs that accompany listings, either. Some are professionally done, but others, usually taken by the listing agent, are often too dark, washed out or out of focus.

Most search engines caution that the information in their listings, regardless of the source, should be verified by personal inspection and/or with the appropriate professionals. The fact that the sites do not guarantee any data should be taken as a warning.

Within his local MLS, Rathgeber considers certain search fields totally reliable. Those include the MLS number, county, city, ZIP code, list price, year built, lot size and status (meaning whether the listing is still active, under contract, etc.). You also can pretty much count on the "type of property" to be accurate -- whether it's a single-family house, townhouse, condo or something else.

After that, though, it pays to be a little cautious. The numbers of bedrooms, bathrooms and fireplaces are usually reliable, he says, while the listing's style -- colonial, split-level and so on -- could be more "subject to ambiguity, inaccuracy or judgment."

His list of error-prone entries is a long one: local schools, number of stories, neighborhood, classification of rooms such as dens or sunrooms, and more. Listing info about basements can be misleading, especially when it comes to townhouses. Square footage can be "very misleading"; days on the market, "grossly so." And value estimates, he says, are "totally worthless."

Rathgeber's advice: Search these fields with caution, if at all. "For example, if you search for a condo with a garage, you can miss half the suitable properties," he says. "If you search for a specific school, it could be even worse."

Other listing services might work a tad differently, but the idea is the same across the board: Know what you can count on and what you can't.