The great minds in the mortgage business continue to make it simpler for everyday folks to deal with financing.

Fannie Mae, for example, has made it easier to finance a new home while converting your existing residence into an income-generating rental. And if you recently -- very recently -- paid cash for a property, Fannie also will allow you to finance the deal after the fact, as long as you do so within 180 days.

Meanwhile, B2R Finance, a company that provides buy-to-rent funding for investors, is now in the market with single-property loans for mom-and-pop landlords. And in the super-high-priced San Francisco Bay Area, the San Francisco Federal Credit Union is offering nothing-down loans of up to $2 million.

Fannie Mae doesn't make loans; rather, it buys loans from primary lenders. And when the secondary market giant signals it's changed its requirements, the main street marketplace tends to follow.

In 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, Fannie Mae changed its rules to make it much more difficult to use phantom income from "renting" the current house to qualify for a loan on a new place. This was because people would tell their lenders they intended to rent out their old house when, in fact, they had no such desire. Then they'd default on the old loan as soon as the new loan was secured -- a practice called a "strategic default."

"So what?" reasoned these defaulters. "Since I now have a new loan on a more affordable house, I'll let the lender foreclose on the old one."

Now, reflecting current market conditions, Fannie has quietly gone back to its precrisis rules, according to Jude Landis, vice president of single-family credit policy at the mortgage giant.

In other words, lenders can once again rely on such standard requirements as income and cash-reserve documentation. They no longer have to confirm the borrower's equity position in the proposed rental with expensive broker price opinions or appraisals, paid for by the borrower.

Also, the rule that borrowers with less than 30 percent equity must have six months' worth of mortgage payments in cash reserves has been waived. So has the requirement that a tenant's security deposit be confirmed.

Fannie Mae's delayed financing program for cash buyers isn't new. But most people don't know about it, says Chris Carter, a loan officer with the Paramount Residential Mortgage Group in Naples, Florida.

There are plenty of reasons to pay cash for a house. Perhaps most importantly, it makes for a much "cleaner" deal with no contingency for financing. Sellers tend to see cash offers as golden, and are often willing to give a little on the price to reel them in.

While an excellent bargaining ploy for buyers, an all-cash sale tends to tie up a lot of their money -- money that could be put into a higher-yielding, more liquid investment.

Typically, cash buyers have to wait a minimum of six months to refinance the property, and only then can they release some of their money. With delayed finance loans, though, you can get more of your money back just a few days after you close.

To qualify, the original purchase must have been an arm's-length transaction: Deals between related parties are not eligible. Also, the settlement sheet must show that no financing whatsoever was used. Funds for the purchase must be fully documented and sourced.

If you meet these and other requirements, delayed financing can be used for primary residences, second homes or investment properties for up to 70 percent of the value. Better yet, the loan amount can include closing costs and prepaid fees, as long as the maximum loan-to-value ratio is maintained.

With delayed financing, investors can out-bargain regular buyers, or fund their transactions using the new Foundation Loan from B2R.

B2R and other companies that offer buy-to-rent financing typically deal with people who have rental portfolios of 10 or more properties. But the Foundation Loan is for small-time, beginning investors who buy just one property -- or, at least, one property at a time.

The product, which is available online through B2R's Dwell Finance Investor division (dwellfinance.com), can be used to acquire or refinance properties. Loan amounts can be as little as $60,000 or as much as $750,000, and rates are fixed for up to 30 years.

B2R CEO Jason Hogg says investors are "craving" single-property loans like this: He says the company took in 119 applications over Halloween weekend, before it even began actively marketing the product.

Finally, there's the POPPYLOAN from San Francisco Federal, a 60-year-old credit union with some 34,000 members serving the Bay Area. With POPPY, which stands for the "Proud Ownership Purchase Program for You," members can borrow up to $2 million without taking a dime out of their own pockets. There isn't even a requirement for mortgage insurance.

The loan is a 5-5 adjustable-rate mortgage, meaning that it will adjust every five years, and only by a maximum of 2 percentage points each time (up to six points over the life of the loan).

The mortgage is a response to the abnormally high rents in the Bay Area. Many there are paying more to their landlords then they would on mortgage payments, but because they can't put together a down payment, they've been stuck in a rental black hole. POPPY may offer a way out.

In the 2006 romantic comedy "Failure to Launch," Matthew McConaughey played a 35-year-old man still living at home with his parents and showing little interest in moving out on his own. If that film were made today, it could just as easily be about a woman.

According to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Research Center, a larger share of young women are living at home with Mom, Dad or other relatives than at any point since the 1940s. That is, 36.4 percent of women ages 18 to 34 resided with family in 2014. (A larger share of young men in that age group -- 42.8 percent -- are living at home. But that percentage does not surpass the highest rates on record like the women's share does.)

"You'd have to go back 74 years to observe similar living arrangements among American young women," says Richard Fry, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center. "Young men, too, are increasingly living in the same situation, but unlike women, their share hasn't climbed to its level from 1940, the highest year on record." (Comparable data on living arrangements are not available prior to 1940.)

Fry explains the increase by pointing out that today's young women are more likely to be college students, and less likely to be married, than those of earlier generations. Students and singletons are both more likely to live with family.

Some numbers to back up those statements: Today, five times more young women are likely to be enrolled in college than in 1940. And in 2014, 45 percent of female college students lived with family. At the same time, while marriage tends to mean living independently of Mom and Dad, more young women today are delaying marriage than their predecessors. In 2013, only 30 percent of young women were likely to be married, compared with 1940's 62 percent.

But mortgage industry expert Becky Walzak suspects there's more at work here than demographics. She says the home loan approval process still looks down on women. Not overtly, she says, but underwriters still perceive women as "lesser" than men.

Based on her deep-dive read of data collected under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, Walzak says women "are less able to meet (underwriting) standards then men." And the process is even harder on black women, who are often the primary applicants on loans to African-Americans.

For one thing, notes Walzak -- a mortgage finance veteran who now operates her own consulting firm -- women are seen as less reliable because they often interrupt their careers for any variety of reasons, but primarily to have children and then care for them.

For another, women aren't usually able to save as much money for a down payment as men. "Their wealth is largely less," she explains of women who've taken time off. "Not just dollars (earned), but when they go from working to not working, any retirement savings that would have been set aside that is based on pay is forfeited. So, depending on how much time they take off, they can be several years behind men."

The mortgage expert also points out that women's spending patterns are often different from men's. Generally speaking, she says, women tend to carry more debt.

Another factor, noted in Fortune magazine, is student debt. Women tend to have a greater albatross around their necks in the form of student debt than men: $20,000 vs $14,000, according to the magazine.

"It's because of these factors that single women are not being approved as often as single men for a loan," says Walzak. "It's not discrimination in any shape or form. But the business needs to figure out how to understand women, how to evaluate them more fairly and then try to do something about it."

Many women's organizations focus on pay equality. And while that's an important issue, Walzak believes that the mortgage sector "has to make it easier for single women heads-of-households to buy homes. Why can't we as an industry figure out some kind of credit policy or new product that meet their needs?"

Meanwhile, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the share of first-time buyers -- men, women and married couples -- among all mortgages declined in 2015 for the third consecutive year. It's now at its lowest point in nearly three decades.

The long-term average shows that first-timers account for almost 40 percent of all primary home purchases. But the rookie share dipped last year to 32 percent -- down from 33 percent in 2014, and the lowest since 1987, when rookies accounted for just 30 percent of sales.

NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun calls first-time buyers "the missing link" that's slowing the housing recovery.

"There are several reasons why there should be more first-time buyers, including persistently low mortgage rates, healthy job prospects for the college-educated, and the fact that renting is becoming more unaffordable in many areas," he said. "Unfortunately, there are just as many high hurdles slowing first-time buyers down. Increasing rents and home prices are impeding their ability to save for a down payment, there's scarce inventory for new and existing homes in their price ranges, and it's still too difficult for some to get a mortgage."

If you've wondered why more homes are not on the market in your area, especially since would-be buyers are jumping all over themselves to find houses, the latest "homeowner sentiment survey" by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices could offer some clues.

Some 71 percent of owners polled said real estate seems to be heading in the right direction. But 73 percent of the owners who are considering selling said prices have yet to reach prerecession levels, and 61 percent said queasiness about the economy is keeping them sidelined.

"Though home prices around the country have recovered much of the ground lost during the downturn, 'contemplators' are telling us they want more confidence in the decision to list," said Gino Blefari, CEO of HSF Affiliates (the real estate network to which Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices belongs). "They're also telling us they need more information about their markets, pricing and specific home improvement in order to list."

Only 6 percent of current owners surveyed realized that the current low inventory of houses for sale makes for a seller's market. Even so, many said the shortage holds little meaning to them. The most common reasons for holding off selling? "Waiting for the right opportunity" and "haven't found my ideal home yet."

Here's an interesting tidbit from the National Association of Realtors' latest profile of homebuyers and sellers:

If you bought your house eight to 10 years ago, at the height of the housing recession, you only have around $3,000 in equity to put into your next place. But if you purchased within the last year, in this largely recovered market, you've already accumulated $31,000 in equity, on average.

If you bought two to three years ago, your gain so far is $30,000, again on average. And if you took the plunge four to five years ago, you've made a tidy $35,000.

As they say, timing is everything.

If you determined your credit score using an online portal, chances are you have no clue of your actual creditworthiness, whether you paid a fee or not.

Credit scores are used by most lenders to determine whether you are a good risk. For the most part, they use scores formulated by FICO, an analytics software company. But even within similar groups of lenders, such as mortgage companies, each company might use different scoring algorithms produced by FICO. The FICO formula one lenders uses could very well differ from another's.

But nearly two-thirds of the people polled in a recent study believed they received a true FICO credit score online, when they actually did not. (The study was conducted by independent research firm BAV Consulting.) And 8 out of 10 people said they thought the score they got was the one used by lenders.

The problem is that the mathematical formulas used by each scoring company are unique, and they create credit scores for consumers that are often significantly different from their true FICO scores -- sometimes by 100 points or more.

Such large score discrepancies can lead consumers to over- or underestimate how a lender will view them.

"Because other credit scores look similar to FICO scores, consumers have no way of determining, through the credit score itself, whether or not it's a FICO score," says FICO executive James Wehmann. "Credit scores are unlike other products; the consequences of not recognizing credit scores from different companies can be much more serious. ... If the majority of consumers are confused about these non-FICO credit scores being provided to them, then millions of Americans are likely to be mistaken about their actual creditworthiness."

The good news is that anyone with a consumer credit account has access to his or her true FICO score, for free, through the FICO Score Open Access Program. To learn more, go to fico.com and search for "Open Access."