Native-born Americans looking to move into homeownership for the first time could learn a thing or two from immigrant homeowners, according to recent research.

Economists at Rutgers University and the Georgia Institute of Technology found that immigrants leverage "birthplace networks" to come up with money to not only purchase their homes, but also to maintain them during hard times.

Unique to immigrants, birthplace networks are social groups of friends and family from the same country of origin.

The study's authors found that although homeownership rates among immigrants fell between 2000 and 2012, the decline was less severe when compared to native-born homeowners. The hypothesis offered in the study is the ability of immigrants to call on their networks during both good times and bad. And while the theory calls for more study, Americans of all heritages can consider expanding their support networks to include, say, co-workers, fellow churchgoers or club members. The list, in fact, is almost endless.

The trend may be toward walkable communities: those with amenities close enough to residences that automobiles are unnecessary, at least for everyday needs. But traffic and commuting time are still high on the list of concerns for most homebuyers.

"There is no way to solve traffic congestion," Brookings Institution Economist Anthony Downs said at a recent real estate conference. "Congestion is simply an inexorable part of the way cities grow."

No wonder 3 out of every 4 would-be buyers focus at least somewhat on cutting their commuting costs, according to a National Association of Realtors survey. Only 27 percent said they were unconcerned with commuting expenses.

About 14 percent were so troubled that they compromised on the home they bought to be closer to work. Six percent more bought a smaller house to be closer to family, and 2 percent did the same to be closer to schools.

Few would-be buyers ask about the local police or fire departments, at least not directly. But they almost always want to know about the schools.

Normally, you can find what you're looking for from the school in question or the local school district. But here, from the Counselors of Real Estate -- the trade group for the country's 1,100 or so real estate advisors -- are four websites for more detailed school information:

-- greatschools.org. Submit a school name for test scores, course offerings and parent/student reviews. Input an address to see all nearby schools.

-- education.com/schoolfinder. Plug in a school name to see how it compares to others in the district and the state. Also shows boundary maps for each school.

-- publicschoolreview.com. Enter the home's address to find all nearby schools, plus information -- but not test scores -- for each one.

-- privateschoolreview.com. A similar site locates private institutions.

Even though the home-office deduction is said to be a red flag for federal income tax auditors, it is a legitimate write-off for small-business owners who, in fact, have space in their homes dedicated solely to their businesses.

According to the latest Census Bureau data, the practice of working at home is on the upswing. By last count in 2010, the number of us working at home totaled 13.4 million, up from 9.2 million in 1997.

According to IRS data, some $9.8 billion in home office expenses were claimed on IRS Form 8829 in 2011.

The write-off is split into two classes: direct expenses related to the taxpayer, and indirect expenses that apply to the house as a whole and are only partially deductible. About $6 out of every $7 claimed comes from indirect expenses, such as mortgage interest, utilities and repairs.

When it comes to real estate, the appraisal is the linchpin around which all else revolves. Both buyers and sellers are in a holding pattern until the appraiser arrives at the property, looks it over and comes back with a figure on what he thinks the place is worth.

Such is the case whether the property in question is a single-family house in the suburbs or a $200 million office tower in the city.

"Nothing happens in real estate until the appraisal report is signed and an opinion of the property's value is provided," says Brian Coester, an appraiser who presides over his own appraisal management company.

With that in mind, here are some things you should know:

-- There is a major disconnect within the lending business. Some lenders -- and real estate agents -- think the appraiser's job is to get the deal done, whereas appraisers generally think of lenders as money-hungry outfits who don't understand their profession.

According to Coester, CEO of Coester VMS in Rockville, Maryland, the appraiser's job is to be unbiased and completely independent of the transaction, while at the same time being realistic and practical.

-- The appraiser's valuation is her opinion -- repeat, opinion -- of what the property is worth. It doesn't matter what the buyer is willing to pay or what the seller is willing to accept.

"Two appraisers could do an appraisal on the same day, on the same house, come up with two different values and have them both be right," says Coester. "The reality is that value is really the appraiser's opinion, not an average, not a range, but a number the appraiser picks by looking at the data, understanding the market and all factors considered."

If the appraisal comes in too low for the lender to accept the buyer's application for a mortgage, the seller will either have to lower his price or the buyer will have to come up with more cash to make the deal work.

Yet the appraiser's valuation does not have to be the final word. Most appraisal companies offer a step-by-step procedure to follow if anyone involved in the deal thinks the valuation is off-base.

-- The information available determines much of the results. Appraisers are only as good as the data available to them.

Most, but not all, markets have a multiple listing service from which the appraiser gleans much of her information. But issues tend to arise when the appraisal is on new construction or houses in rural areas. Then, the appraiser must often deal with incomplete, inaccurate and outdated data.

Sellers should write up an inventory of all the improvements made to the house within the previous five years, complete with receipts if possible, to present to the appraiser as he enters the house. That way, the appraiser can spend his time verifying the information, which is more likely to reflect favorably upon the overall appraisal.

Remember, though, routine maintenance does not count.

-- You are only as good as your neighborhood. Like it or not, for better or worse, your neighbors and your neighborhood have an overall effect on your home's value. In a $200,000 neighborhood, spending $100,000 on improvements is not likely to add $100,000 in value.

-- At the end of the day, all adjustments to the valuation must be backed by real data that support the appraiser's opinion and would stand up in court.

For example, a $5,000 adjustment for garage space isn't just pulled out of thin air. It is backed by market research and data indicating that garages are worth $5,000 per space. It might be that homes with two-car garages sold for $5,000 more than those with one-car garages, or a variety of other market data.

-- Lenders' guidelines are unclear at best. While all lenders try to adhere to the rules set down by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- the two secondary market companies that purchase loans from primary lenders -- or those from the Veterans Administration and Federal Housing Administration, the variety of requirements and requests lenders ask for can be amazing, according to Coester.

Moreover, most underwriters haven't been properly trained on appraisals, and as result, appraisers are sometimes stuck with requests and requirements that contextually don't make sense in the realities of the market or the appraiser's scope of work.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) is the one true requirement. USPAP discusses how appraisers go about their business, and is the only thing appraisers are bound to. "Everything else is considered guidelines or suggestions, and varies from client to client," Coester says.

-- Appraising is a full-time profession. The typical appraiser does one or two appraisals a day.

"They are trained to be very careful when it comes to what they will and won't do when it comes to value, property condition and selecting comparables," according to Coester.

-- Appraisers are supposed to be licensed and be familiar with the area in which the subject property is located.

Licenses are hard to come by. According to Coester, "it takes two years, 300-plus tested education hours and 3,000 field hours to obtain an appraiser certification."

You have the right to ask to see the appraiser's credentials and make sure she hasn't traveled from outside the subject market. And if you aren't satisfied, you can ask the lender to send another appraiser.

-- An appraisal is not a home inspection. The two are totally different. The inspector's job is to make sure all the mechanical and subsystems are working and that there are no structural issues. The appraiser's is to observe the house in its current state, compare that with similar homes in the area and come up with a valuation.

Put another way, appraisers typically work on the assumption that everything is in good working order, whereas inspectors verify functionality.

It has been said that figures lie and liars figure. But even when the numbers are truthful, they often are nearly meaningless.

Take average home prices. They are widely reported by regional and local media, even though they are generally national in nature. While it's nice to know that housing values throughout the country are up or down -- or holding steady -- the figures often have little meaning when it comes to what's happening on your block or in your neighborhood.

David Rathgeber, a northern Virginia real estate broker, says home price data is "recreational" rather than actionable. He also rightly points out that the figures quoted are usually old news, as much as four months after the fact, even though they are often mistakenly reported as this month's or last month's numbers.

Why such a delay? A two-month delay is "unavoidable," he says, "due to data collection limitation -- the lag between contract and closing -- and another month or two for data assembly, review, comment and publication."

Rathgeber also points out that "taking action" based on two- to four-months-old information "can be a disaster."

Prices rise or fall in two ways -- appreciation or depreciation -- and according to the mix of sold houses.

If the trend has resulted from rising prices, sellers might want to hold firm on their asking price, even if the house is currently overpriced. It may be getting only a few showings, or perhaps none at all. But if prices are, indeed, rising, the seller can hold on until values catch up.

And if prices are falling, sellers will have to cut their inflated asking price by a rate greater than that of the overall market decline if they want to lure a buyer.

Buyers, on the other hand, may be willing to pay something above the asking price when home values are rising because they have a reasonable expectation that, in a few months, they will recoup their "loss." If prices are falling, buyers will have no sense of urgency because they expect greater value for their money in the future.

But beware: The average home price can change even when individual values do not.

That's because of the distribution of the properties covered in the price report. If more lower-cost houses than usual are sold in one particular month, the average price will skew lower. Similarly, if more than the usual number of expensive places change hands, the average will swerve higher.

And one more thing: The true average rarely changes more than 1 percent from one month to the next. So view reports that show values rising or falling by more than that with a high dose of skepticism. In Rathgeber's words, they are "patently meaningless."

Again, what's happening on a national scale usually has little significance to values in your neck of the woods. But even more important to note is that even though averages can be built for any zip code and any month, the sample size is generally not large enough over a short enough time to have any significance.

Generally, to calculate a meaningful average price for a particular area would require years of data, much of which would be so old that it would no longer be relevant. The actionable information today's buyers and sellers need must be fresh: what went down last week and last month, not years ago.

While we are debunking myths about prices, let's take a deeper dive into two popular reports covering mortgage rates: one from Freddie Mac, the other from HSH Associates.

Freddie Mac, the huge secondary mortgage market company, publishes a widely quoted monthly report on the average rates for 30-year and 15-year loans. Its survey is an average of the offerings to "prime" borrowers from 125 primary lenders nationwide, large and small, for purchase loans with 20 percent down.

Even that much information is often more than gets picked up by news organizations. But how many people these days make that large a downpayment? And who is a prime borrower? Freddie Mac doesn't have a definition, but reports that it is "not necessarily" someone who has never missed a payment and is always on time.

HSH, the New Jersey mortgage information firm, says its weekly average results from a survey of 600 "active" lenders who are in the market and able to make loans directly to consumers. Here, the survey asks lenders about their pricing for 80 percent loan-to-value mortgages to someone with a 740 FICO score or better.

This is the "stuff of normal humans," according to the company's Keith Gumbinger. But again, do you fit that bill? If not, you can expect to pay more than what's reported in the media. At the same time, because Freddie Mac's and HSH's numbers are averages, you might be able to find lower rates.

This is not to damn either Freddie's or HSH's surveys -- or any of the pricing surveys, for that matter. Rather, the point is this: Take all that's reported with the proverbial grain of salt. Do your own sleuthing and you just might do better.