New homebuyers who search builder websites are likely to be in for a big surprise when they visit model homes.

According to research from HomesUSA.com, the prices would-be buyers find at the job site are often higher than they are on the website, or on the builder’s post in the multiple listing service. In one case, says HomesUSA President Ben Caballero, the difference was a striking $100,000.

The Addison, Texas-based company found no rhyme or reason to the discrepancies. In most instances, job site prices were higher than those listed online and on the MLS. In some cases, though, it was the other way around.

Either way, in the four major Texas markets the brokerage firm studied -- Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio -- there were price deviations in a third of the cases.

The differences smack of bait-and-switch schemes designed to lure buyers into visiting a builder’s community in person instead of just online. And in some instances -- “a small minority” -- that may be the case, says Caballero.

More likely, though, “it’s an honest mistake,” he says, because one part of a builder’s operation doesn’t know what the other part is doing. And many builders don’t have procedures in place to ensure that price changes put into effect at the job site are also updated on the web or the MLS.

Sometimes builders forget to tell their real estate agent, who manages their MLS listings, about price changes. And sometimes they fail to notify the in-house person who manages the website. But either way, the oversight can be terribly misleading.

HomesUSA found price discrepancies averaging $17,000 in a third of the houses advertised for sale by one merchant builder alone.

The research is limited to Texas, which is the largest new-home market in the country. But Caballero suggests there is no reason to believe the same thing isn’t going on everywhere.

“To me, builders are playing with fire,” he says. “They are leaving themselves open for complaints and mistrust. This is not a small deal.”

As Caballero sees it, the problem is not about builders’ inability to manage prices. It’s their inability to manage information. “Zillow and others have been criticized for bad data. This is just another case where consumers are getting bad data,” he says.

And boy, is the data bad. One major Houston builder had price discrepancies on 70 percent on his houses, HomesUSA found. Another large builder who was active in 23 markets across the state thought he had things under control, but “was absolutely flabbergasted” when Caballero showed him that he didn’t.

“It’s not for lack of effort,” the broker says. “It’s usually for lack of ability.”

It’s not just prices that builders’ websites and MLS listings aren’t keeping up with, either. It’s also the sales status of their houses: whether a house is completed or still under construction, or whether a house is sold or still available.

“Whether a house is move-in ready makes a big difference to someone who wants to move in right away,” explains Caballero.

HomesUSA manages its builder feeds electronically. “It can’t be done manually,” which is what many builders try to do. “There are too many moving parts,” Caballero says. “Builders have been slow to adopt technology; that’s not their core competency,” he says. And as result, when sales managers are notified of a price change, management forgets -- or fails -- to notify the person who manages the website. Consequently, the information drops through the cracks.

So what can buyers do when they are led to believe one thing by a builder’s website or MLS post, only to find out prices are higher when they visit the model home park?

If you are convinced the discrepancy is deliberate, you can complain to your local Better Business Bureau or the consumer affairs agency in your area, or perhaps your state’s attorney general’s office.

But if you believe it’s an honest error, you might try to leverage your buying power by negotiating, either for a price somewhere between the two numbers or for a free option or upgrade. To maintain goodwill, some builders will try to work with their customers -- especially when the builders were wrong to begin with.

The farm-to-table movement, first popularized by restaurants and grocery stores wishing to showcase the freshness of their local ingredients and produce, is slowly gaining credence in residential real estate.

The trend is taking hold largely in the apartment market, where residents share in the bounty of a large garden plot that produces fruits and vegetables at no charge. In Northridge, California, for example, the Terrena complex features a produce garden just outside the leasing office, leaving a strong impression on would-be tenants.

But farming is also taking place on a smaller scale at individual houses -- often called farmscaping. In Culver City, California, one house has a front garden that, a decade ago, “would have risked censure from the city and neighbors,” says Dan Allen of Farmscape Gardens. The company built that yard’s gardens, and is the largest urban-farming venture in the Golden State.

Now, farmscaping is “a point of pride as water-wise landscaping is incentivized rather than rebuked,” Allen adds, “and bountiful harvests are shared with friends, family, colleagues and neighbors.”

The Farmscape CEO estimates that the 275 sites his company built and maintains on a weekly basis generate some 200,000 pounds of produce annually. And that does not count the 300-plus other sites it designed that are managed by others.

Most of the firm’s real estate-related gardens to date have been at commercial properties, such as the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium. The stadium’s rooftop farm provides fresh produce for facility staff and on-site restaurants on a daily basis.

But some developers are creating entire “agrihoods” -- neighborhoods built around a farm rather than a golf course. The concept isn’t new, says Allen, but it’s “starting to catch fire now with organic farms serving as the focal point.”

Last year, Farmscape did small raised-bed gardens at apartment properties owned by Prometheus, a leading multifamily company on the West Coast. It also did a quarter-acre garden consisting of an orchard and raised beds at Veterans Village near San Francisco, which occupants will maintain on their own.

Though the Oakland-based company is decidedly a California outfit, it is starting to break out to other parts of the country, consulting on projects in Nevada and Texas.

The company has competition, but the others “don’t do all we do,” says Lara Hermanson, another Farmscape principal. “We design and consult and help with entitlements. Then we construct, maintain and propagate.”

Working with developers and their architects from the conceptual stage, the company can integrate orchard trees, food beds and, space and climate permitting, even vineyards. It even attends zoning hearings to garner community support for a sometimes unwanted development, and, in cases where it is not hired to manage the gardens, it works with residents and volunteer gardeners to make sure the agrihood thrives.

Residents aren’t always looking to become full-time farmers, so only a handful of communities take on the work of tending to their edible landscaping, Hermanson says. “In most cases, I’m the farmer in perpetuity.”

Typically, a small community-wide garden would consist of eight to 10 raised beds, a half-dozen orchard trees and some mulching, Hermanson says. Larger gardens would include more sizable orchards, row crops and ornamental plantings.

Gardens like these don’t come cheaply. A few raised vegetable and fruit beds and some hardscaping in just a quarter of a typical backyard can run up to $5,000. For the “whole shebang,” says Hermanson, a homeowner might spend upwards of $30,000 for a 2,500-square-foot garden. And some estimate that homeowners have spent close to $100,000 on their gardens.

A big planned unit development might also go to $100k or more for a 5- to 7-acre mini-farm. But according to Hermanson, “that’s in line with normal landscaping costs -- and often cheaper.”

Developers, especially those doing small sites, will often feature their gardens as the main amenity. And some larger builders are putting in “farmettes” in place of far more expensive golf courses and swimming pool complexes.

Developers are finding that “golf courses are not getting used,” says Hermanson. “Not everybody plays, but everybody eats.”

Edward McMahon, a Senior Fellow for Sustainable Development at the Urban Land Institute (ULI), says food is “providing a growing arena for innovation in real estate.”

“Growing, processing and selling food ... can pay big dividends for savvy developers as well as for consumers, communities and the environment,” says McMahon, who led a session on the topic at ULI’s fall meeting last year.

Of course, homeowners pay for the gardens as part of the homeowner’s association fees, just like they do for their pool complexes, golf courses and other amenities. Farmscape charges $700 to $1,500 a month to maintain a small garden, and $12,000 to $15,000 monthly to manage a high-end garden with a 200-tree orchard.

But there are payoffs. While a decently landscaped lot can boost a property’s value by 6 percent to 7 percent, according to a National Association of Realtors report, edible landscaping can pump up values by 28 percent. Also, well-designed gardens not only filter air pollutants, they can help cool homes during the summer and serve as wind blocks in the winter.

Lenders continue to work overtime in their efforts to reach more borrowers by introducing “new” mortgages. But these loans often have a tinge of the old subprime products that helped devastate the housing market nearly a decade ago.

The difference, this time around, is that lenders believe they have a handle on what got them into trouble last time.

Today’s not-so-new loans include one in which the lender wants a mere 1 percent down, another with an institutionalized temporary interest rate buy-down, and a third that allows for a 90 percent loan-to-value ratio without any mortgage insurance.

Also coming to market are loans aimed at immigrant buyers with no credit records, and self-employed borrowers who find it tough to prove their incomes.

Lenders typically want a 3 percent down payment at the very least. But Guild Mortgage is now willing to take 1 percent down from the borrower. The San Diego-based company will make up the difference with a 2 percent grant that need not be repaid.

In addition, Guild will go as high as a 50 percent debt-to-income ratio, and non-borrower household income -- rent from a boarder, for example, or monthly help from a relative -- can be used to qualify.

The company created the product “to make homebuying more attainable for more people, including millennials who are entering the housing market in increasing numbers,” says Guild President and CEO Mary Ann McGarry.

Going Guild one better, Movement Mortgage is offering a no-down-payment loan for qualified first-time buyers. The Movement Assistance Program (MAP) is for rookie buyers who meet specific income and asset criteria based on their need and the median income for their particular market. To reach the necessary 97 percent loan-to-value ratio, the Charlotte-based lender provides a 3 percent grant that need not be paid back. There are no second loans, liens or promissory notes, either.

A MAP loan also comes with opt-in job-loss insurance coverage for two years. The benefit covers up to six monthly mortgage payments due to involuntary unemployment at maximum monthly benefit of $1,500, for a $9,000 total benefit over the coverage period.

Meanwhile, Stearns Lending of Santa Ana, California, is now offering a mortgage with reduced payments for the first two years without any additional cost to the borrower. Under Stearns’ Smart Start program, the rate for the first 12 months is reduced by 1.5 percent. For the second 12-month period, the rate is cut by 0.5 percent. After that, the rate rises to the full rate in effect at the time the mortgage was originated.

Temporary “buy-downs” such as this aren’t unusual. But typically, the seller pays for it. Under Smart Start, though, the lender foots the bill.

“We want to make sure that higher rates do not deter well-qualified individuals and families from reaching their homeownership goals,” says Stearns CEO David Schneider.

When homebuyers have less than a 20 percent down payment, lenders almost universally require that they purchase private mortgage insurance (PMI) to cover the difference between what they put up and the 20 percent benchmark. Buyers pay, but the insurance covers the lenders should a borrower default. Irving, Texas-based Caliber Home Loans is rewriting that rule with Premier Access, a loan that calls for only 10 percent down -- and no PMI.

Also, the company will go up to a 50 percent debt-to-income ratio on a credit score as low as 660. And the loan features an interest-only option, meaning that for a period of time, the borrower need not pay down the principal.

Although Caliber offers the product to someone seeking as little as $100,000, Premier Access is designed “to assist borrowers who are buying or refinancing a high-value property,” the lender says.

Elsewhere, as federal mortgage market regulators strive to address issues facing borrowers with a limited proficiency in English, Bank of the West has launched a new product aimed at immigrants with no credit histories in this country.

Even though they may have good-paying jobs and have the financial means to afford a house, new arrivals to America usually have to wait two years to establish credit or pay cash for their homes. But Bank of the West, based in San Francisco but a subsidiary of the French bank BNP Paribas, will use information from foreign governments plus overseas financial institutions to underwrite their Global Mobility mortgages.

According to the bank’s Thierry Gabadou, who heads its International Banking Group, millions of people come to America with immaculate credit in their home countries, but no credit records in the U.S.

And lastly, there’s Citadel Servicing Corporation. The company claims to be the first lender to re-enter the “battered” subprime mortgage market, and is allowing self-employed borrowers to verify their incomes with only their previous 12 monthly bank statements instead of the usual 24.

Better yet, under the lender’s Alt-A Maggi Plus program, Citadel will accept credit scores as low as 650. But borrowers must show they pay their bills on time. They also must have been self-employed for at least two years.

No first-time buyers here, though: The company says only “seasoned mortgage-payers need apply.”