Move over, real estate companies. There’s a new game in town.

Nonprofits that work with mostly low- and moderate-income families to widen their homeownership opportunities are expanding their missions into helping clients actually buy and sell houses.

Take NeighborWorks America, for example: It’s a Washington-based, Congressionally chartered nonprofit network, and a leading trainer of professionals in community development and affordable housing. Typically, local nonprofits in the NeighborWorks network educate would-be buyers about the ins and outs of ownership and, if necessary, help them straighten out their finances and boost their credit scores. Then, when people are ready to take the next step, they are turned over to an outside realty professional.

Now, though, 30 or so NeighborWorks member organizations are keeping their clients in-house, offering not only realty services but also, in some cases, financing and insurance. Some are even building houses.

Over the next few years, Marietta Rodriguez, NeighborWorks’ vice president of national homeownership programs, expects the number of nonprofits that build, sell, finance and insure houses to grow as they look to become less dependent on shrinking federal and state dollars.

“The housing industry and the funding options for the nonprofit community business are changing,” Rodriguez says. “To adapt, more and more NeighborWorks organizations are building complementary businesses that generate revenue that they funnel back into their mission-based operations. The result is a more complete social enterprise that offers double bottom-line benefits for them and the community.”

The move toward self-sufficiency makes sense. Nonprofits see thousands of families who yearn to be homeowners. After these people go through an extensive education program, many are mortgage-ready. But then they go off to buy a house through an often unknown real estate agent and mortgage company.

In many cases, then, the nonprofit is helping agents and lenders, but getting nothing in return. So it’s “only natural,” says the NeighborWorks executive, for local groups that have the capacity to add realty services to do so.

“Vertical integration in this instance makes a lot of business sense,” she says.

For NeighborWorks of West Vermont in Rutland, the move into realty services “fills a gap” for its clients, says Ludy Biddle, the group’s executive director. ”They’ve gone through our classes and built their credit scores, and they are excited about homeownership, and then we didn’t have anyone to help them. So we decided to fill that piece.”

The Vermont chapter has only one agent on staff just now, but he’ll do 28 sales this year, says Biddle. “He got tired of selling ski condos, and wanted to do something to help people.”

To which, Riddle adds: “All of us in the nonprofit world are working to become self-sufficient and still support the people who need our help. If we can make a little bit of profit, we can be less dependent on state and federal grants.”

To help the trend along, NeighborWorks has embarked on a three-year program to educate more of its 250 member organizations about how to build revenue streams that they can pour back into their core functions.

The goal is to be something like Homewise, the 31-year-old New Mexico nonprofit that began adding realty services to its menu about a half-dozen years ago. Today, it has seven agents on staff in Santa Fe and two in Albuquerque. It also finances the houses its clients buy, and has just started insuring those properties, as well.

“Anything we get in terms of grants or funding is used for growth,” says Communications Director Laura Altomare. “Our day-to-day operations are funded by our real estate services.”

In Homewise’s most recent fiscal year, 372 families who went through its education programs went on to buy houses. Of those, 271 used one of the group’s agents. Clients don’t have to use a Homewise agent, say Altomare, but most people choose to.

With the increased competition for business, you’d expect some pushback from the local real estate community. But the opposite has been the case so far.

For one thing, real estate agents tend not to like working with low- and moderate-income customers, who require too much work for smaller commissions. Beyond that, real estate agents often refer clients to the nonprofits.

“We have a great relationship with our local Realtors,” says Altomare. “We get quite a few referrals from them about people who are not quite ready to buy.”

Another vertically integrated nonprofit, NPHS in Rancho Cucamonga, California, also has a good relationship with the local real estate community.

“You never want to ruffle any feathers,” says Communications Director Victor Ramirez, “but we’ve been well received. They’d rather be doing easier deals, so they’d rather have us do the more complex ones.”

NPHS has two agents on staff: one to handle residential clients and the other to work on commercial deals, which is a new line of business the organization has just launched.

So low-income buyers can take heart: More homebuying options and help are available every day.

There’s nothing more offensive than a seller hovering over a would-be buyer when he or she is looking at the house.

Well, maybe there is. Here are four overlooked ways sellers sabotage the sales of their homes:

-- Access. If a prospect can’t tour the place, they probably won’t buy it. Sellers must be as flexible as possible when it comes to showings. Yes, life often gets in the way: kids, ballgames, family is here from out of town, blah, blah, blah. But if you want to sell it, people need to see it -- on their terms, not yours.

“Access is huge,” says agent Kathleen Daniels of K.D. Realty in San Jose, California. “It won’t sell if people cannot see it.”

Access also refers to a buyer’s ability to actually get into the house. So fix the front door if it sticks, and make sure the screen door or storm door works properly. While you’re at it, make sure the keys work easily. People don’t want to hear something about having to jiggle it, or turn it just this way or that to make it work. If it doesn’t work smoothly, change the lock.

“I don’t have time to figure out the idiosyncrasies of your lock,” says Travis Parker of Team Linda Simmons in Enterprise, Alabama.

-- Smells. You love your two dogs and three cats, and you also love to cook. That’s great, but remember that animals and dinners give off odors -- sometimes pungent ones that can send would-be buyers running for the exits. You live with these smells every day, so you probably don’t notice them. But prospects will.

Smoking also offends the olfactory nerves of many people, so if you can’t quit altogether, light up outside until the house is sold. And be sure you clean up your butts. Would-be buyers don’t want to see your leftovers any more than they want to smell them.

“Smoking drives me crazy,” comments Elyse Berman of Realty Associates Florida Properties in Boca Raton. “Maybe I am oversensitive to it, but most buyers ... will agree.”

Speaking of stink, don’t burn scented candles every time the house is being shown, or fill every room with a plate full of potpourri. Your intentions are good, but many people find the smells unpleasant. And they can easily prompt buyers to wonder what you are trying to cover up.

Want to kill your sale? “Put lots of plug-in air fresheners in your house,” says Holly Weatherwax of Momentum Realty in Reston, Virginia. “A lot of them.”

-- Pets. Not everyone loves your dog or cat -- or pet snake, for that matter. Some folks fear them; other folks are allergic. So get them out of the house when showing the place. This even goes for your friendly little pooch who never, ever bites. You don’t want a would-be buyer to be the first to prove that untrue. And most people don’t like the idea of cat dander on their pant legs from your friendly feline rubbing against them.

It’s not enough to stick your pets in the garage or the backyard. After all, buyers will want to see the garage and backyard. Plus, a yapping mutt outside is a big distraction.

Instead, take them to a friend’s house if you can, and try to remove any reminders that you have a pet at all. Get rid of the litter box, the dog beds, the food and water dishes and the piles of dog, er, residue in the yard.

“One of my worst showings ever had everything, including a barking dog, a live chicken on the kitchen countertop, cat poop on the floor, boxes everywhere and who knows how many people upstairs,” says Barbara Bartell-Kamp of Keller Williams in White Plains, who didn’t bother going upstairs to find out.

-- Stuff. Most longtime homeowners have too much stuff. Their places literally overflow with it: furniture, knickknacks, family photos, collections, books, etc. So pare it down. You live with your stuff every day, so you may not notice it. But visitors do.

“Having to blaze your own trail through a showing is not helpful,” says Carol Lynn Johnson of RE/MAX Elite Realty in Franklin, North Carolina, whose pet peeve is too much furniture.

Remember, when your house is for sale, it is on stage. You want buyers to notice the big picture window, for example, but they may not if it’s covered by a massive set of drapes or blocked by a pile of best-sellers. And they may not realize just how large your secondary bedrooms are if they’re filled with boxes of stuff.

Pay particular attention to the kitchen counter. People can’t see how much counter space you have if it’s covered by coffeemakers, breadboxes and the like. Also, pay attention to other spots where stuff tends to accumulate, including the pantry, fireplace mantel and bookshelves.

The bottom line: “It takes a lot of work to sell your house,” says Weatherwax. “It is very difficult to pay attention to the house when there are so many nonessential things vying for a buyer’s attention.”

Housing choices are going to the dogs. Literally.

That’s the gist of a new Harris Poll, which found that a third of millennial-aged first-time homebuyers made their decision of where to buy based largely on the desire to have a better space for their mutts.

Dogs ranked third among the top motivators for rookie buyers -- cited by more millennials than marriage or the expected birth of a child, according to the poll, conducted on behalf of SunTrust Mortgage.

The desire to have a yard for their pups was named as the prime motivator for 33 percent of first-time buyers ages 18 to 36. Only the desire for more living space, at 66 percent, and the chance to build equity, at 36 percent, were identified as more important.

Wedded bliss was rated as the major decision-maker by 25 percent of the respondents, and just 19 percent said their first kid was the game-changer.

“For (millennials) with dogs, renting can be more expensive and a hassle,” said Dorinda Smith, president and CEO of SunTrust Mortgage. “Homeownership takes some of the stress off by providing a better living situation.”

The bond between millennials and their four-legged friends is strong, even among young adults who have never purchased a home. The survey found that 42 percent of renters say that their dog -- or the desire to have one -- is a key factor in their wanting to buy a home in the future.

Fueled by a substantial increase in sales-dollar volume from Canadian buyers, foreign investment in U.S. residential real estate skyrocketed to a new high this year, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Nearly half of all foreign sales were in just three states: Florida, California and Texas.

NAR found that between April 2016 and March 2017, foreign buyers and recent immigrants purchased $153 billion of residential property, which is a 49 percent jump from 2016 ($102.6 billion) and surpasses 2015 ($103.9 billion) as the new survey high. Overall, 284,455 U.S. properties were purchased by foreign buyers (up 32 percent from 2016), and these purchases accounted for 10 percent of the dollar volume of existing-home sales.

Although China maintained its top position in sales-dollar volume for the fourth straight year, the significant rise in foreign investment in the survey came from a massive hike in activity from Canadian buyers. After dipping in the 2016 survey to $8.9 billion in sales (down from $11.2 billion in 2015), transactions from Canadians this year totaled $19 billion -- a new high for Canada.

NAR attributes the notable rise in activity to Canadians opting to buy property in U.S. markets that are expensive, but still more affordable than in their native land. While much of the U.S. continues to see fast price growth, home price gains in many cities in Canada have been steeper, especially in Vancouver and Toronto.

Buyers from China exceeded all countries by dollar volume of sales at $31.7 billion, which was up from last year’s $27.3 billion. Chinese buyers also purchased the most housing units for the third consecutive year (40,572, up from 29,195 in 2016).

The credit scores of approved borrowers are dropping. So does that mean it’s getting easier to purchase a home?

The median FICO score for borrowers approved for agency-originated loans (those backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae) has declined from 742 in June 2016 to 725 in April 2017. The present level represents a new low after the 2008 housing crisis; the previous low was 726 in November 2015.

But this drop in FICO scores does not necessarily indicate that credit availability is improving. An analysis of agency FICO scores by loan purpose shows that the decline was driven almost entirely by refinance scores. Refinance credit scores fell 27 points from October 2016 (752) to April 2017 (725). Purchase FICO scores, in contrast, declined only 4 points (729 to 725).

One explanation for the refinance-driven reduction in FICO scores is that lenders, in the wake of rising rates, are approving more refinance applications from slightly less creditworthy borrowers to maintain volumes amid a shrinking pool of in-the-money refinance borrowers.

In the remodeling version of Murphy’s Law, once you remove a wall or floor, you never know what you’ll find. Ditto for homebuilding, where Murphy has it that once you put a shovel into the ground, you never know what you’ll dig up.

To wit, builders at a South London residential development recently unearthed a rare Roman sarcophagus. Only two other sarcophagi have been unearthed in England in recent years -- one in 2006 and the other 1999.

The excavation revealed a large “robber trench” around the coffin, and the lid had been moved, suggesting that the coffin was discovered and robbed in the past. However, it is possible that only the precious items were removed, and the less valuable artifacts, such as the body itself, still remain within the stone sarcophagus. The find is being taken to the Museum of London for further study.