Fraud isn’t exactly rampant in the mortgage field. But it does happen, perhaps more frequently than you’d think.

Sometimes, it’s the would-be borrower who commits the crime. Some lie on their applications about how much they earn, how long they’ve been on their current job, or the extent of their indebtedness. Others tell their lenders they plan to live in the house when they really don’t, while still others fail to disclose the true source of their down payments or side deals with someone who’s part of the transaction.

But sometimes it’s the loan applicant who’s hoodwinked. And they can be had in any number of ways.

One ruse that should be on every homebuyer and seller’s radar screen is what’s known in the trade as a “business email compromise.” It starts when a buyer receives an email with “new instructions” to wire the money he or she will be using to close the transaction at settlement to an unfamiliar address “because our servers are down.” But if the buyer complies, the money is usually gone forever.

This scam is far more lucrative than robbing a bank. Whereas bank robbers get away with just $1,400 on average per heist, according to Bruce Phillips, senior vice president and information security officer at WFG National Title insurance in Portland, Oregon, the average lost to swindlers in the wire scam is $140,000. One poor soul lost $1.2 million, never to be seen again.

The miscreants are successful because people “rely on emails way too much,” Phillips offers. “If you are in the process and it sounds reasonable, most people are going to do as requested. We are almost conditioned to accept an email from someone we’ve never seen before, send our money off and expect their promises to be kept.”

There are other scams, too. Like emails that advise you that your closing statement is attached. Ditto for a buyer’s so-called purchase contract addendum. Then there are those noxious emails informing you that your current credit score is available.

If you are not actively engaged in buying a house, you’d probably ignore these messages. The same goes for emails from banks with which you have no accounts.

But if you are somewhere in the buying process, phishing expeditions like these are likely to draw more than passing attention. Senders of these and other electronic missives are hoping that they’ll latch onto an unwitting homebuyer or seller who will open the attachments. Don’t!

If you do, your money or your identity is likely to be snatched in an instant, and then you’ll have hell to pay -- not to mention hundreds or even thousands of dollars -- just to get it back and clean up the financial mess these reprobates may cause.

To determine if an email is legit, check the sender’s address. If you get something from Experian, for example, the message will come from experian.com, not atozflavorful.com. If it is ostensibly from your bank, the bank’s name will be in the address after the at sign.

“Anybody can send an email with a company logo,” warns Steve Octaviano, chief technology officer at Blue Sage, an Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, vendor that sells a cloud-based digital lending platform. “You have to make sure it actually comes from the lender.”

Understand that you are always a target, so never trust an email, adds Phillips, the title company executive. “Always pick up the phone, call what you know is a good number for people you have been dealing with and validate the email. In every case I’ve looked at, that simple step would have stopped the scam in its tracks.”

When corresponding via email, many legitimate lenders, title companies and other service providers will invite you into their portals. That is, when you respond, they will answer back with an email of their own asking the sender to reply back with his or her password and other identifying information. If the sender can’t do that, access is denied and fraud artists are blocked.

Nowadays, 80 percent of the scams target buyers and sellers as opposed to businesses because “people don’t buy and sell houses that often and the likelihood of recovery is extremely low,” the title company executive says.

There’s no dollar figure associated with the scheme, but it is part of the $1.2-$1.3 billion that is estimated by the FBI to have been lost by consumers to wire fraud last year alone. That’s almost triple the amount lost in 2016. And since estimates are that only 14 percent of all business email compromise scams are reported to the authorities, losses are probably much greater.

Another precaution most consumers fail to take is to use an entirely new and totally different password for their real estate transactions, one that’s not easily guessable.

And don’t use 123456 or the word “password” as your password; they are the top two passwords currently in use.

Finally, two more steps to protect yourself: First, look for the lock icon at the bottom of the site you are trying to access. It means all data is encrypted so no one else can get at it without your passcode. And second, a legit email will contain a disclaimer warning you not to send money without first validating the request. So hold on to your wallet.

Dogs may be man’s best friend. But when it comes to moving from one residence to another, you have to be your dog’s best buddy -- and your own.

In other words, you should consider Fido’s needs just as you consider yours and those of your children’s. After all, he or she is part of the family. And to paraphrase an old saw, if your dog ain’t happy, ain’t nobody gonna be happy.

“Having a pet is a responsibility similar to having children,” Barbara Todaro of Franklin, Massachusetts, RE/MAX Executive Realty posted the other day on ActiveRain, the popular real estate community and chat room. “They all have needs.”

Jeff Dowler of Solutions Real Estate in Carlsbad, California, agrees: “Doing your (doggie) due diligence is essential so you don’t make a big mistake.”

One important factor many people fail to consider, especially when they are buying an existing home as opposed to new construction, is whether the previous owners had a dog of their own. If they did, your dog will probably be marking their own territory as soon as you move in.

According to the Best Friends Animal Society, claiming the house as their own is most common among dogs that are not spayed or neutered. But any dog has the potential to mark territory. And a sniff test isn’t enough of an assurance that this won’t happen, says Rebecca Gaujot of Vision Quest Realty in Lewisburg, West Virginia.

“Your dog’s sense of smell is much stronger than yours,” says Gaujot, who started the ActiveRain conversation on canine issues. Her advice: “If possible, avoid homes where the previous owners had dogs.”

You’ll not only want a dog-friendly house, you’ll also want a dog-friendly community where animals are cherished, not downgraded or even denigrated.

For starters, realize that many places, but especially condominium properties, have restrictions on dogs and other pets. Some are severe, such as weight and breed. Some limit the number of pets. And some may even ban them entirely.

If you don’t know the rules going in, you may have to get rid of your pets, or pick up and move somewhere else. “When a family has pets, it’s best to think about their needs, too, before the move, than to find out the hard way that there may be issues,” says agent Patricia Feager of DFW Fine Properties in Southlake, Texas.

If your dog requires room to run, consider a community with large lots and houses with plenty of backyard. Or a spot that has a dog park or recreation area not too far from the house you are planning to buy.

But again, make sure you know the rules, especially if you plan to erect a fence so your dog can enjoy your yard without supervision. Some communities set down requirements for the type of fence you can put up, and some ban them entirely.

If you plan to walk your dog daily, you might want to look at places that have sidewalks. They are easier to navigate for humans, especially older folk. Agent Matthew Klinowski of Downing-Frye in Naples, Florida, ran into that problem himself at his previous house. There were no sidewalks, but the Klinowski clan didn’t realize how important they were until after they moved in. “I prefer to walk our dogs on sidewalks whenever possible,” the Florida agent says.

Another thing to consider: Many places require owners to pick up after their pooches. Of course, this is the right thing to do wherever you live, but many communities mandate it. And if the property doesn’t, the local government might.

And one more thing: Whereas a neighborhood where people are out walking their dogs morning and night can be an indication that it is a good place for a social pup to make friends, a place where tethered but otherwise unattended dogs are barking continuously at people passing by “might not be the most pleasant place for walks,” Gaujot offers.

Back inside the house itself, Gaujot suggests looking for open floor plans so you and the kids can enjoy play sessions with Fido. If the house has a stairway, say, to a basement rec room or to the upstairs sleeping area, make sure the steps are carpeted so your dog -- and kids -- won’t slip, slide away.

If your pooch is getting up in age, you might want to consider houses that have just a few steps -- or none at all. As my own 40-pound pal moved up in years, I had to carry him with me every time I went to my basement office. Otherwise, he’d sit at the top of the steps and whimper until I went back and fetched him.

There’s no question that purchasing a newly constructed house is an exciting time. But if time is of the essence, consider buying a house out the builder’s inventory of finished but unsold homes.

Both to-be-built houses and inventory homes have their positives and negatives. If you need the time to sell your current place, hold a couple of yard sales to get rid of the stuff you no longer need or want, pack up the stuff you’re taking with you and take care of the myriad of other details involved in moving, what they call a “dirt” house in Texas is probably for you.

Not only do you get a scratch-built home that comes together from the ground up, you get to make some changes to the floor plan, add whatever options and upgrades you might want and pick all the finishes -- from the colors on the walls to the material used for your countertops to the style of your cabinetry. You even get to choose the exterior elevation you like.

“You have a lot of flexibility,” says Brian Hoffman, the third-generation owner of Red Seal Homes, headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois. “Lighting, plumbing, walls. If you have the time to get a home exactly as you want so it doesn’t look like everybody else’s, build-to-suit is the way to go.”

It’s nice to have choices, for they personalize what is essentially a standard production house. “You can put your stamp on it,” says Kathy Zigler, sales counselor at Caldwell Homes in Houston. “But it can be overwhelming” to have to make all the choices that are necessary.

“There are a million tiny decisions to make,” according to Haubstat, Indiana-based Reinbrecht Homes. “It’s not uncommon for a couple to make a lot of top-tier selections, only to realize they’re overshot their allowances by $100,000 or more.”

Another drawback: Building a house takes time, about seven months on average, according to the latest data from the National Association of Home Builders. And it could take longer -- nine to 10 months in the Mid-Atlantic region -- depending on where you are buying.

But that was way back in 2012, a lifetime ago in the construction business. Now, with the widespread shortage of construction labor -- the number of unfilled construction jobs is nearing 300,000, the most since the end of the Great Recession -- it probably takes somewhat longer.

So, if time is the determining factor -- say your old place sold faster than you thought it would, you’re anxious to move before the new school year starts or you’re changing jobs and have to relocate your family ASAP -- purchasing an inventory home may not be that big of a compromise.

For one thing, Zigler in Texas points out, “you get to see exactly what you are going to get.” No trying to visualize the house by reading floor plans or blueprints. No trying to mentally remove all the upgrades builders tend to put into their model homes. With an inventory home, it’s all there, right before your eyes.

Another important factor: If you have your financing all arranged and are pre-approved for a mortgage, you can probably close the deal within 14 days, says Hoffman, who has anywhere from four to 10 completed or nearly completed houses in inventory at any one time, depending on the pace of sales in a particular location. Indeed, Red Seal is “doing more speculative building lately” than at any time in its 80-plus years, he reports.

Also, you won’t have to settle for a lousy home site. Inventory houses are built throughout a community, not just in the worst places. One such Caldwell house in Cypress, Texas, is actually on an oversized lot; another has a view of the lake.

The house probably won’t be a stripped-down, basic model, either. Typically, Caldwell’s inventory houses have some upgrades -- an upgraded master bathroom, for example, or a gourmet kitchen. Says Hoffman of Red Seal: “Buyers of move-in ready homes have the benefit of finishes and special features hand-selected by our design team.”

If the house is finished, you are not going to be able to customize. But if it is still under construction, some degree of customization may be available, depending how far along the builder is.

Prices of inventory houses often are negotiable, too. After all, the longer the house languishes on the market, the more it costs the builder.

Zigler at Caldwell says the usual markdown is 10 percent, and the builder may be willing to go lower, depending on the property, but especially if the house is one of the few remaining to be sold. “We’re open to all offers,” she says. “Builders build homes to be lived in, not sit on the market, so you can get the best deals on these homes.”

If the builder won’t cut his price, maybe he’ll throw in some financing help. According to New York-based consultant Ivy Zelman, builders are increasingly offering such items as closing cost assistance, mortgage rate buy-downs or increased commissions for agents who bring buyers to their doors.

Because time is money, builders generally are more motivated to offer these kind of concessions on inventory models than production houses. All you gotta do is ask.