There are probably thousands of them. Really. Your own real estate agent's site should be chock-full of consumer information. Besides Fannie's and Freddie's sites, which I already mentioned, let's review some of the websites that provide useful home loan information without also trying to sell you something.

That depends on whether your lender has the type of system that lets you do that. If a lender or mortgage broker has the ability to let you track the status of your loan application, they'll let you know at the beginning of your loan process. You'll also choose a user name and password to use when you log on. There are variations on this theme, but in practice, most systems allow you to log onto your lender's website, type in your loan number or password, and see a status report on where your loan is in the approval process and what has or has not been done.

Do you want to check current rates or get a history of where interest rates have been for, say, the last ten years? Do you want to compare interest rate trends or see how volatile an interest rate index has been over the past few years? There are various websites that provide historical rate data at no charge to the consumer. Perhaps one of the most extensive sites is HSH Associates, or www.hsh.com.

You can, but lenders won't hand you the keys. The only thing that's really done online nowadays is taking the loan application; a loan officer will then call you back. Lenders learned a lesson with online loans and ''instant'' approvals when borrowers began questioning just how good their approvals actually were.

No. You're wasting your time. The e-mails you get are nothing more than spam. As a matter of fact, they're rarely from mortgage companies. In connection with an article I wrote about the practice of mortgage "spam", I decided to answer one of the many e-mails that appear in my in box nearly every day.

I would suggest avoiding the pure-play online lender. Especially if you're not familiar with the online lending process or haven't financed very many (if any) properties. By ''pure play'' I mean companies that don't have a physical presence other than their headquarters.

That depends upon how "wrong" the papers are. If it's something minor that your settlement agent can change, it might be fixed right there at the closing. But what if you were quoted 7.00 percent and all of your documents show 7.50 percent? If you're at the closing table getting ready to move into your new home that day, there isn't a whole lot you can do about it. It might be too late.