In this volatile real estate market, expert Tara-Nicholle Nelson has the right stuff for anyone who wants to buy a home with "no more drama," to paraphrase Mary J. Blige. A self-proclaimed "real estate therapist," "freak-out prevention specialist" and "consumer advocate," Nelson uses her law and psychology degrees in her Bay Area-based real estate practice, which caters primarily to women.

In her own incredible life journey, which includes enrolling in college at 16, becoming a mother at 17, losing 60 pounds, and leaving an abusive marriage to study law, Nelson found women often got the short end of the stick in real estate transactions, and she has devised several plans of action to combat this.

"I found smart women were experiencing drama and pain," she says. "They really wanted the house, but they really weren't feeling the whole transaction process. That dread was what I kept seeing over and over. I call it the real estate-induced panic attack. That fear goes one of two ways and neither one of them is good: it either goes to 'I'm paralyzed, I don't know what to do,' so they do nothing or 'I don't know what to do so I'm just going to do this,' and you have impulsive buyers, which is equally bad."

In addition to her books, 'Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions' and 'The Savvy Woman's Homebuying Handbook: 150 Insider Secrets, Decision-Making Guides and Online Resources, Plus the ONE Action Plan You Need', Nelson is the founder of (RE)ThinkRealEstate and the face of the 'Drama Free Real Estate' video series on HGTV's FrontDoor.com Real Estate. She sat down with BV Home & Garden to talk real estate and power moves.

How do you know if you're house-ready?

What I see happening all the time is people reading newspapers or people hearing things about the market, and they want to make the decision of whether to buy a house based on the market, which I think is the backward approach. I think you should make your real estate decisions about whether you should buy based on your lifestyle and your personal finances. If you think you really want to buy, and you're thinking this is a good time to buy, then you're ready enough to at least explore with a qualified reputable mortgage broker what your actual purchasing power is.

You mentioned that women purchase a little differently than men, can you explain?

They do. Women think about everything differently than men do, so it would only make sense that women think about and shop for homes differently as well. It's a totally different experience to house hunt with a woman than with a man. Women, I like to think, have a hypertext mind. Things that other people wouldn't necessarily see as related, women do. A woman will see stairs to a house, and instead of just thinking of herself, she'll be thinking about her grandparents that come over once a year and how she wants them to be able to get into her house. Even if women don't have kids, they'll think about school districts. It reflects a commitment a community is making to its citizens, and that's something that's important to women. I think women think about home and houses to the 10th power compared to men, on average.

Are African Americans also different when it comes to real estate?

I think so. I think we have a stronger fundamental belief in the ability of real estate to help build wealth. I think we're probably more risk takers, which can be good and can be bad, depending on the timing. We probably don't get the same level of gift money that other groups get, and I'm just talking from my experience. African Americans really believe in the power of real estate, and that's a huge thing. I think as time goes on, it will continue to be a huge thing. Unfortunately, so much of our wealth is real estate-based that with the big decrease in revenue wealth, we have probably lost more wealth proportionally than non-blacks, and I think there is data to support that actually. But bottom line, we'll be all right.

I'm hearing that banks are not giving mortgages if you have less than 20 percent down. Is that true?

You can't get an FHA loan over whatever the loan limit is in your area. An FHA loan is a loan insured by the Federal Housing Association. It's still a bank loan. You have to get approved for it, and a bank still lends you the money. It's just insured by the federal government against your default. In most high-cost areas like New York, 7.29 percent to 7.50 percent is the FHA limit, that's the loan limit. So you can still get an FHA loan if you were buying a more expensive house, but you would then have to put down the difference. Those loans require 3.5 percent down, and we do them all day long, every single day. They are more flexible on credit guidelines, they require a 620 FICO score, on average, and they'll let you use gift money. Almost 30 percent of mortgage loans are FHA loans. In terms of low-down-payment conventional loans, there really aren't that many out there. The FHA's mission is to promote home ownership among people who don't have a whole bunch of money or a perfect credit, so when the loans that we talked about in the book went away, FHA stepped in.

Do subprime mortgages still exist?

No, they don't. They're just not out there. It's almost impossible to buy a house with less than 3.5 percent of the purchasing price with your own money. There are some city and state down-payment assisting programs that will help you. Nine times out of 10, they require that you still have 3.5 percent of the purchasing price of your own money, because they don't want to end up helping you get into a house that you're going to walk away from.

Not reading. They don't read all the documents, especially the foreclosure. Not attending their inspections. You get way more information there on-site than you'll ever get from the report. Not getting a professional's opinion. I think people err when they try the do-it-yourself real estate. I think there's so much up on the Web and there's so much information available that people don't value enough professional opinion, and I think that could help them to prevent mistakes from happening.

How's the real estate business in this market?

It's completely nuts. There's lots of buyer activity going on right now. In my state, I think we had a 153 percent increase in sales in the first quarter of this year. Prices are way down. The fact is, for a lot of buyers, it opens up a possibility of home ownership that just didn't exist before, so I love this shift. There are a lot of houses on the market that are not in good condition, so buyers should take their time finding a house. The good houses, good neighborhoods and good price ranges all have multiple offers. I think the last 20 houses I've had offers on have had multiple offers, which is above asking price. So it's hard for buyers to wrap their heads around the market, because they're reading and hearing about how strong the buyers' market is, and then they get into it, and they're like "What do you mean multiple offers?"

Tell me about your work with HGTV

HGTV already gets it about women being the primary real estate decision makers. When they decided to do FrontDoor.com, the concept was a perfect marriage between all the cool design things that you see on television and fact-based real estate advice and listings. It's really all the things you need in one place. It's kind of a wonderland. There are real estate addicts who obsessively house hunt online even when they're not in the market. Even a year or two before they're going to actually buy a house, they want to look at listings and get advice, and it's a great site for that kind of person. Also, the expert advice that's on there is not offered on other sites. I've deemed myself the Chief Freakout Prevention Specialist. That's what I do, with solutions. I'm probably one of the only real estate educator expert types out there in the market right now who is still selling real estate. This market is so fast changing that it's hard for people who haven't been active recently to know what buyers and sellers are thinking about right now and give them actual concrete solutions that have been proven effective in the market. That's what we do that I don't really see anyone else out there doing.

For more information on Tara-Nicholle Nelson, go to:

(RE)ThinkRealEstate and HGTV's FrontDoor.com Real Estate