At a time when everyone seems to be debating the downshifting in residential real estate, some other real estate vehicles have been careening down Wall Street like a bunch of Lamborghinis in overdrive.

They’re called real estate investment trusts, or REITs (rhymes with “treats”), and they offer investors a way to get in on the property game without becoming landlords and having to answer calls to fix toilets.

These publicly traded corporations invest solely in real estate and are as diverse as the real estate world itself, with trusts specializing in apartments, offices, retail space, hotels, hospitals, self-storage, factories and even live-work lofts.

 Q: We own two houses, for which we meet the 24-out-of-last-60-month ownership and occupancy requirement. One house is now listed for sale. When it sells, we would like to move into the other house and sell it within the next several months. If we sell one house in 2006 and the other house in 2007, can we claim the tax exemptions on both houses?

Bonnie H.

Fernley, Nev.

A: No. But it sounds like you understand the Internal Revenue Code quite well. To qualify for the principal-residence sale tax exemption up to $250,000 (up to $500,000 for a married couple filing a joint tax return) you must own and occupy the home at least 24 of the last 60 months before its sale.

 (12-03) 04:00 PST Washington — You might have seen the scary news reports just before Thanksgiving: Housing prices fell nationwide last quarter — the first such decline since 1993. Even grimmer, total sales of houses and condominiums plunged by 12.7 percent across the country, compared with the same period the year before.

You might have wondered whether this is the long-predicted popping of the housing bubble or the beginning of an extended period of eroding values in American home real estate. How bad could it get in the months ahead? And what might that mean for the equity I’ve got in the home I own?

 Q: My friends and I signed a one-year lease on a house. We’d been there for three months before the lady next door got sick of us and complained to the city about everything we did. Our landlord then served us with a “three-day notice to quit” (nuisance).

So that’s exactly what we did — we moved out and surrendered the property. Now he’s telling us we owe him the rent until someone else moves in and that we don’t get out deposit back. Is this legal and if it is or isn’t, what should I do?

 (12-03) 04:00 PST Washington — Federal housing authorities are adding first responders to a restructured program designed to get government-owned homes into the hands of workers who are seen as the key to improving the quality of life in distressed urban communities.

Under a rule adopted last month, firefighters and emergency medical technicians join police officers and teachers in a Good Neighbor Next Door program that allows them to purchase foreclosed houses in designated neighborhoods at half their appraised values. But only those employed by a government agency are eligible. First responders working for non-government entities do not qualify, even though they may provide the same services.