A: I never set out to write a tax column, but almost one letter in four seems to be about the tax consequences of selling one’s home. Then, every once in a while I touch a nerve and the letters pour in — for instance, printing a letter about a problem with the neighbor’s trees, triggers loads of mail, and so does any query about how to get rid of a timeshare.

Q: How did you get your start as a real estate columnist? And how did you get your column syndicated?

A:I got my broker’s license after the kids were out of the house. By the time our newlywed son phoned to say that he and his wife were going to buy their first home, I had plenty of advice. I sat down and wrote them 10 pages, everything I knew about how to buy their first home. Mailed it off (we mailed things in those days), but then I didn’t hear from them and got nervous — I was a new mother-in-law, after all. Finally three weeks later, I got up the nerve to ask long-distance “Uhm, did you get the, uhm, real estate advice?” And my daughter-in-law, bless her, said “Edith, it was great. I’ve already lent it to three people at the office. It would make a good magazine article.”

So when our local paper started a new real estate section, I thought about sending them an article. What I liked in the newspaper was Ann Landers and Dear Abby so I thought of four real estate questions that had been asked that day in my husband’s office, wrote them, answered them, wrote three more similar columns, and sent them to the paper — which accepted them. I was in the right place at the right time.

I self-invented being syndicated also, simply by sending clippings to hundreds of newspapers. I got about a 2 percent response. I worked up to 50 newspapers in the next five years, then was picked up by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, which got me up to more than 100 newspaper subscribers — and now, of course, some Web sites, including some real estate sites.

Q: The real estate industry seems to be buffeted daily with news of slowdowns around the country. What do you say to prospective buyers and sellers who are nervous about getting into a changing market?

A: It drives me crazy when local editors print national stories about “the real estate market.” No national story will fit any particular location, and the variations in price and market conditions are substantial, across the country. To any prospective buyer or seller, I’d advise paying attention only to the local market. And to the seller who is going from one house to another — if you’re buying and selling in the same market, it doesn’t matter which way things are going. What you lose on one end, you’ll make up on the other.

Q: The so-called subprime loan products that have been so popular for the last few years are really coming back to bite unsuspecting home owners. What do you think needs to be done to fix the situation? What role can/should real estate salespeople play in helping buyers choose mortgage products wisely?

A: When I give advice to beginning landlords, I caution them to hold out for tenants with good credit and dependable income. And then I wonder: Where do I expect the other people to live? It’s somewhat the same with those subprime loans. Yes, there are unscrupulous lenders who take advantage — but on the other hand, some of those high-interest loans do allow marginal borrowers to get into their own homes, and some of them work out well. Unless lenders are motivated by extra reward for extra risk, a whole lot of what we used to call the “deserving poor” would be shut out of the home owning market entirely. As for what should be done, I don’t know.

Q: How many letters do you get from your readers in an average week? How do you decide which one's to respond to?

A: I get only a letter or two by snail mail each day, with almost everything coming in by e-mail now. I answer every one, always have — hundreds of thousands by now. For the column, I try to select problems that might be faced by the average reader, though once in a while I hit something so intriguing, unbelievable, or funny, that I throw that in too. For my newest book I’ve Heard it All and So Should You, I gathered all the ones that I couldn’t print because I didn’t want to make fun of my readers. These are the ones that are really funny to someone who’s in the business. For example, such letters as “we want to sell on our own, I think you call it being an FSOB” and “to pay off our mortgage faster, should we send in the extra money for principal, interest, or escrow?”