Voyage with Steve Webb on the murky if fairly well charted waters of Mortgage Zee (to borrow the Dutch term). The less you know about sailing, the more you’ll learn from Webb’s guide for seafarers. As usual with Webb’s audio segments from the Real Estate Today series, this one is as lively as a pirate, with an Irish-sounding mariner’s tune as background music, plus the lilt of Webb’s crisp British accent to keep us awake.

Once again, as in his piece about renting versus buying a house, there’s a sort of disconnect between the current economic doldrums and the brisk wind in Webb’s sails — or sales talk. It’s all fitting and proper that we know about the p’s and q’s of credit ratings when applying for a mortgage. My guess, however, is that most public-radio listeners are already familiar with this material. Much as I admire Webb’s blithe spirit, I wonder about the ultimate value of his Coldwell Banker approach, given the complexities of the real estate scene in 2009.

Dry land can be fraught with bumpy roads, after all. But the pitfalls of terra firma don’t appear to interest Cap’n Webb. Toward the end of this piece his Irish-sounding background music segues to “Anchors Aweigh,” leaving us happily if a bit queasily at sea.