We present a photometrical and morphological multicolor study of the properties of low redshift ( z < 0.3 ) quasar hosts based on a large and homogeneous dataset of quasars derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey ( DR7 ) .
We used quasars that were imaged in the SDSS Stripe82 that is up to 2 mag deeper than standard Sloan images .
This sample is part of a larger dataset of \sim 400 quasars at z < 0.5 for which both the host galaxies and their galaxy environments were studied ( 15 ; 28 ) .
For 52 quasars we undertake a study of the color of the host galaxies and of their close environments in u,g,r,i and z bands .
We are able to resolve almost all the quasars in the sample in the filters g,r,i and z and also in u for about 50 % of the targets .
We found that the mean colors of the QSO host galaxy ( g - i =0.82 \pm 0.26 ; r - i =0.26 \pm 0.16 and u - g =1.32 \pm 0.25 ) are very similar to the values of a sample of inactive galaxies matched in terms of redshift and galaxy luminosity with the quasar sample .
There is a suggestion that the most massive QSO hosts have bluer colors .
Both quasar hosts and the comparison sample of inactive galaxies have candidates of close ( < 50 kpc ) companion galaxies for \sim 30 % of the sources with no significant difference between active and inactive galaxies .
We do not find significant correlation between the central black hole ( BH ) mass and the quasar host luminosity that appears to be extra luminous at a given BH mass with respect to the local relation ( M _ { BH } – M _ { host } ) for inactive galaxies .
This confirms previous suggestion that a substantial disc component , not correlated to the BH mass , is present in the galaxies hosting low z quasars .
These results support a scenario where the activation of the nucleus has negligible effects on the global structural and photometrical properties of the hosting galaxies .