Famed #1 audience-participation travel advice website TripAdvisor.com published their annual Top Ten Destinations list this week, and I’ll bet you can’t guess which sleepy little southern town they chose to be #1 on the Top Ten Beach & Sun Destinations this year?

Pardon me while I preen. And with a 50%-off airfare sale from Myrtle Beach Direct Air this weekend, we’ll be seeing you this summer, right? I hear that real estate in Myrtle Beach is a bargain right now!

The Myrtle Beach real estate market may appear to be at the bottom of a hole, but Builder magazine (the trade journal of the home building industry) expects our market to dig its way out this year and begin its climb back to the top.

Builder magazine ranked Myrtle Beach among the top 20 “healthiest housing markets for 2010,” highlighting the area’s continued influx of new residents and a recent increase in building permits. Myrtle Beach’s appeal and the pent up demand to move to the area persists despite the tough economic times, according to Fred Coyne, President of the Horry-Georgetown Home Builders Association.

We’ve seen many local builders, including Chicora, Centex, DRHorton and Lennar all ratchet up construction activity during the first two months of 2010 in anticipation of the rebound. They’re competing with short sales and foreclosures, but they’ve done a great job of narrowing the gap.

You can read the article here or search Myrtle Beach homes, condos and land here.

The number of homes for sale along the Grand Strand in February – roughly 13,233 – is down from last February’s 14,310.

The number of homes snapped up during the month – 326, according to the MLS – was higher than January’s 284.

Take your choice – agree with and bemoan the doom and gloom today, and lament in 2010 that you should have bought in 2009… or let us show you one of the great real estate deals to be had in Myrtle Beach today.

It’s time to get off your ass.

After eight years of discussion, disagreement and dirty-name-calling, Congress finally wrote, and President Obama yesterday signed, a law permanently prohibiting banks from being in the real estate brokerage and management businesses.

At its core, this is a consumer protection issue. Banks are an integral part of the business of housing, and banks must play their part – but only their part. Imagine the conflict of interest that could arise if your real estate broker (who works for Bank of Myrtle Beach) refers you to Bank of Myrtle Beach for your mortgage.

We’ve sald all along that banks do not belong in the real estate business (except when they actually own the real estate, and we all know how well they handle THAT), and we are are now protected from this conflict of interest.

The home building industry’s trade magazine has ranked Myrtle Beach in their list of “Healthiest Housing Markets for 2009.”

The list, compiled by a review of home prices, jobs, building permits and population, included Myrtle Beach as number 15 on their list.  Myrtle Beach stood out due to our population growth numbers.  “Though permit activity dropped sharply last year, Myrtle Beach remains one of the hottest markets in the country, especially when you analyze the number of permits pulled per resident,” the magazine said.

Okay, we’re a little biased.  But our heads are swimming with all of the good news the media just can’t ignore anymore about the Myrtle Beach real estate market.  We have a long way to go – but we have to crawl before we can start running again.