The media are finally seeing the light.  Interspersed with this week’s real estate news is - could it be? - a glimmer of hope!

OK. First the bad news. According to Don Schunk, research economist at Coastal Carolina University, local retail sales, building permits, hotel occupancy, airport passengers and real estate sales are all down for the spring quarter (March through May).  The numbers for the summer quarter are not final yet, but appear to be flattening.

The good news?  There are signs that our economy is hitting bottom and will be ready for a turnaround in the spring.  Plus, builders have kept the brakes on new construction, and the real estate market is again showing signs of life.  “The buyers know it’s a real buyer’s market,” Schunk said. “It seems like we’re at that point where things are starting to turn around.”

What the numbers won’t show is that Myrtle Beach real estate buyer traffic has picked up even if people aren’t ready to sign a contract yet, said Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors market analyst Tom Maeser.  “It’s been a long correction, but we’re in a correcting mode right now,” Maeser said. “The good news, which is not statistically analyzed, is the amount of traffic in interested people that are out there. We’re having some pretty good traffic flows.”

We told you so.

Interviews by Jessica Foster of the Myrtle Beach Sun News

Most journalists use the S&P/Case-Shiller Index as their benchmark statisitical tool to keep reminding us what everyone who doesn’t live under a rock already knows - that real estate prices have dropped.

The index was developed by an economist from Welleley College, Karl Case, and an economist from Yale College, Robert Shiller. Their method of taking recent sale prices of homes and comparing them to previous sales prices has become the “go-to” source for media reporting the real estate “story”.

What you probably haven’t seen, read or heard is that one of the Index’s creators, Karl Case, believes home prices might be near bottom. In an outstanding piece on Smartmoney.com, Case notes that the decline of new housing starts has been extremely dramatic — only 975,000 in April of this year (compared to 2.27 million in the peak of January, 2006).  So inventory is dropping — drastically. Case commented:

“Every time this has happened before, housing market activity has rebounded within a quarter and caught experts by surprise. In many areas, particularly outside the overbuilt markets of Arizona, Florida and Nevada and the huge bubble market of California, home prices may well stabilize and begin to recover before the end of this year.”

Wait a second. Did you get that?

The go-to guy for real estate doom-and-gloom is now saying that things are looking up!

But did you read that anywhere (besides here)? Probably not.

Did you read that the Case-Shiller Index, which in March reported price declines in 18 of the 20 major markets that it tracks, showed price INCREASES in eight of the 20 markets in its recently released April report? Probably not.

Did you read that the Index is also showing a slowing down of price declines? Or that the sheer volume of homes that fall into the subprime housing category — which makes up only 10 percent of the total U.S. housing stock — is skewing down home prices? Probably not.

Why didn’t you read those things?  Because the media are not reporting those things. Bad news sells.

There is a great quote in the Smartmoney story by S&P/Case Shiller Index Committee Chairman David Blitzer, who seems to explain why you’ve never heard any of the good news:

“Other than Larry Kudlow of CNBC, none of the journalists who interviewed me after the latest release seemed at all interested in any of the positive developments.”

So don’t wait for the evening news or the daily newspaper or MSN.com to tell you things are getting better. Pay attention to your local market. Study the statistics. Watch the trends. Take advantage of our expertise.

Because if you want GOOD news, you’re going to have to find it yourself.