Folks complain about the media/s bias, and how it tries to swing things in its favor. The simple truth is, most of the BmediaC are simply doing their jobs, trying to keep up with events that often move at what seems like the speed of light.

The pace of delivering the news is, in fact, so fast that most of us doing the delivering really don/t have time to think about influencing readers or viewers or listeners. Tell the story as plainly and clearly as possible, and let the audience decide.

That, of course, is how it really works. But sometimes our reporting can be personally devastating. A case in point is the nearly moribund housing market.

For someone reading our news and business pages daily, the stories about how bad the housing market has become provide a trail of bread crumbs leading, inevitably, to the conclusion that the housing market has imploded.

People can/t sell their homes. They owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth in today/s market. There doesn/t seem to be a silver lining behind this cloud.

But there is, and that fact needs to be reported along with the daily bursts of gloom. Here are some of the positives:

It/s a great time to buy 7 and we/re not just saying that to help our Realtor friends. For those who don/t own homes but would like to, prices are very attractive, and most sellers are willing to negotiate, something that was unheard of just a couple of years ago.

Although tougher to get, mortgage rates are very low, hovering around 6 percent for a 30-year fixed loan. These are numbers you may never see again.

The state and federal governments have cooperated to increase the limits on federally backed mortgage loans. The new, higher limits better reflect the home-price realities in California.

In the volatile world of real estate, public perception is reality. If you believe this is a good time to buy, then it is. If you believe individual effort can rescue the economy, then it can.

March 20, 2008