By Wayne Faulkner
Business Editor

This time of year, it helps to have some good news – even if it’s just hope for the future.

Americans have suffered real losses in the job, housing and stock markets. Whole industries are threatened, from automakers looking to be bailed out, to newspapers – including the Star-News – undergoing restructuring to capture the future of readership: online.

Wilmington has seen establishments close – but also open. A credit crunch is squeezing some firms as banks call in loans and others won’t lend to fund business operations. They haven’t even been lending to each other – one reason that the Federal Reserve last week started offering what is essentially 0 percent financing to banks.

Wilmington’s economy is diversified, but real estate and construction are a major part of the equation here. So anything positive on that front is as welcome as a single week without a major delay on the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge.

Here are some other positive economic signs amid the gloom:

Average mortgage rates fell to their lowest point nationwide – an average 5.19 percent – since the government mortgage firm Freddie Mac began tracking them 37 years ago. Rates have fallen to such a point – one Wilmington firm was quoting a 30-year, fixed-rate loan at around 4.37 percent last week – that refinancers are seeing a way to cut their house payments by a chunk.

For example, a $200,000 mortgage at the early January rate of 6.07 percent would equal a monthly payment of about $1,208 before adding in property taxes and insurance. At 4.375 percent, it falls to about $998.

Builders and real estate agents, of course, are hoping that those same rates will attract buyers into the moribund market here. It’s debatable whether “it’s never been a better time to buy a home,” but first-time buyers can benefit from the new $7,500 U.S. tax rebate to help with the down payment, according to Donna Girardot, executive officer of the Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders Association.

And, if you look way out West, you might see past the housing train wreck to a pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel. It might not sound like good news, but depending on your perspective, it’s a start: Home resale prices in some areas of California, Nevada and Arizona have fallen to the point that they are attracting buyers.

The National Association of Realtors reported that existing-home sales in October were 37.5 percent higher in the West than in October 2007.

One reason might be that the median price was down 27 percent, to $231,400.

In other words, prices have come down to the level of the middle-class shopper and are attracting first-time buyers as well as investors scouring the ample supply of foreclosed homes, Realtors say.

In the Wilmington area, sales continue to show declines from year-earlier levels, but prices have slipped only a little since the boom year of 2005, according to data from the Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors.

Another boost to the holiday spirit: Our area has seen a five-year appreciation in home value that is topped by only eight other metro areas out of 293, according to a study by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The Wilmington area, which comprises New Hanover, Pender and Brunswick counties, saw a 62.1 percent increase over the period, while Honolulu recorded the highest, at 78.7 percent, according to the agency’s third-quarter survey.

Virginia Beach was No. 2 and the only other Southern city to make the top 10. Western cities dominated, especially in Washington, where there were four cities in the top 10.

The survey also found that the vast majority of markets showed gains in home values over the past five years.

Some of the areas with the biggest five-year declines, however, had seen big jumps during the boom of 2005: Merced, Modesto, Salinas, Stockton and Vallejo, Calif. The biggest loser, though, was Detroit at a minus 18.36 percent. Let’s count our blessings.

Unemployment here has risen dramatically here over the last year, but October’s figures showed the Wilmington area rate at 6.2 percent. That was still below October’s 7 percent statewide figure.

The area’s relative good fortune on the jobs front is no help, however, to the hundreds of people who have lost their jobs either temporarily or permanently at places like U.S. Marine in Navassa, Georgia-Pacific in Whiteville and Louisiana-Pacific in Wilmington, all except those at the Navassa boatyard are related directly to the downturn in housing. Additionally, next month Corning plans layoffs at its plant here.

Meanwhile, though, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has ramped up hiring this year – by 300 jobs, the company said Friday. New contract and clinical research organizations have arrived in town and the health-care industry continues to bolster our job base . In fact, it was the fastest growing employment sector in the state over the past year, adding nearly 16,000 jobs statewide.

But the bad news just keeps coming. On Friday, the N.C. Employment Security Commission reported that unemployment soared statewide in November, to 7.9 percent.

Will we hit bottom in 2009? Economists, home builders, retailers and others hope so.

If you would like to buy or sell Wilmington, NC real estate, contact Sandy and Steve Thornton for all your home buying and selling needs. Specializing in Wilmington, Leland, Hampstead, Sneads Ferry, Jacksonville, Topsail Island including Surf City, Topsail Beach, North Topsail Beach, Beach and waterfront properties covering New Hanover County, Pender County, Brunswick County and Onslow County areas.