For all you Jim Cramer/Mad Money afficionados…love him or hate him, he’s got a pretty good feel for real estate. If you can filter through the crackhead money manager psychobabble he fires at the camera, his message is amazingly conservative and sane. And lately, he’s been pointing out a fact that’s become clearer by the day: the relentless media hype over the “burst bubble” is obscuring many positive conditions which currently exist or which are developing in the housing market. And, those conditions can make you- or save you- money, both as a buyer/seller of real estate and investor in housing stocks. Here’s a quick list of those conditions:

1. Mortgage rates remain extremely low. Right now, a “vanilla” 30-year mortgage to a borrower with good credit runs as low as 6.125%. If you’re looking to buy or refinance, it doesn’t get much better than that. If you’re selling, a big fat seller concession on points or prepaids can swing a buyer- and a good selling price- your way.

2. Housing inventories are large…but they’re not getting larger. Locally, our inventory rose 50% between January 1 and July 1. However, from July 1 until now, inventory growth has been flat! That means we’re now selling through about a 6-8 month supply of inventory. Long story short, that’s a sign of a NORMAL real estate market, not one in collapse.

3. Stocks of national homebuilders (Toll Brothers, Centex, Pulte, Lennar, etc) cratered in early September and have steadily risen since. Wall Street’s lowered expectations for all these companies have long ago been “baked into” their stock prices…so much so that subsequent bad news does nothing to drive their stock prices down! In addition, the best-managed of these companies are not falling into the trap so many builders fell into in the 80’s and 90’s: runaway debt, pinched cash flow and an excess of vacant land in inventory. If you enjoy an occasional dip into the stock market, pick yourself up a few shares of a well-run homebuilder and watch them run!

4. The consumer is not dead. Until Nigerian gangs attack another oil platform or Ahmadinejad has another vision of Armageddon, energy prices are going to stay low. That’s more money in everyone’s pocket. And, with virtually full employment in the Hunterdon/Somerset area, that means people’s thoughts will turn to real estate! It may take a few months, but there’s only so many double lattes and flat-panel TV’s that can be bought before the collective consciousness turns away from disposable consumer goods and starts looking for blue chip assets…like homes.

5. Houses are not dot-com stocks. The term “bubble” has always been applied to markets in which price run-ups occur due to panic, greed or both. They are always characterized by a disconnect between what’s happening and the underlying fundamentals. Even though our local real estate market had a pretty much unbroken 9-year run between 1997-2006, that run-up was always underpinned by a constant, fundamental truth: lots of demand and no supply. Now, supply and demand have come into balance…nothing more, nothing less. It doesn’t make for a scintillating or frightening headline on CNBC (and we all know fear and bad news sell), but does this sound like a market collapse to you?

Just like yin has yang, every market has ups and downs. There’s also a way in which any- and every- market condition can be worked to the advantage of the smart player. Here’s my takeaway on the smart play right now: if you want to buy, buy. If you want to sell, sell. If you want to bring a seller to his knees, accepting a rock-bottom price for his well-kept home, it ain’t gonna happen. If you want $20,000 more for your home than your neighbor who sold in April of ‘05…that’s not gonna happen, either. And above all, your home is not a stock certificate; it’s SHELTER, COMFORT and ENJOYMENT for you and your family.

Treat your stocks like stocks- and your house like a home- and you’ll do just fine in the current market.