These are tough times. As a real estate agent, I see it every day. People are selling their homes at below wholesale prices, well below assessed values anyway, just to break even on their mortgages.

Banks can be overbearing in their attempts to collect. Feeding the family has become an expensive and, in some cases, unaffordable proposition. Couple the mortgage and food bills with a car or two, insurance, taxes, medical bills, cable and internet, cell phones, clothes, and the countless other necessities that allow us to be functional members of society and you're left without much at the end of the day.

The storms we've been weathering, however, do have a silver lining.

Just last week, I was contacted by the parents of an Army Special Ops soldier, currently in Iraq and scheduled to return in December. They're shopping for homes for him in advance of his return from his extended tour of duty half a world away.

He'll return with a nearly-definite job offer to a real estate market that's tailor-made for him to be able to comfortably afford a modest home of his choice. This veteran will be able to take advantage of historically low interest rates and home prices not seen since his teenage years. He'll qualify for either an FHA loan with a minimal down payment of 3.5 percent - 100 percent of which can be gifted to him, and no minimum credit scores or a VA loan with 0 percent down.

As a first-time buyer, he'll also qualify for a $7,500 tax credit, a new government program.

Also in his favor is the auto market. Low-to-no interest and down payment programs and low prices getting lower while the dealers compete should give him another nice head start. Retailers, also anxious for business, are cutting prices and advertising big sales and incentives to shop at their stores. Last but not least, oil and gas prices are dropping almost every time we pass the stations; mercifully even quicker than they rose up to $4 per gallon over the past couple of years.

There are reasons to feel good, in even the most negative of times.

I'm excited for our soldier's return and the chance to help pave the way to a bright future for him and his family. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to help another family by selling our soldier their property, pre-foreclosure, to get them out of the breakdown lane and back onto the highway of life.

We will all make it through this, if we try. Hopefully we'll all make it out with a good amount of dignity, our families and friends and jobs intact, some money in the bank, and a grain or two more of wisdom!

(Greg Leavitt is a real estate agent with Prudential Verani in Concord.)