Even though we like to think the new year brings new and positive changes, I've always found that to be too much pressure. For years I would start diets on Dec. 1, not Jan. 1, just to take some of the stress off of this month.

Despite our best hopes, it's doubtful that any good news will come soon for the housing industry. Therefore I have a few suggestions for the coming year:

If you have a stable, reliable income, and are not a homeowner, get your butt out there and buy something in the first half of 2009. Teachers, firefighters, policemen and all government workers who are not in layoff situations: If you're renting now, you should be buying. You are the few who can logically profit in today's market and are among those golden buyers whom sellers will fall all over themselves to find.

Not only are housing prices continuing to inch downward, interest rates have taken another dip to near history-making lows (at this writing, 5.35 percent!). Even if home prices continue to drop in 2009, your actual payments may not get much better than they are with today's mortgage rates.

For example, if you got a $200,000 mortgage in August 2008, you would be paying 6.5 percent interest, more than a full percentage point higher. Your August principal and interest payment would have been $1,264 a month; but if you locked in today's rate instead, monthly payments would be $1,117, or $147 less every month. That's babysitter money.

And in case you need to be reminded again, first-timers have the added benefit of receiving a $7,500 tax credit -- as long as they close before June 30.

On the other side of that coin, municipalities and home builders (the ones that are still breathing) should be targeting those stable first-time buyers with special employee-assisted housing programs.

Cities and villages need property taxes and real estate transfer fees, not to mention the stimulus of new home buyers and residents. Low-paying school districts with high turnover could keep their teachers longer. The benefits are many.

Such programs vary but could offer employees low-interest loans, down-payment forgiveness, homeowner education and more. You don't have to just wish your employer offered such services -- you can be proactive in getting your employee union or association to spur the activity.

In addition to the various mortgage and foreclosure bailout programs, I suggest a new sort of insurance program for home builders and buyers that would provide additional safeguards for down payment funds.

It's a nail-biting time for buyers who want new construction. What are the odds that the builder will go belly up and take the down payment with him? Or that he's fighting off Chapter 11 and has stopped building? Even in these tough times, it's not the norm, but it does happen, and it's a concern that is keeping buyers away.

Currently there does not seem to be any sort of national down payment insurance program, says National Association of Home Builders legal affairs veep David Jaffee, though a handful of states (not including Illinois) have programs offering construction recovery funds, which helps buyers recover their losses if a builder abandons a project or goes belly up. If more buyers had such assurances, they might return to the sales centers.

Since most of us are real estate wallflowers -- we're either already homeowners or don't have reliable income for the next few years -- maybe we should try a little harder to love the one we're with.

I am thinking about starting an indoor project that will cost nothing: straightening up our built-in bookshelves. My family has a habit of acquiring books. Hundreds. We bought our house in part because it had so many shelves, but now they are overfilled, books stacked on top of rows of books, books falling off the edges, rows of books behind more rows of books.

With a little effort, we could clear the shelves and rearrange the displays so they actually look company-worthy -- and we could give a sizable donation to the library. If you would like to do the same, the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton, will start taking book donations again on Feb. 1 for its summer book fair. Find out more at www.newberry.org/giving/bookgifts.html.