Home sellers and real estate agents are getting tired of being told how dismal the market is - kind of like ski lodge operators grown weary of hearing how global warming squelches all those old-fashioned snowstorms we used to have.

"Where's the good news?" people with houses to move want to know.

When things get bad, folks like to hear success stories. And in real estate, nothing is more successful than the house that sells almost instantly.

"These days, a sale in 24 to 48 hours is pretty rare. But it happens," said Rochelle Sauber, a Realtor who recently brokered one such sale in Elkins Park, Montgomery County.

"It gets you really, really excited," said Anna Gunn, a real estate broker who had two two-day sales last month in West Deptford and Williamstown, Gloucester County.

The quick sale is the magic, lightning-strike real estate event that buoys spirits and offers hope at a time when houses are languishing on the market for a long time - more than 10 percent longer in Philadelphia during the first five months of 2008 compared to the same time last year, according to the HomExpert Market report, produced by Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors Research Division using data obtained from Trend Multiple Listing Service. On average, houses in the city are on the market 74 days, versus 67 last year.

And the numbers in the suburbs are worse, including a 15 percent increase of days on market in Burlington County (from 79 days to 91) and more than a 21 percent increase in Montgomery County (from 65 days to 79).

Housing prices declined nationally in April by more than 15 percent compared with the same month last year, according to federal indicators.

Aside from being a kind of market elixir during dispiriting times, the quick sale has an instructional purpose as well: Study a situation in which everything went right, and things could happen that way for you, too.

It all fell into place for Realtor Laura Blaney with a twin house that sold for $185,000 in Northeast Philly recently.

"We went under contract in 24 hours, and we had two offers," said Blaney of Prudential Fox & Roach. "I didn't know it would go so quickly - the 24-to-48-hour ones are the flukes."

But the house was well-staged, the hardwood floors were shining, the bathroom had just been redone. And then, Blaney said, there was the two-story detached garage behind the house, relatively unusual in the city.

"The price was great for what we were looking for," enthused buyer Mark Kull, who moved in with girlfriend Kelly Ryan and their child earlier Thursday.

"We'd looked at 20 other houses. But the house was in perfect move-in condition, and it had the garage," Kull said. "Everything was perfect. When we heard they got another bid, we just jacked ours up another $1,000 to make it work."

Things went even smoother for Sauber in Elkins Park. There, she sold a $439,000 Victorian house to a couple of relocating Boston professors within a day.

Actually, Sauber, a dual agent, called owner Robyn Goldman, a former customer, and persuaded her to sell the house to the Boston couple before the property was even on the market.

"I hadn't even planned to sell for a year," said Goldman, who is CEO of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania. "But there were buyers. The speed was breathless."

Buyer Caroline Watts agreed. "We'd been looking since November, but we jumped when we saw the current owner had done a lot of work," said Watts, who, like husband Michael Nakkula, is a professor of psychology and child development relocating from Harvard University to the University of Pennsylvania. "And the price was extremely fair."

Realtors say that the elusive quick sale generally happens when the stars align properly - that is, when the house is priced realistically, when it's buffed and polished and well-staged, when the buyers are well matched with the property, and when the location is right.

The takeaway lesson from all this?

"There will always be properties [that] sell, even in a depressed market," said Mary Genovese Colvin of Prudential Fox & Roach. "In most situations, a 24-to-48-hour sale is a special property. But many times, people in an area have an eye on a particular house.

"People are waiting for people to move - either out of this world or into a nursing home."

That's what happened with Kostas Macos. He'd loved a particular house on Panama Street in Rittenhouse Square, and waited for the owners to move out, in this case to a bigger home.

A developer, Macos wanted the house for himself and his family. He bought it in a day for $895,000, and moved in a month ago.

"It's definitely a down market," he said, "but the special houses sell fast."

The experts advise that if you dream of a near-instant sale, be sure to make your house look as good as it can.

And, whatever you do, don't hold on for the big, big bucks of yesteryear.

"Buyers just get to a point where they want to buy - right now," said Bernie Pudimott of Long & Foster Real Estate in Cherry Hill. "And if a property is priced fairly, it will go quickly."