…The Sky Is Falling…The Sky Is Falling.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the “real estate meltdown” and I feel like I’m missing something. All of us at LIVE Urban Real Estate are working with buyers and sellers every day. And no one is talking to us about a meltdown. We set the price of a house just like we always have. We figure out how much a buyer can spend, just like we always have. The fundamentals are the same.

Maybe the disconnect is that we’re living in Denver, and our local real estate market, as well as the rest of the state of Colorado, is faring much better than the rest of the country, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. While 43 states showed declines in the first quarter of 2008, Colorado averaged 2.29 percent home-price appreciation compared to the first three months of 2007.

The headlines and indexes we all see are skewed by rapidly falling home prices in California, Florida, and Nevada, according to the Rocky Mountain News. “Most people don’t live in a Miami condo” said Michael Englund, chief economist with Action Economics in Boulder. There’s a news flash for you.

Are there some things about a local real estate transaction that are tougher? Yes. Using a local lender who knows we’re not in Miami is key. And doing your homework on the market where you live has never been more important. Now is not the time for buyers or sellers to be unrealistic. But that’s the same as it’s always been.

After thinking about it for awhile, now when I read about the “meltdown,” I’ll remember our buddy Chicken Little and his recurring “the sky is falling” cry, then get back to reality.