You likely heard the headline today: "Home Prices Drop to 20-year Low!"

It's been all over the news and the internet.  If you read the headlines, those of you from my generation would be reminded of a skit that Sean Penn did after the 1987 Stock Market Crash on Saturday Night Live. 

In that skit, Sean - in character - was an inebriated floor trader being interviewed on a parody of Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser.  Presumably, insulated from that day's trading troubles with copious amounts of intoxicants, a "mellowed" Penn - in character - advised getting out of stocks and into "canned goods and shotguns" a la survivalists as a pre-cursor to an impending societal breakdown.  Well, though funny, societal breakdown didn't happen.

But is it really that bad?  No. Far from it. (Ironically, that would be good for those Realtors® who had cabin listings in the mountains - far from civilization.  So, SOME good would come of that!

While there is a valid concern about interest rate adjustments, overextended borrowers and foreclosure impacts on the remaining property values, the real estate markets - when taken in a broader context - are doing quite well, though suffering a short-term supply-demand misalignment.

Well, today's report from the S&P/Case-Schiller Index of Home Price Indices would likely be a comparable situation to that dreadful day in 1987 and an equally powerful source of fodder for another SNL send-up.  However, it is also a PHENOMENAL example of something all professionals in this business state, but rarely provide data to support: "That all Real Estate is local."

So, let me discuss today's headlines in two contexts:

• The local market - focusing on Denver
• The historical return on real estate - anywhere