Smart Money sees Denver Real Estate as a good bet.

A few interesting points made in this article by Smart Money:

1. The national real estate market looks a whole lot better if you take out some of the highly publicized boom/bust markets in the “sand states” of California, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida. Smart Money references the same chart for price risk that I had previously posted on.

the national sales figures that get so much attention—and remain depressing—are brought down by boom-and-bust markets like Las Vegas, Miami and Phoenix. David Berson, chief economist with mortgage insurance firm The PMI Group, says that if hard-hit states like California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida are taken out of the statistical mix, the picture is much more promising. According to PMI’s “risk index,” which estimates the odds of prices falling in a given market, at least 65 percent of the nation’s 386 metro areas have less than a 10 percent chance of seeing lower prices two years from now.

 2. While the article singles out Cherry Creek as it’s example of close-in neighborhoods being desireable and more robust at whethering the foreclosure/lending issues, the theme is one I have been seeing played out in other neighborhoods around the core of Denver proper.

Denver’s overall outlook is sunnier than for most western cities because neither inventory nor prices spiraled out of control during the boom. Dinged by a telecom bust earlier in the decade that cost the city 5 percent of its jobs, the local economy wasn’t primed for irrational exuberance. Now with six months’ worth of homes in inventory—the level most experts judge to be roughly in balance—the city offers considerable upside.

In particular, upscale buyers are flocking to Cherry Creek, the tony neighborhood that’s home to Neiman Marcus and the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, one of the country’s top urban arts fairs. Here, prices leaped 16 percent in the past year, according to Integrated Asset Services, an firm specializing in mortgage investments. The area’s popularity illustrates a common theme in U.S. housing markets: established, close-in neighborhoods are often holding up better than suburbs, because they didn’t endure overbuilding and because higher-income owners were less likely to need subprime or adjustable-rate mortgages."

While not the first major media outlet listing Denver as a market to watch, it is nice ot see that there is recognition that the whole country isn’t in shambles with regards to real estate prices and that we have some very strong underlying factors that should keep our market faring better than most as we head into what looks to be an interesting new year to say the least.