Real estate statistics can be deceiving. What is seemingly apparent from examining the numbers for a broad geographic area might not be the case on a more localized basis.

That's what's happening in Boulder and Broomfield counties, where "micro markets" are experiencing vastly different situations from communities just down the road.

Several real estate experts made that point at a recent real estate forecast event presented by the Boulder County Business Report, United Western Bank and Holme, Roberts & Owen LLP. The event at the Rembrandt Yard in Boulder featured a panel of experts, including:

* Richard Wobbekind, economist, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado.

* Jon Brandon, Morgan Creek Ventures, developers of The Walnut in Boulder.

* Eric Wittenberg, McStain Neighborhoods.

* Geoffrey Keys, president, Geoffrey Keys Commercial Real Estate, Boulder.

* D.B. Wilson, managing broker, Re/Max of Boulder.

Keys and others with whom I've met over the past five months spoke glowingly of the downtown Boulder market, where office vacancies are hard to find and where rents are climbing. Looking for office space downtown? Good luck, with a vacancy rate around 3 percent.

Nearby, the Broomfield Economic Development Corp. reports a 9.57 percent office vacancy rate, but the number is even lower in the Interlocken business park - a far cry from a few years ago, during the dot-com/tech bust.

Office vacancies are a different story in Longmont, where the rate stands at 17.6 percent for the second quarter. But that's a big improvement from the 21.3 percent vacancy reported a year ago.

On the residential side, one can find micro markets within micro markets. The Boulder metropolitan statistical area recorded the second-highest appreciation in Colorado in the first quarter, up 4.11 percent from a year ago, according to a recent report by PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. Boulder ranked behind only Grand Junction, which posted appreciation of 9.08 percent.

Compare Boulder with the Fort Collins-Loveland MSA (Larimer County), which saw appreciation of just 0.89 percent, or the Greeley MSA (Weld County), which was down 2.53 percent.

Just as Boulder County is vastly different than, say, Weld County, the city of Boulder overall fares much better than some of its neighbors, but even those communities see markets differ from one neighborhood to another. Locally, Longmont sees much different real estate climates in different parts of town. Overall, the city saw a decrease in the median home price through May, to $235,000, down from $240,000 a year ago.

But weakness in the eastern quadrants can perhaps be tied - in part - to overall weakness in southwestern Weld County spilling over into the city. In contrast, western Longmont, which is closer to Boulder, is relatively strong.

Prices in Louisville are increasing at about a 5 percent clip, Wilson said, driven in part by excitement over the pending arrival of ConocoPhillips' new Louisville campus.

Overall, the Boulder MSA has an extremely low risk of housing depreciation in the next two years, according to PMI. Out of 371 MSAs, Boulder stands less than a 1 percent risk of declining housing prices.

Relative strength in the Boulder market is sometimes hard to get across to potential buyers.

Wilson said at the United Western event and in a subsequent conversation that's it's difficult for his agents to educate would-be buyers not only about how the Boulder-Broomfield market differs from national housing trends, but also how individual cities, price ranges or neighborhoods might differ even more.

Many would-be buyers call expecting to reap huge savings on purchasing of homes in Boulder, Wilson noted, only to be told that the Boulder market remains strong, with some pockets of weakness.

Nationally, the housing market remains extremely weak, and lending has tightened. That will certainly affect business owners and residents across the nation. Ditto for high energy prices, which are forcing many consumers to cut back on other purchases.

But real estate remains a local market, and one should be careful about over-generalization. In other words, when it comes to the local real estate market, things aren't necessarily as bad as they seem.

Christopher Wood can be reached at 303-440-4950 or via e-mail at cwood@bcbr.com.