Jason Robie: Pants on fire

I've been careful over the years to educate you, my dear reader, about the perils of listening to any sort of real estate news that is not rooted in a local source. While you may read or hear things about the market, nothing is more true than what is happening on your street, in your neighborhood, or in your town. National trend headlines are just that; a massive pool of buyers and sellers across a handful of cities intended to sell magazines and clicks on a website. Don't buy the hype.

Just about everyone likes to talk about real estate. It's something almost all of us will be involved with in some way or another. Whether you are buying, selling, renting or couch-surfing, you are interested. My advice for today is to simply not believe everything you hear. This has been a pretty strong seller's market and just about everyone has a story to tell. "My neighbor got $200k more than he paid just two years ago." "So and so sold their house in 10 minutes." "My uncle sold his house before he decided to sell!" All fun stories to tell and hear over a beer but all of them, especially the last one, need to be taken with a grain of salt. Let's take a peek at a few others.