If you’ve been following GlobeSt.com in recent days (and why would you not?) you’ve been hearing a lot about bifurcated markets, this one of the major takeaways of our recent RealShare Real Estate 2012 in Los Angeles.

If you want proof, you need only go to Housingpredictor.com to see the rankings of best and worst markets for housing in 2012. It’s an important list, given the impact of residential on commercial, and it underscores the fact that not all real estate boats are going to rise equally this year.

The top five cities for housing—or more accurately, the cities that show the most potential upside—are Kansas City, KS, with a 5.8% projected appreciation; Topeka (4.7%); Charleston, WV (4.5%); Oklahoma City (4.3%); and Minot, ND (4.2%). Scroll down for the complete charts.

The introduction to the ranking says it best and underscores what we sometimes might easily forget: “These communities represent the fact that all real estate markets are local in nature driven by individual political and economic influences, despite national lending requirements for home mortgages.”

And in that context, the five worst markets are Las Vegas (with an 8.4% projected depreciation); Wilmington, DE and Hilo, HI (tied at 8.2); Jackson, MS (7.8%); and Kauai, HI (7.6%)

With the obvious exception of Vegas, the recession's poster child where the problems were blasted nationally, you really need to dig down to local market conditions to know why a Hilo or a Kauai made the list or deserved to. You can also add a layer of context to the entire Best/Worst dynamic by opening the discussion to product type. Phoenix is #12 on the “Worst” list (7.1% depreciation) but student housing there, in a city with a healthy inventory of colleges and universities, might offer a different opportunitistic scenario

It will be interesting to see how these numbers change a year from now as market conditions improve generally around the country. . . . But as the recovery continues to remind us, general conditions and local environment are often too different things.

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