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'All real estate is local" has been a mantra for Realtors in recent months. But one local real estate broker is looking at real estate from national and international perspectives.

Vicki L. Cox Golder, whose office is on East Golder Ranch Road, is in line to become president of the National Association of Realtors in 2010. Right now she is first vice president. Next year she will be president-elect.

She has served on the national association's board of directors since 1993. She also has served as president of the Tucson Association of Realtors and the Arizona Association of Realtors.

Cox Golder, who is married to land investor and rancher Lloyd Golder, said she is trying to help spread U.S. real estate practices, including the use of Multiple Listing Services, across the globe. Meanwhile, she is also working on policy initiatives to help pull the U.S. market out of its slump.

Here is more of what Cox Golder had to say about her work in the National Association of Realtors:

Really, from the time you decide to run for this position (first vice president) until the time you become president, it is about a seven-year process. . . . Our organization is a policymaking organization. My position is basically to help set policy for the National Association of Realtors, to put a path in place with a strategic plan of where we want to head on behalf of our members.

A message a lot of Realtors have been saying is, "All real estate is local." How do you think that helps the market?

Well, about 60 percent of the markets out there are doing well. It's those other 40 percent that aren't. . . . Even in those markets that aren't doing well, there are pockets that are. . . . So we encourage people to hire a Realtor when they're looking at a particular market, because they better know which areas they're best to invest in. Face it: It's a great time to buy.

We're doing probably better than many other markets across the country. Tucson saw, over the last five years, 57 percent appreciation. Even though last year we saw a drop of 1 percent appreciation, when you consider the last five years, and the appreciation, people who have held on to their homes for a five-year period of time have seen a huge increase in their housing equity. . . . We saw job losses, as you know, over the last few years because of (declining) construction over the last 12 months, but we still have people moving to Tucson and wanting to buy real estate, so that's a good thing.

I don't think anybody knows when we're going to hit bottom. We have about a 1.9 million (adjustable-rate) mortgages due to reset next year (across the country). . . . (But) a lot of these people are qualified to move into another type of mortgage.

Loan limits for (Federal Housing Administration-backed loans). We're hoping they're going to stay (at 125 percent of the median price). . . . We don't believe that just a temporary fix in FHA loan limits is enough. We need to make them permanent. Focusing on the housing sector will help us move the economy along.

The other thing we're working on that's just for our own association is health insurance, small-business health insurance. . . . Twenty-seven percent of our members aren't currently insured, mainly because health insurance has become so expensive. We're hoping to come up with a plan to make sure we have more affordable health insurance (for independent contractors).