It's a good thing newbies have a place to post simple questions!
What is the value of having a local (on your computer) software wallet when exchanges and other acquisition sites such as localbitcoins.com require you to keep your bitcoins in their wallets?
And a follow-on question: can a local wallet coordinate wallets from multiple sites for easy viewing?
A local wallet is much more secure. Exchanges and web wallets have a history of getting hacked. That includes LBC. So don't keep more than you can afford to loose with an exchange site.
In fact you should keep a tiered level of wallets:
- Riskiest - exchange, web wallet - very small amounts
- Moderate risk - Desktop wallet i.e electrum, bitcoin-qt, armory or multibit - amounts that you intend to use for transactions in the near future i.e say 1 month time frame.
- Safest - offline wallet like offline electrum or armory or a paper wallet - large amounts and long term savings i.e. funds that you can't possibly afford to loose.