Michael Omid's Blog

Las Vegas (Clark County Economic Data)

Michael Omid Shahabe (Prudential Americana Group) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:39:10 -0600

View this table in Acrobat (PDF) format.

Indicator	Date	Latest Period	Previous Period	Year Ago	Change Month Ago	Change Year Ago
New Residents (Drivers License Count)	December-07	6,292	5,626	5,820	11.8%	8.1%
Active Residential Electric Meter Count	December-07	724,950	725,218	710,836	0.0%	2.0%
Total Employment	December-07	944,800	944,500	937,100	0.0%	0.8%
Unemployment Rate	December-07	5.6%	5.3%	4.2%	5.7%	33.3%
New Home Sales*	December-07	1,235	1,389	2,384	-11.1%	-48.2%
New Home Permits	December-07	220	326	2,089	-32.5%	-89.5%
Existing Home Sales	December-07	1,339	1,407	2,678	-4.8%	-50.0%
Median Price of a New Home*	December-07	$311,924	$277,558	$330,094	12.4%	-5.5%
Median Price of an Existing Home	December-07	$250,000	$253,900	$285,000	-1.5%	-12.3%
Single Family Building Units Permitted	December-07	235	305	1,118	-23.0%	-79.0%
Multi Family Building Units Permitted	December-07	529	2,106	992	-74.9%	-46.7%
Residential Building Permit Valuation	December-07	$151,027,236	$406,759,736	$250,897,679	-62.9%	-39.8%
Commercial Building Permits	December-07	49	109	91	-55.0%	-46.2%
Commercial Building Permit Valuation	December-07	$58,100,156	$349,830,365	$211,464,709	-83.4%	-72.5%
Apartment Rental Rate	4th Qtr 2007	$876	$868	$850	1.0%	3.1%
Apartment Vacancy Rate	4th Qtr 2007	7.7%	7.1%	6.0%	8.2%	29.4%
Taxable Sales	November-07	$2,849,510,994	$2,978,696,338	$2,779,541,641	-4.3%	2.5%
Clark County Taxable Gasoline Sales (Gallons)	November-07	64,526,762	67,975,802	65,346,684	-5.1%	-1.3%
McCarran Total Airline Passengers	December-07	3,682,689	3,793,482	3,806,076	-2.9%	-3.2%
Gaming Revenue	December-07	$945,956,315	$828,725,345	$908,691,310	14.1%	4.1%
Visitor Volume (all of Clark County)	December-07	3,400,776	3,490,536	3,379,775	-2.6%	0.6%
Room Inventory (Las Vegas Metro)	December-07	132,947	133,690	132,605	-0.6%	0.3%
Convention Attendance (Las Vegas Metro)	December-07	129,664	602,605	161,809	-78.5%	-19.9%
Hotel/Motel Occupancy (Las Vegas Metro)	December-07	83.2%	86.9%	81.3%	-4.3%	2.3%

*Excludes High/Mid Rise Condominiums, Apartment Conversions, and Condotel Units

Market conditions Las Vegas

Michael Omid Shahabe (Prudential Americana Group) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:29:33 -0600

According to Professor R.Keith Schwer Ph.D. UNLV "Residential construction remains depressed. The supply of empty housing units (new homes, existing homes, apartments, residencies for sale by owner, and unlisted foreclosure properties) exceeds 25,000 units. This supply of empty units far exceeds a normal inventory level. As a result, we face downward pressure on prices, hesitancy to cut prices, hesitancy to buy, a generally held belief that prices will decline in the future, tightened credit, and losses in home equity - all these factors contribute to difficulties in the current housing market. Even in the face of excess supplies in 2007, permitting continues. Southern Nevada posted 6,489 units permitted in the 3rd quarter. Indeed, the 3rd-quarter number of permits in 2007 exceeds the same quarter’s a year earlier. Most notably, there was a marked increase in multifamily units permitted - 3,964 of 6,489 (61.1 percent of total units). As housing affordability has declined in recent years, market incentives point to the need for housing in lower-price ranges, suggesting multifamily units. Still, strong permitting will add to the future supply of housing units, requiring future demand changes to ensure orderly market balance. Most importantly, not all of the increase in permitting will necessarily increase the supply of units in the new term. Increased permitting is occurring in advance of forthcoming changes. As a result, the increased permitting is not a sign for delayed adjustment to housing imbalances, rather a sign of preparation for future profitable opportunities and stockpiling of permits. The time to burn off the current excess supply of housing units depends on future population growth and housing preferences. In our count of redeemed out-of-state drivers’ licenses, a proxy measure for in-migration, we find 57,563 for the first three quarters of 2007 compared with 63,046 for the same three quarters in 2006, a drop of 9.7 percent. No doubt, declining relative economic opportunities, as reflected in the sharp increase in home values over the past few years, plays a role in this recent decline in Southern Nevada. Other things equal, a slower population-growth rate lengthens the time to correct the excess housing-supply imbalance. Apartment market conditions for vacancy and rental rates show little change during 2007. The average monthly rent is up to $868 (second-quarter 2007) from $856 (third-quarter 2007), a small difference. Also, vacancies increased modestly, up from 7.0 percent to 7.1 percent between the second and third quarters. The apartment market has shown far more rent stability than the prices for single-family homes, but we have also seen apartment vacancies rise in response to the excess supply of the single-family market. The vacancy rate has risen over the past couple of years as renters found more opportunities in single detached units."

Las Vegas Market Condition Report...

Michael Omid Shahabe (Prudential Americana Group) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:43:20 -0600

In Jan. 2008 there has been a total of 19,777 Single family homes and 5,320 condos for Sale in the Greater Las Vegas area. From this only 20% of the Single family homes and 16% of the condos have been selling.

Comparing to the same time last year there has been a drop of 39.5%. This has caused the number of foreclosure to increase in the Las Vegas Valley. The predictions would be that the Las Vegas area will still be a soft market till at least the early part of 2009. With the interest rates coming down more and more this will create a tremendous buying opportunity for those that have been sitting on the sidelines.

Las Vegas Valley office Vacancies Rise in forth Quarter

Michael Omid Shahabe (Prudential Americana Group) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:28:20 -0600

The office vacancies rose 15.28 percent in forth quarter, a 2.9 percent quarterly increase, due to a slowing economy and housing market fallout. CB Richared Ellis reports. This would be the valley's highest vacacny rate since the last quarter of 2001. Looks like this sectcor of the market is softening dispite the climb in the rents.