Bubble markets to rebound?

Dean Foust writes:

In Las Vegas, the construction of new casinos is giving rise to bulls who predict that a housing rebound is around the corner. To quote from this article by Associated Press reporter Ryan Nakashima:

One think tank already is predicting a housing shortage by late 2009, assuming workers flock to the state to fill jobs created by billions of dollars of new construction on the Las Vegas Strip.

"We're merely at the bottom of one cycle and heading back up on another one," said Jeremy Aguero, one of Applied Analysis' principals.

He points to the stream of Strip mega-resorts planned to go up over the next few years, from Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s $1.8 billion Palazzo, opening in January, to Boyd Gaming Corp.'s $4.8 billion Echelon in 2010.

In all, the surge is estimated to add more than 40,000 hotel rooms by 2012 and create around 100,000 direct and indirect jobs, according to Deutsche Bank.

The problem in my mind is that most of those 100,000 new jobs will pay minimum wage. The casinos are not exactly known to be enlightened, nor generous, employers. The other article was a column in The Washington Post by Steven Pearlstein, who was reacting to some fanciful predictions by a local economist Steven Fuller:

Next Friday in Tysons Corner, Steve Fuller and his colleagues from George Mason University will release their annual outlook for the Washington area economy. The title of this year's confab:

"Will Housing Recovery Drive Growth?"

That's right, folks, housing recovery. As Fuller sees it, with the local economy likely to add another 40,000 jobs this year -- just slightly below last year's 44,000 -- and unemployment at historic lows, the only way to fill those jobs will be to recruit people from somewhere else. Obviously, those workers and their families will need somewhere to live. And with new-home construction at recession levels, it will be only a matter of months before the existing inventory is sold off and builders start breaking ground on new houses and condos.

And there you have it: a rebound in residential construction, a big new spurt of public construction and a steady flow of federal procurement contracts, all conspiring to keep the Washington economy growing at the modest annual rate of 2.8 percent in 2008.

It's just what the local business community desperately wants to believe. And it's all part of the larger story of how Washington has the strongest regional economy in the nation and is basically recession-proof.

Too bad it's also a fantasy.

Luxury condos still hot sellers

Tony Illia writes:

Okay, maybe the housing market has seen better days. But luxury condos are still hot sellers commanding big buck sale prices, reports Restrepo Consulting Group, a Las Vegas-based economic research firm.

"The luxury condo market saw a 48 percent increase in units sold in the third quarter," said John Restrepo, principal of Restrepo Consulting Group. "Although median sale prices slipped by 17 percent, primarily due to smaller unit sizes, the price per square foot increased by nearly 5 percent."

There have been 89 luxury condos sold year-to-date with a median price of $860,000, or $502 per square foot, Restrepo reports. Condos this year averaged 1,712 square feet in size and spent roughly 92 days on the market. Single-family homes, by contrast, saw a 38.2 percent sales drop this year despite a 4.9 percent price decrease. Condos similarly dropped prices by an average of 16.9 percent as opposed to 2006. But last year's units were 20.8 percent larger, averaging 1,161 square feet in size. Sale prices, as a result, are 4.9 percent higher in 2007 when compared on a square footage basis.

Las Vegas' MySpace marketing might

Ben Tinsley writes:

An increasing number of local businesses and area aficionados are taking their enthusiasm and excitement about Sin City to the Internet.

Their self-appointed task is attracting tourists and promoting local industry on their respective MySpace pages. And they're doing it with great gusto.

The result is an interconnecting, massive, and quite lively community on the World Wide Web dedicated to helping the city thrive and grow.

Aaron Auxier, 34, likes to use MySpace as a bully pulpit to correct mistaken news reports. He describes his job as a celebrity high-rise consultant with the Luxury Realty Group.

Auxier, who runs the "Vegas Condo Scene" MySpace site, often sends out letters to area media urging them to join him in his efforts to help the public better understand the Strip. Auxier said he gets 100 friend applications on his MySpace page each week.

"The key to the whole thing is original content," Auxier said. "It's a full time job. If you're not constantly providing updated and new information, people aren't going to pay attention."

One site, simply dubbed "Las Vegas" is run by an individual who only identifies himself as "Mr. Vegas." It's credited with having 100 views a day.

"I started this page for the general information of the world," Mr. Vegas said in an e-mail. "There was no MySpace page at all that answered questions about the past, present and also some future things. I thought it would be fun to do a page here for people."

Homes for sale in Las Vegas still sliding

From the Las Vegas Review Journal:

The number of single-family homes listed for sale in Las Vegas dropped to 22,005 in December from 23,494 in November, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported. Inventory is up 23.4 percent from December 2006.

Condo and townhome listings increased 14 percent from a year ago to 5,508 in December.

Foreclosures have driven the single-family home median price down to $260,000, a 15.1 percent decline from a year ago. Median condo prices are down 5.1 percent to $185,000.

December's statistics may not be a true reflection of the marketplace, association President Patty Kelley said Monday. December is traditionally a slow month, she said, and a large number of homes are vacant and owned by investors, banks and other lenders who sold last month at deeply discounted prices.

The association reported 167 condo units sold in December, down 55.1 percent from a year ago.

Las Vegas’ World Jewelry Center Gets Key Approvals

Scott Baltic writes:

The planned World Jewelry Center in Las Vegas has moved a substantial step forward with the completion of all local approvals.

The Las Vegas City Council has approved the Disposition and Development Agreement, Owner Participation Agreement and related documents, allowing the Jewelry Center to proceed as part of the master-planned 61-acre Union Park redevelopment in Downtown Las Vegas, between The Strip and I-15.

The multifaceted project will include 800,000 square feet of Class A office condo space, gem-grading labs, educational facilities, and meeting and exhibition space. In addition, the tower’s top seven floors will feature 20 to 25 luxury residential condominiums. Bill Boyajian, the Jewelry Center project manager and a onetime Gemological Institute of America president, previously told CPN that the residential condos will be offered to the office buyers first.

For the most part, the property will be open only to the trade: jewelry wholesalers, manufacturers, dealers and trade associations. However, an adjacent three-story building with 90,000 square feet of retail space, as well as a museum and café, will be open to the public.

Owners Suites® Launches Luxury Condo Hotel Property Management Company for Las Vegas Struggling Condo-hotel Market

Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) January 10, 2008 -- OwnersSuites.com today announced the availability of their new rental program directly targeted to owners of units at condo hotel properties around the world. On January 15, 2008, OwnersSuites.com will launch its online property management company within the booming condo-hotel market. OwnersSuites.com will manage nightly room availability and rates for the popular Las Vegas condo hotels at a competitive rate that undercuts those of from the hotel directly while still maximizing rental income. This new offering will bring special value and opportunity to both owners and business/leisure travelers.

OwnersSuites.com has relationships with global travel powerhouses such as Travelocity, Priceline,and Orbitz in addition to direct online booking access to more than a half million travel agents worldwide. In addition, owners will take comfort in the full service online, telephone and chat booking services provided by OwnersSuites.com. When an owner would like to relax in their unit for their own personal use, they simply log-on to OwnersSuites.com and enter their log-in information on the reservations page specifically for owners and enter the requested dates. It's that simple.

"I couldn't afford to keep the property, thank God OwnersSuites.com contacted me with information for my investment property that I didn't know existed." When users join the Rental Program at OwnersSuites.com, they will enjoy a much more favorable revenue split; as much as twice the return from the on-site Hotel Property manager. "Before I changed management companies to OwnersSuites.com, my average monthly rental income was $1,500 and my average monthly expenditures were over $3,500," says Lori Baker. "Currently, OwnersSuites.com has doubled my average monthly rental income."

With the Condo-Hotel industry growing rapidly and representing over 10% of all new hotel room construction in the United States today, this is a positive and aggressive move for the individual and corporate investor within the condo-hotel industry.

For more information visit: OwnersSuites.com

Lakeside resort trumps Las Vegas

From the IHT:

When the developer Ronald Boeddeker took a helicopter flight over the southern Nevada desert between Hoover Dam and Las Vegas in 1987, he did not see a harsh and barren landscape below.

He saw Italy's Lake Como.

Boeddeker, now 69, had just purchased the valley below and the 2,000-acre, or 800-hectare, parcel came with water rights, one of the last such arrangements between an individual and the U.S. government.

"It was a massive canyon, 200 feet deep in parts," recalled Boeddeker, president of the Santa Barbara-based development company Transcontinental Corp. "But like Lake Como, it was long and not that wide. I imagined it filled with water with the mountains cascading down to the shore and homes chiseled into the hills."

Today, the 3,592-acre Lake Las Vegas Resort rises from that desert floor, with its centerpiece a 320-acre lake with 10 miles, or 16 kilometers, of shoreline.

...Though 18 of the resort's 29 neighborhoods are sold out, lavish homes are available in the newer developments. There are condos, town homes and fully landscaped estates, many with views of the lake, the three golf courses and/or the Strip.