Farewell!

Frothing Developer is ending its run. I hope this has been useful and interesting. Best of luck to all of you in your endeavors.

 

Alex Edelstein

Las Vegas Homes Called "Undervalued"

Here’s a nice study, which declares Las Vegas prices as nearly 19% below long-term market fundamentals.

Interesting, their metrics show Phoenix and Los Angeles to still be overvalued:

 

Other regional markets and their valuation in the third quarter:
St. George, Utah: At $223,700, 39.7 percent overvalued
Salt Lake City: At $260,700, 18.8 percent overvalued
Phoenix: At $197,500, 3.9 percent overvalued
Los Angeles: At $384,400, 1.6 percent overvalued
San Francisco: At $666,100, 15.6 percent undervalued
Stockton, Calif.: At $161,000, 27.7 percent undervalued
San Diego: At $337,000, 19.1 percent undervalued

LV Home Sales Soar

This LVRJ article is not really news, since we reported it a week ago, but it’s a nice confirmation. Buried in the article is the nice news that preforclosure filings in Clark County have fallen about 10% month over month, from 6429 to 5830:

The nation’s foreclosure hemorrhage has finally slowed. Foreclosures.com reported a slight drop in November foreclosures to 84,291 compared with 84,534 in the previous month. Clark County had 2,974 foreclosures, up from 2,653 in October. However, preforeclosure filings dropped to 5,830 from 6,429.

High-Rise Sales Increase

An article by Brian Wargo in In Business Las Vegas reports “Restrepo…reported that sales of high-rise units jumped 37 percent [in Q3, vs 2007]”.  Days on Market is also down from 111 days to 102 days, over last year.

 

The article isn’t available for free online, but subscriptions to IBLV are available at http://www.inbusinesslasvegas.com/

Confidence Rises Substantially Off Of October Low

Hopefully, we’ve seen the low point:

 

Full article here.

Positive Signs of Life

 

The index of indicators shows some positive elements. Immigration is up nearly 10% over last year, which creates housing demand. Employment is up. Not by much, and not enough to prevent the unemployment rate from going up, but there are more jobs in town than there were a year ago.

Notice that taxable sales are up considerably and that gaming revenue, while down, is down less than 3%.

Vegas Medium Term Fundamentals Strong

Hubble Smith writes a nice article this morning that focuses on Tim Sullivan’s recent assessment of Las Vegas medium term prospects.

Las Vegas "Will Weather the Downturn Best"

A nice article on MSNBC ranks Las Vegas #1.

Foreclosures Down in Las Vegas

The LVRJ reports today that foreclosures are down in Las Vegas. I was particularly struck by this sentence:

Nevada ranked No. 8 in the nation with 3,176 foreclosures, down from 4,020 in September.

That is a BIG decline in foreclosures. And it’s almost exactly equal to the number of sales in the month. So Vegas is absorbing all of its foreclosures right now.

Bank Lending Loosening Up

Behind the scenes, the biggest danger to the economy is an extended absence of credit.

Credit is loosening, however. The LIBOR rates have been falling, which is a good measure of bank comfort level. LIBOR is now the lowest it has been since 2004, which means that banks are now extremely comfortable lending each other money overnight.

There’s also a sorta upbeat article in the LVRJ, about banks that want to lend but can’t find borrowers.