http://stacyp.cbvegas.com/blog/archive_201010/sort_entrydatetime-desc/ The Case-Shiller home price indices were released yesterday. Nearly all 20 cities experienced a decline. The reading is from August. The Las Vegas aggregate index saw a .1% increase. Of course, when you are dealing with increases this small and measurement error, the true population of prices could be anything. Up, down or flat. Nevertheless, it was actually surprising that it did not slide down further. There may be some lingering support from the homebuyer tax credit extensions (which went until Sept 30). In addition, heavy cash buying by investors, retirees and some first time buyers have been bouying the market.Case-Shiller does produce tiered indices reflecting different price ranges. Not every tier showed an increase for Las Vegas. In fact, it was the high-tier that was responsible for the increase in the aggregate. We do expect some further declines in some of the luxury segments but the high-tier index is composed of homes $183,729 or greater. Those are not expensive homes and when the top 10% of your market begins around this figure, you know how far prices have slipped. Now it is hard to argue that we are not in a deeply undervalued situation. When you add price/rent and price/income empirics into the analysis, this conclusion is hard to escape. http://stacyp.cbvegas.com/blog/882/case-shiller-results/ Wed, 27 Oct 2010 09:27:05 -0800 Clark County gaming revenues leapt month-over-month by over 16%. That is the second month-over-month gain this year and a 13.8% increase year-over-year. Naturally there is a random component to all of this so we cannot say it is a trend. We need a few more months before I would call it a recovery. Pronouncements by the public gaming firms are going to be enthusiastic but are not likely to be jubilent as they need to balance nice looking projections against a backdrop of shaky national economic news. Bloomberg is reporting that Las Vegas has exhibited a sign that it is emerging from the slump. I hope this is true and is certainly a pleasant measure after a time when "less worse" was almost good news. Let us wait and see a few more observations before we get to excited. Meanwhile, focusing on obtaining good real estate while we are still in the slump should be top priority for both yield seeking investors and those with a long-term outlook for appreciation.For the Valley, gaming revenue is a giant driver of economic activity so it is an important series to track.Clark County Gaming Revenue Sources: LVCVA.com, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-08/mgm-resorts-wynn-jump-as-las-vegas-strip-gambling-sales-rise.html http://stacyp.cbvegas.com/blog/842/clark-county-gaming-revenue-august-increase/ Fri, 08 Oct 2010 09:49:49 -0800