Las Vegas Regains Itself One Step at a Time

For the Michelle Sterling Las Vegas Real Estate Team a big part of our job has been to offer a more balanced and rational longer-term perspective on the highly volatile shorter term events that have impacted our city over the past few years. You may well have read quite a bit in the press of late indicating that Las Vegas, Nevada is down and out for the count. While it is true that we have had our share of economic troubles (along with the rest of the country) the news is not all doom and gloom. Did our local economy take an especially hard hit due to gaming industry dependence on consumer confidence and discretionary spending? Yes, of course. Have Las Vegas foreclosures chalked-up the highest rates in the country? Yes, they have. Does this represent the whole story across all of Southern Nevada? No, it does not. Sophisticated investors (with mature time horizons) from all over the world have been very aggressive about adding Las Vegas homes to their portfolios at current prices despite current conditions. We find that to be both encouraging and instructive for the future.

The Las Vegas Strip is the primary economic engine for our community and therefore the best place to look for clues about what lies ahead. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority generates a monthly report on visitor numbers and has just released the data for September. Modest yet still encouraging signs continue to point to a moderate recovery for business in the Las Vegas gaming industry. We have just completed seven straight months where visitor volume increased as compared to our 2009 numbers. While it must be acknowledged that the U.S. economy still faces serious challenges and consumer attitudes continue to be steeped in caution, we are seeing modest improvement in gaming-related activity. Although the gains are far from dramatic, this does not make them irrelevant either. Thus far in 2010, 28.1 million people have traveled to Las Vegas, which is 2.4% more than the same period for 2009 ... and more is always better than less.