Democratic legislators and candidates for office bemoaned the lack of funding for public education Thursday but stopped short of pledging to create new sources of tax revenue.

At the Southern Nevada Diversity Roundtable at Desert Pines High School in eastern Las Vegas, Senate Minority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, said that politicians should concentrate on making education the funding priority in the next legislative session, which starts in February.

Allison Copening, who is running for Nevada Senate District 6 against Republican incumbent Bob Beers, said she could not lobby for a state income tax amid the economic turmoil.

“I think everybody feels that way,” Copening said.

The panel of Democratic candidates also included Assemblymen Mo Denis and Morse Arberry and Nevada Senate District 7 candidate David Parks.

Sen. Joe Heck, R-Henderson, was scheduled to appear but did not show up.

All candidates voiced concerned for education in Nevada but said they need the public’s support to bring change.

Parks said advocates are up against a widespread perception that public education can do nothing right.

Constituents often tell him that “the Clark County School District is awash in money,” Parks said, and that “they just make bad priorities.”

“The people who are the naysayers — who don’t want to fund education — are selling a pretty good story that everything is bad, and nothing is good,” Parks said.

“Time and time again, we never hear, and the media never picks up on, the good things that are happening. It’s only the bad things.”

Credits: Review Journal

According to the Altos Research Real National Estate Report released yesterday, in September Altos saw home prices drop in 21 out of the 26 markets they study. Additionally, the report showed that in a 10-city composite comparing price, they saw a 1.4 percent decline in asking prices in September, and a drop of 2.9 percent for the past three months. Las Vegas had the dubious honor of leading the way with the highest drop in asking price at 3.5 percent in September and 8.1 percent over the last three-month period. According to Altos, this is the sixth consecutive month that Las Vegas has had the fastest rate of declining prices among the markets they study.

The exceptions to this decline were found in Denver and San Diego which has a listing price increase of 0.9 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively, in September.

While the continued decrease in housing price over most of the nation may signal bad news for the months ahead, as the Fall and Winter is typically slower in terms of housing than the Summer months,the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said yesterday that many potential homeowners are taking advantage of the more affordable prices they are seeing in the market. The NAR reported that its most recent Pending Home Sales Index, which is a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in August, jumped 7.4 percent to 93.4 from July’s level of 87.0, and is 8.8 percent higher than August 2007. Additionally, the index is at its highest level since June 2007.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist said, “What we’re seeing is the momentum of people taking advantage of low home prices, with pending home sales up strongly in California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Rhode Island, and the Washington, D.C., region,” he said(2). “It’s unclear how much contract activity may be impacted by the credit disruptions on Wall Street, but we’re hopeful most of the increase will translate into closed existing-home sales.”

Altos’ figures, which found that inventory levels continued to decline in 21 out of 26 markets in September, seem to reflect the trend that the NAR is noticing. According to Altos the largest decreases in inventory were in Austin and Detroit, with drops of 6.3 percent and 6.2 percent respectively. Additional markets with more than a four percent decline included Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta, and Houston.

Credits: DSNews

Although the existing home market has been rebounding in recent months with sales running ahead of last year’s pace, the new-home market remains in the doldrums.

One national builder has called the third quarter “one of the most difficult in homebuilding history.”

When Congress and the Bush administration enacted a housing stimulus bill in July, many expected the bill’s main provision, a temporary $7,500 tax credit for first-time homebuyers, would help the industry.

That hasn’t been the case, especially in Las Vegas where new-home sales in July (731) and August (792) were the weakest of the year. September is likely to be even worse because of the meltdown on Wall Street and tight lending standards hampering the ability of many potential buyers to obtain mortgages.

Builders are facing continued competition from foreclosed homes, which is bringing down the price of existing homes to $200,000. New-home prices fell below $260,000 in April, but have steadied since, landing at $253,000 at the end of August. That gap between new and existing homes had been as little as $28,000 in April.

Through the end of August, new-home closings were down 49 percent compared with the first eight months of 2007. In contrast, existing home closings were up 5 percent, according to SalesTraq.

“All you have to do is look at the numbers, and you can see the (stimulus) has not helped the housing market,” said Steve Bottfeld, executive vice president of Marketing Solutions. “It didn’t have a huge impact.”

Without the Wall Street meltdown, Bottfeld says it could have made a difference, but the dynamics of the market have changed.

“The tax credit can’t get you a mortgage, and that is the key issue on whether you can buy a home,” Bottfeld says.

Bottfeld, one of the biggest cheerleaders for the housing market, says he remains concerned about where the market is heading because he thought prices would start rising by the fourth quarter and first quarter of 2009.

A Wall Street bailout package will help the housing market because it should give buyers access to loans. It will slow down foreclosures because owners will be able to refinance, Bottfeld says. More important, it begins to restore confidence because people will realize prices are bottoming out, he says.

“Until prices go up, we are still going to be in a recession,” Bottfeld says.

What the bailout won’t do, however, is address the long-term concerns of what triggered the need for the bailout in the first place, Bottfeld says. Housing needs to go back to being treated as shelter rather than a commodity, he says.

“This bill is not doing that,” Bottfeld says. “I love investors to death. They were 20 percent of the Las Vegas market up through the boom, but speculators are deadly because they don’t give a damn about the neighborhood. All they care about is turning a profit fast.”

Las Vegas construction permits

The value of building permits issued by Las Vegas has dropped 27 percent through the first three quarters of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007.

Through Sept. 30, $588 million in permits were issued, down from $809 million a year earlier. The biggest decline has been in new-home permits, whose numbers declined from 1,941 last year to 939 this year. The value dropped from $230 million to $103 million. New-commercial construction fell sharply from $344 million to $120 million. The category showing the most improvement was the construction of apartment complexes with $134 million in permits issued compared with none a year ago.

In September, the value of permits fell 20 percent to $34 million, down from $43 million a year ago. There were $11.3 million in new-home permits compared with $10.8 million a year ago and new-commercial construction was $9.2 million, up from $7.6 million a year ago. The category that recorded a decline was duplex construction, which fell from $9.2 million a year ago to zero.

In other real estate news:

# Las Vegas had one of the biggest declines when it comes to metropolitan areas creating and sustaining jobs and creating economic growth, according to the Milken Institute. Las Vegas ranked 75 in 2008 after a ranking of nine in 2007, a drop of 66 spots. Reno was ranked 133, a decline of 107 positions from a year ago. The Utah cities of Provo and Salt Lake City were ranked first and third, respectively.

# Gemstone Development announced that Camco Pacific Construction has been hired to complete the first phase of Manhattan West. Camco replaces APCO Construction. Gemstone Chief Executive Alex Edelstein says the contractor was replaced because the project was not being kept on schedule or meeting other expectations. APCO officials did not return phone calls to comment. Manhattan West is on track to complete mid-rise residential buildings by the end of the year and a nine-story tower by January, Edelstein says. It is a $350 million mixed-use development near Interstate 215 and Russell Road.

# Prudential Americana Group, a Las Vegas real estate brokerage, has formed a partnership with Shelter Mortgage to provide residential mortgages. Shelter is a subsidiary of Guaranty Bank, a family-owned bank with branches in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia. This is the company’s first partnership in Las Vegas, and it has more than 40 nationwide. “At a time when many other real estate lenders are shutting down altogether, it was important for us to work with a reputable mortgage provider,” said Mark Stark, chief executive of Prudential Americana Group.

# Applied Analysis reported the number of resale homes on the Multiple Listing Service jumped by more than 359 units and was the largest weekly increase since May 2007. The number of vacant properties has also increased by nearly 400 during the past week. The number of owner-occupied homes declined by 50 to 7,568 and represents 34 percent of all homes listed for sale, the firm reports. Tenant-occupied units represent 9.5 percent of the total while vacant properties account for 57 percent. The inventory is down nearly 6,700 units or 23 percent from 2007.

Credits: In Business Las Vegas

The trend of more sales and lower prices in the Las Vegas housing market showed no signs of change last month.

The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors said 2,783 single-family homes were sold by a Realtor in September. That’s an increase of more than 9 percent from a month earlier and up 181 percent from September 2007.

Despite the increase in sales, prices are headed in the opposite direction.

The Realtor association said the median price of a single-family home last month was $195,000. That’s down 7 percent from a month earlier and down 32 percent from last September.

The Las Vegas area had 22,784 homes on the market last month, which is down about 6 percent from last year.

The trend also is evident in the condo and townhouse market.

Sales are up about 81 percent in the past year (386 sales last month), although the price has dropped to $119,450 — a fall of 32 percent since September 2007

“As home prices keep getting lower, sales keep going up. This month’s statistics show the greatest increase in year-over-year sales that we’ve seen in many years,” GLVAR President Patty Kelley said in a statement. “This tells us that qualified buyers are recognizing that now is a great time to buy a home, especially here in Southern Nevada.”

At last month’s sales pace, the Las Vegas area has an eight-month supply of homes on the market.

Credits: Las Vegas Sun