A worker frames a house Thursday at Allerton Park near Charleston Boulevard. Crystal Ball 2007 presenter Steve Bottfeld predicted Las Vegas home prices will rise this year. Photo by K.M. Cannon.

The only thing missing from real estate consultant Steve Bottfeld's presentation Thursday at Crystal Ball 2007 was his cheerleader outfit.

Bottfeld, principal of Marketing Solutions, predicts that median new home prices in Las Vegas will increase 7 percent to 9 percent this year and existing home prices will rise 3 percent to 7 percent, most of it coming at the end of the year.

Those forecasts contradict what housing analysts and business sources such as Fortune magazine and Moodys.com have forecast. They're calling for price declines ranging from 6 percent to 30 percent.

"I don't care what anyone says, prices in Las Vegas will continue to rise," Bottfeld told 1,100 real estate professionals at Crystal Ball, which was held at Texas Station. "Here's the challenge. This is Las Vegas. We can bet, right? I'll make my maximum bet on the percentage over or under (price appreciation), I'll take the over. So Bottfeld gets paid on the over. I'll bet Moody's, Fortune, I don't care."

Las Vegas struggled in 2006 after a couple years of 40 percent and 50 percent appreciation. Sales of new homes dropped 8.5 percent to 35,484, but median prices rose 7.9 percent to $341,924 at year's end, Larry Murphy of SalesTraq said.

In 2003, Las Vegas was about even with the national median home price of $171,000, he said. Now the national median is $221,000, and Las Vegas is at $328,000.

The median existing home price in Las Vegas remained level at $284,000. Despite a 24 percent drop in resales to 41,771, 2006 was still the third-best year on record.

"A lot of people were predicting a collapse after 40 percent appreciation in '04, but we stood up here at Crystal Ball and said, 'No, they'll be flat,' " Murphy said. "It drew investors to this market like a moth to a flame. We called it the perfect storm and we said it couldn't be sustained."

Murphy said developers took steps to avoid a storm in the future. Park Highlands, a 2,600-acre master-planned community being developed by Olympia Group in North Las Vegas, requires that owners live in their homes for 24 months before they can be rented.

The Howard Hughes Corp. takes back 10 percent of the sales price from developers who buy a lot and then sell it without building on it. One Queensridge Place has a stiffer 25 percent payback on luxury condo units that are "flipped" by investors.

Murphy said a "scary stat" is that 44 percent of the 20,000 listings in Las Vegas are vacant homes.

"Who lists a vacant home? Predominantly investors," he said. "That's one thing that's going to moderate real estate prices this year. Without these vacant investor homes, prices would be through the roof again."

Anyone who thinks Las Vegas' housing construction is in the dumps needs to look around, Murphy said. He counted 542 active subdivisions in the valley with a total of 86,000 lots. His charts showed slightly less than 100,000 new home closings in the 1980s, less than 200,000 new home closings in the 1990s and a projected 325,000 closings in the 2000s.

For the first time, the No. 1-selling subdivision was a high-rise condo project, The Residences at MGM, which had 979 closings in 2006 at an average price of $593,192. Sun City Anthem was second with 856 new home closings ($401,224). Solera was third with 492 closings ($277,208).

Metrostudy, a Houston-based housing research firm, expects the Las Vegas housing market to remain highly competitive for the foreseeable future as consumers continue to be presented with many similar options when it comes to buying a home.

"In the face of reduced demand at current price points, builders have pulled back on production in an effort to move units off of their balance sheets," said Josh Seime, manager of Metrostudy's Las Vegas division. "On the bright side, the Las Vegas economy is strong and the fundamentals of demand remain in place, both of which are positive indicators for the home-building industry."

Metrostudy continues to hold a "cautionary view" for Las Vegas, Seime said. The double-digit growth and appreciation that Las Vegas experienced recently will not return for a while, he said.

Bottfeld of Marketing Solutions said none of the naysayers are talking about the vertical market in Las Vegas, some 23,000 high-rise condo units that are going to redefine the market.

"We're creating this atmosphere of fear from nonsense, from negative national press," he said. "Everybody will say 2006 was a bad year, sales were off, prices went down. Wrong.

"What happened is we started the transition from a suburban market to an urban market and with transition, certain things happen. Twenty percent of all Vegas home sales go to investors and second-home buyers, which are one in the same. I don't separate them. In the last two months, investors have fled from resale (homes) to vertical. The sky is not falling. In 2007, we're going to have 38,000 new home sales, 50,000 existing home sales and 7,500 high-rise sales."