Economist predicting continued slowdown

The mild performance of Southern Nevada's economy will remain throughout this year, possibly picking up in 2008 as more hotel rooms are brought on line and the housing market continues its correction process, UNLV economist Keith Schwer said Wednesday.

Schwer remembered how his granddad would stand just outside the cellar door of his home on the Midwestern plains, calmly smoking his pipe as he watched storm clouds brewing on the horizon.

"Most of the time the clouds would pass and he didn't have to go into the storm cellar," Schwer, executive director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said at his Midyear Economic Outlook at Green Valley Ranch Resort.

Certainly the beleaguered Las Vegas housing market and a slowdown in the rate of employment growth are seen as clouds for the local economy, but relative to the rest of the country, Southern Nevada is still spawning conditions for growth in tourism and development, Schwer said.

"It's going to be a gritty year, about like yesterday's winds," he said. "There's going to be dirt flying and dust getting in your eyes, a disheveled coiffure. It will range from a mild annoyance to a severe headache."

Constraints on tourism include room capacity in the short run, airport capacity in the medium run and national and international competition in the long run, Schwer said during a three-hour presentation.

Hotel occupancy is running above 90 percent on the Strip and demand is high relative to supply, he said. Gaming profitability signals expansion as CityCenter, Echelon, Palazzo, Encore at Wynn Las Vegas and Fontainebleau add nearly 20,000 rooms by 2010.

Construction employment -- a major contributor to Southern Nevada's job growth over the past few years -- dipped into negative territory in 2007. The growth rate of construction jobs as a share of all new jobs in Nevada fell 2 percent from 2006 and the percentage of construction jobs as a share of all new jobs fell 8.6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Construction makes up nearly 11 percent of Nevada's total employment.

Schwer said he's hesitant to predict an economic downturn, even as the Southern Nevada Index of Leading Economic Indicators declined to 132.74 in May. The index, a six-month forecast based on a net-weighted average of series after adjustment for seasonal variations, fell for the third straight month.

A slight drop in gross gaming revenue collections during the month of the data (March) and weak construction activity resulted in the index's decline, Schwer said.

Frank Nason of Residential Resources said Schwer's assessment of the local economy validates his own research and "it's not good news we're hearing."

One thing nobody touched upon, Nason said, is that about half of the 28,000 homes for sale in Las Vegas are vacant. "There can't be 14,000 people that can hold onto that indefinitely," he said.

Esmael Adibi, director of the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University in Orange County, Calif., projected a 6.7 percent decline in California housing prices for 2007.

"It's not really a collapse, it's not a bursting of the bubble, but for some people, it's going to be a problem," he said.

Part of the problem nationally is pressure put on appraisers to hit a value, said Mike Brunson of Ascent Appraisal.

"I'm really pessimistic about Las Vegas housing," he said. "I've been in the appraisal industry for a decade, and I think fraud is just pervasive."