We put a lot of focus on the Las Vegas real estate market. After all, we sell large amounts of real estate here. Our view cannot be too myopic however, so observations of global trends are necessary. For the past couple of years I've been looking at China real estate. Its difficult to grasp the magnitude of China's deals because a lot goes un-reported. But I recall seeing cranes everywhere in Beijing and Shanghai. Sure, demographics push a lot of this and a growing consumer base is the genesis of demand for these h... read more

This post dovetails off of a Wall Street Journal article printed today called "New Ways to Read Economy." I've seen the diesel fuel sales and the counting of train passengers but I think one of the neatest indicators (or at least a gauge of interest) is Google Trends, which shows trends in visitor traffic by search term. Here are some examples. You can see that the housing tax credit is still on an upward trend, though spikes occur around news releases. The search for Las Vegas hotels has ... read more

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Of all the fancy indicators demonstrating a bubble in home prices, nothing was as telling as shows like "Flip This House" or "Flip That House.” During the time this programming was first presented, I was a consultant thinking that this programming was the equivalent of an "end is near" sign for residential prices. When you have a cab driver or your hairstylist (I’ve never actually had a hairstylist but you may) or the kid across the street that mows your lawn tells you to buy an... read more

Yesterday the S&P/Case-Shiller numbers where released. In the seasonally adjusted tiered indices, each index registered a month-to-month increase with the exception of the middle tier which consists of homes priced between $126,631 and $196,595. This was mildly surprising given that we get a lot of requests for homes in these ranges but do not have a large amount of for-sale inventory. We have more listing inventory in the high range. The breakdown for the listing inventory (offered for sale and not und... read more