All Forum Posts by: Scott Allison

@Omar Merced How did it go with your ADU project?

Here is a video from the Cosmo from Saturday: https://twitter.com/ArashMarkazi/status/1269169419998990336?s=19 

@guy

You are correct, zero social distancing. I was in The Cosmopolitan this weekend, and almost no one was wearing a mask. The gaming floor looked almost as busy as usual. I was very surprised. Customers seem to have forgotten all about coronavirus.

While the staff all have to wear masks, they're not N95 so they offer virtually no protection to the wearer. 

The second wave is going to hit really really hard.

Thanks @John P.and @Lawrence Leung for your thoughts! I've run it by a few friends as well who were all enthusiastic. The only person who thinks it is a terrible idea is my Mum. Sorry Mum! We should have our house listed by Memorial Day.  

I live in the East Bay, in Concord to be precise and prices here are at an all-time high. I've been thinking for a few years about cashing out here in my primary residence and relocating somewhere cheaper, like Las Vegas and living there for the long term. It would potentially let me move more quickly with investments, having freed up some capital. On top of this, I'm thinking of renting in Vegas for a year and waiting until the market bottoms out there before buying.

What do you all think? I know it's hard to time the market but I feel pretty confident that prices here will fall or stay flat, while prices in Vegas are likely to drop more significantly. My employer has already given me the OK to work remote.

Why do they bother with taking temperatures? Because it looks like you're doing something and (falsely) gives people some peace of mind! It's better than nothing, but for all the reasons you mention is not effective.

Saw this report today: McCarran International Airport recorded a 53% year-to-year decrease in passengers for the month of March.

That's a drop of 2.3 million travelers, according to data McCarran released Thursday.

I imagine April will be even worse.

Jay, I found a Las Vegas Sun article with the stats on visitors from California.

The LVCVA also has a ton of stats on their site.

20% of visitors are from outside the US.

I also found stats on yearly airplane trips: 50M. And 16M cars per year on the I-15. You divide both of those by 2 to get return trips. That totals 33M visitors. In total Vegas has 40M visitors a year so another 7M must come in on other ways, presumably on all other roads, excluding I-15.

I really believe it's going to take a long time for Las Vegas to recover. Vegas can't recover until the country recovers economically, and it's anyone's guess how long that will take. Most of Vegas tourism and conventions is discretionary spend. As Guy noted, many business conventions are cancelled. I don't see any appetite for businesses to resume these any time this year. With businesses cutting back in general, even if the country reopened next month for business as usual, businesses will be cautious about committing to non-essential expenditure like conferences.

As for tourists, with so many people country wide losing jobs and others having been furloughed or taking forced pay cuts, consumer spending is going to fall off a cliff. (It was down 8% in March alone). The first thing you cut back on is discretionary spending like trips to Vegas. The last spending to get restored back to normal is the discretionary stuff. Especially if the worry in people's heads is that there will be a second wave of C19 coming that could cost them their job, or at minimum, effect their income. And all those people now unemployed, even if the economy reopened, businesses have failed, and many will cut back. That means a lot of jobs will not reappear. Higher unemployment in the US is not good for Vegas.

Not convinced? One scary data point from the airline industry before and after 9/11:

"In August 2001, the month just prior to the attacks, U.S. airlines boarded 56.3 million passengers for domestic service, a number that plummeted to just 30 million in September. And for two anxious days after the attacks, the passenger count was zero. It would take three years for carriers to once again reach the 56 million mark."

The airlines have been almost shut down now for over a month. It's going to take years and years for things to get back to normal.

Second data point:

Vegas annual visitation numbers peaked in 2006, and it wasn't until 2011 those numbers were surpassed.

Now, exactly what the current economic and health situation does to the housing market in Vegas I don't know... But it's going to be super interesting to see as this unfolds.

This is a great thread, I'm glad I discovered it. I'm from California, and have been in ABQ all this week getting to know the market and looking at SFH with BRRRR potential. I'm a fan of the desert southwest, and of the long term potential here in New Mexico.