What We're Hearing

Is the Las Vegas housing market back? Are builders once again constructing new homes? Well, not exactly. One lender filed this report with me this morning: "Yes, there is a small resurgence and in April the increase in median sales price for single family dwellings went up $6,900! That was the largest increase by far in the past 12-14 months, by almost triple the amount of increase! Builders are advertising more but building in much smaller numbers. It appears they are trying to eat up their small acreage parcels. We are not seeing the large development growth any longer that we had been seeing for a long time. There is no demand." Meanwhile, the U.S. job market got a dose of bad news this morning with the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rising last week by the largest amount in three months. Applications for jobless benefits rose to 471,000 last week, up by 25,000 from the previous week. Also, the stock market is sinking and the yield on the 10-year Treasury is falling...