Two Months Behind EPJ, But Still a Nice Call From Weisenthal

Joe Weisenthal is calling a bottom in Las Vegas. He writes today:

The worst housing market in America is Las Vegas, which has continued to plummet in recent readings, with little sign of letting up.

But eventually it will hit bottom, and that could be right now.

Two things to consider:

First, gaming revenues are clearly rebounding. Nevada gaming revenues grew an impressive 11% in October, the third straight monthly increase. On the strip, revenue rebounded by an even more impressive 16%.

Second, this chart which we ran last month shows a pretty nice correlation between hospitality jobs and Nevada home prices (as measured by the Case-Shiller). Now Case-Shiller is pretty laggy, but it's clear that hospitality jobs have troughed, and looked to be starting a rebound. Combine that with the comeback in gaming revenues, and it's easy to imagine an actual bottom in Las Vegas real estate.

Nice call Joe, but in the EPJ Daily Alert, we had the Vegas rebound pegged in early October. We specifically mentioned MGM as the play, its up 20% plus since then.