The Washington Post isn’t the only place where people have noticed that despite the current economy, people are not in a position to just up and move to a new city in hopes of better opportunities:

Many economists believe that a significant number of workers will have to move before the employment picture substantially improves.

But workers have proved unwilling — or unable — to relocate. The biggest factor seems to be the large number of unemployed homeowners who have little or no home equity.

This graph should put things in perspective: just about anybody who bought in the last 10 years is underwater, and things may get worse — which some economists think will put us back in a recession (if you in fact believe we really ever got out of one). This is another argument in favor of allowing bankruptcy judges to “cramdown” mortgages.

But here’s a fellow who sees potential good in our underwater home trap:

Out of nothing more than self-preservation, those people will come up with something—maybe the next Zappos or something equally huge?—to get us out of this jam. More important, though, is the part that will come: recovery. And, yes, there will be one someday.

Finding a way out of this mess, he argues, is likely to form a greater sense of community.

Be sure to come back tomorrow afternoon for Friday Figures!

Clark County has proposed some big changes to the rules for pet owners. The new rules seem to be targeted at ensuring responsible pet ownership as well as cracking down on “puppy mills” and “crazy cat ladies.” The County Commission will be voting on these and other new rules later this month [Source: LVRJ]:

• Those who fail to sterilize a cat or dog will be fined $225 for the first offense, $350 for a second offense and $500 for subsequent offenses. If the owners come into compliance, the fines will be reduced to $25. Money from the fines will go into a special fund to aid in the sterilization of pets.
• Owners have three days to retrieve a pet from a shelter and must show proof of ownership through veterinary records or photographs. If they lack proof, they have 24 hours to obtain it before the animal is pegged again for euthanization. The animal also must be sterilized and a microchip implanted before it is released.
• Breeders are limited to eight purebred cats and dogs and must get a special permit, with a yearly fee of $50.
• A pet fancier permit, which costs $50 a year, is required for anyone to own more than three dogs or cats. The limit is six dogs and 10 cats.
• Pets must be kept in areas that are no colder than 50 degrees or no hotter than 85 degrees.
• Animals cannot be tethered for more than 14 hours, and the line must be at least 12 feet long.
• A motorist who accidentally hits a domestic animal is no longer required to stay with the injured creature until help arrives.
• Owners are not allowed to buy, sell, breed or keep animals for fighting. Watching animal fights also is forbidden.

If you are a pet owner in Las Vegas — or anywhere else!  — please be responsible: unless you are a breeder, spay or neuter; microchip pets in case they get lost; make sure they are properly cared for.

Just a few little items for those of you in town.

First, a “cash for appliances” program begins this coming Saturday. Let the state pay you up to $200 to upgrade your refrigerator, freezer, clothes washer, or dishwasher with a brand new energy efficient one! I’ve seen programs like this do very well in other parts of the country. Considering that we do live in a desert, it’s particularly important that we try to encourage the use of more efficient washers and dishwashers.

Here’s a list we wish we weren’t on: Forbes’s list of metropolitan areas where housing prices are “in free fall.” But regular readers of Friday Figures know that prices may be down year over year, but they are stable now. Stable prices are the first step in any recovery.

And one last item: our own CityCenter made Food and Wine Magazine’s “Go List” of 100 new food experiences. Unfortunately, it’s not available online yet. This year’s Best of Las Vegas came out just a couple of weeks ago, so it’s a good bet that some of these places will make the cut for 2011.

These pictures of Death Valley wildflowers were too good not to pass along.

As a bonus, here’s an item on a new report speculating that the Las Vegas Valley may be overbuilt. While this may not be good news, it does mean that there are some great housing and commercial real estate bargains to be had right now.

Due to scheduling issues beyond my control, Friday Figures will probably be published tomorrow afternoon instead of tomorrow morning. Any inconvenience this may cause is regrettable.

Today we have more information on the bridge being built parallel to the Hoover Dam. It’s a 1900 foot span, 900 ft above the river. Although you’ll be able to see the bridge from the Dam, only pedestrians will be able to see the Dam from the bridge. Also, traffic patterns to will be different once the bridge opens, so be alert to changes if you’ve traveled this way before.

When I have new clients come from out-of-town, one of the things they always ask about is the schools. What are the “best” school districts? Are any of them in financial trouble?

As a matter of state law, Nevada’s school districts are organized by county. There’s only one school district for each of our 17 counties. So there isn’t a Henderson school district, a North Las Vegas school district, a Paradise or Winchester or Sunrise Manor school district — it’s all just part of Clark County School District from Primm to Blue Diamond to Mount Charleston. This means that small towns and the rural areas around them don’t have to worry about coming up with the money for their own school districts, and it eliminates some of the problems of “poor” and “rich” schools. It also means that CCSD is the 5th largest school district in the nation, with all the benefits and problems of being a large school district.

Many people still ask what the best schools are. Unfortunately, I can’t answer that question. What is a good school? Every family has a different answer: some want strong academics, others want a variety of electives and extra-curriculars, some want a high graduation rate (which sadly we do not have), others want a top-notch athletic program. Even if I could read minds and pair families with the “perfect” school, there is the risk that the district will re-draw the attendance boundaries next year. I always encourage parents to do their own research both at the CCSD site and at sites like GreatSchools or SchooGo.com.

One thing CCSD does have is some very well regarded magnet schools. Any student can apply (this year’s deadline is February 8), and admissions are competitive. Three of our magnet high schools are US News and World Report Silver Medalists, and 2 more are Bronze Medalists. Application deadline this year is February 8.

For those of you who have “live” Christmas trees, please be thinking about proper disposal of them after the holidays are over. One great option is “recycling” of trees. Starting this Saturday and running through January 15, you can drop your tree off for recycling at the Springs Preserve and 22 other locations across the valley. The trees will be turned into compost rather than allowed to rot in a landfill.

Christmas is Friday, so Friday Figures will be run on a special “holiday” schedule this week.

A few years ago, someone drove out here to visit me. Since she was planning on driving anyway, I gave her a little advice. I said “Vegas water is not exactly tasty stuff. And the big hotels will gladly charge you for bottled water. If you are smart, you’ll pull off the highway before you make it all the way to the Strip and buy yourself a cheap flat of water at a grocery store. If you don’t drink it while you’re here, you can always drink it on the way back home.”

Now an official study has declared what many people already knew: even though Vegas water meets Federal safety standards, it’s some of the worst municipal drinking water available in a major city. Vegas water comes from two main sources: underground springs and Lake Mead.

There are a lot of things that you can do to improve your water quality in Vegas without springing for bottled water. First, there’s water softeners. Most households in Vegas already have the “loop” to install one in the garage, if not a pre-installed unit. They work by a chemical reaction where sodium or potassium pulls calcium and magnesium out of the water. The salty “brine” left behind is then flushed as waste water. A common misconception is that you end up drinking salty water, but it turns out that the water softener only adds a very small amount of sodium, far less than you get from typical processed foods.

Many househholds also have filtration systems for their drinking water. These systems can be as simple as a filtering pitcher — or it’s larger undersink filtration cousins — or as complicated as a reverse osmosis system. There are a lot of different kinds of filter systems, each with its own benefits, drawbacks, and costs. In addition to the installation cost, don’t forget to consider the ongoing cost of filter materials. A guide like this one can help you pick the right sort of system before you start talking to salesmen (whose job is to convince you that his system is best!). It is worth noting that most refrigerators with icemakers have filters built into them. It is my personal experience that these filters usually need to be replaced every 6-9 months.

Remember that these filter systems are also very likely to remove chlorine from water. While this will make it taste better, it also means there is nothing left to kill germs in it anymore. So be sure to drink up or stick it in the fridge soon after filtering.

Of course, if you have time and patience, it is possible to cheaply purify your own water at home. This is a skill which will also serve if you are someplace where the water system has been compromised or if you are camping.

To get the most detailed information possible about Vegas’s water, be sure to check out the information available from the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Hooters Las Vegas is currently in default, and is trying to restructure $147 million in debt.

More on the Cosmopolitan: Deutsche Bank has had to write down a half billion euros — about $748 million — and there is no clear opening date in sight.

I’ve said before that the housing crisis will not be over until the banking crisis is over as well. The two are just too intertwined. Well, banking reforms may be further away than we would like, and the TARP is looking more like a cover-up than a life-preserver every day. In fact, I am more certain than ever that as bad an idea as it is, it would have been a better use of taxpayer money to put up to $100,000 towards every American mortgage than to continue to prop up huge banks that aren’t accountable to anybody. At least paying off people’s mortgages would have changed the fact that we now have record high delinquency rates.

Housing starts — that’s beginning construction of new housing — is at a new low. Permits to build housing are down too. Surprisingly, that’s a good thing if you think we have an oversupply of housing. It of course isn’t very good news at all if you work in construction.

I do have to say that I am very concerned by the disconnect between the economy you and I see on the streets and the economy that Wall Street is apparently enjoying. I can’t see the Wall Street economy continuing forever, nor pulling the rest of the nation up. Let’s face it, most jobs are not created by huge publicly traded corporations, but rather by the small businesses that are having a hard time getting financing right now. And until we have enough jobs, the housing industry will have something less than smooth sailing.

And on a happy note, there is a movement to create a new national park in the Northwest part of town. An area called the Upper Las Vegas Wash is home to many fossils.

see more Funny Graphs

Granted, they are quite late to the party, but The Market Oracle is talking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s role in the housing bubble (and therefore the housing collapse that came afterwards).

Don’t even think about trying to fraudulently claim the first time buyer’s tax credit. The IRS is looking for people who do that.

Has housing hit bottom? I don’t know. I think it entirely depends which local housing market we are talking about. The good news is that prices nationwide are up for the first time in 3 years.

Unpaid property taxes are becoming  a problem for municipalities. It is important to remember that just about everybody who has a mortgage pays those property taxes automatically out of an escrow account run by the mortgage company. Should the mortgagee be in default, banks are still pretty good about making sure those taxes are paid off. It then stands to reason that if those taxes are not paid, it is either people who have completely paid off their mortgages, or banks that are shirking obligations.

And last, TheStreet.com has noticed that “About 70% of the Las Vegas-area houses and condos that resold in June were foreclosure resales, meaning those homes had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months. That was up from 59% in June 2008 but the lowest for any month since it was 68.9% last December.” Notice that their definition of bank owned is that it’s been foreclosed in the last 12 months. Seeing as I can think of a half dozen currently listed addresses off the top of my head that have been bought from the bank, quickly renovated, and put back on the market long before the 12 month mark, I think that number is high.

See everyone in the morning for Friday Figures!