• 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

Summary: Available inventory continues to drop, while median prices on on those listings remains stable (median prices overall dropped because of changes in the mix of houses vs condos). Distressed properties continue to sell briskly; if trends continue and we don’t have an abnormally large number of new listings, bank-owned listings could return to a more normal percentage of availabilities by the end of the year (a big if). While bargain hunters are still active in low-priced segments, a surprising number of higher priced properties moved off the availability lists this week. The gap between time on market for available units vs time on market for sold units suggests that very desirable and “right priced” homes are selling much faster than anything else.

Available listings for sale:  There are 10853 available single family homes, 3398 condominiums and townhomes. Current median list price dropped again to $166,900, and median time on market has dropped substantially to 104 days. At the beginning of last month, we had 12898 available single family homes, 3957 condominiums and townhomes.

Distressed Properties: Of those listings, 5853 are noted as short sales and 3143 are bank-owned.  Median price for a short sale is unchanged at $139,000; Median price on bank-owned is down at $112,900. This drop is probably because higher priced properties are being purchased, rather than a drop in prices. Non-distressed properties for sale had a median price of $340,000, up from last week. At the beginning of last month, 6523 were short sales and 4502 were bank-owned.

Contingent and Pending listings: Properties in the process of being purchased are 10336 single family homes, 2222 condos and townhomes. Median asking price of contingent houses barely down at $148,900; median asking price of contingent condos/townhomes is unchanged at $70,900. The accepted price is confidential until the sale closes. At the beginning of last month we had 9194 single family homes, 1785 condos and townhomes pending.

Single Family Home Prices: Of available listings, 241 under $50,000; 1650 between $50,000-$100,000; 4396 between $100,000-$200,000; 3073 between $200,000-$500,000; 915 between $500,000-$1,000,000; and 738 over $1,000,000. The drop in inventory over a half million dollars is notable. Median price on an available single family home is unchanged for an amazing 4th week at $179,900; median price per square foot is still $94. At the beginning of last month we had 241 under $50,000; 1901 between $50,000-$100,000; 5477 between $100,000-$200,000; 3708 between $200,000-$500,000; 986 between $500,000-$1,000,000; and 755 over $1,000,000.

Condo and Townhome Prices: 417 under $50,000; 1143 between $50,000-$100,000; 972 between $100,000-$200,000; 542 between $200,000-$500,000; 236 between $500,000-$1,000,000; and 147 over $1,000,000. Median asking price on these units remained the same at $115,000; median price per square foot is $100. At the beginning of last month we had 482 under $50,000 (back under 500, still up month-over-month); 1384 between $50,000-$100,000; 1106 between $100,000-$200,000; 631 between $200,000-$500,000; 269 between $500,000-$1,000,000; and 157 over $1,000,000. The month-over-month numbers are quite impressive.

Recently sold: 967 properties have closed in the last week, a number that was expected to be high because of month-end and month-start activity. 4032 have closed in the last 30 days and 17372 have closed since the first of the year. Of the properties closed in the last week, an amazing 139 properties were on the market less than a week; 81 were on the market more than 6 months; median dropped yet again to 39 days (median time on market including the contingent period also dropped to 106 days). Median sales price rose to $130,450 and median list price jumped to $132,500.  At the beginning of last month, median sales price was only $125,000 and median list price was $129,900.

Rentals: 4730 homes, townhomes, and condos were available for rent in the Valley according to the MLS system — up from last week. 123 are willing to consider a lease-option. There are 532 contingent leases and 1715 leases signed in the last 30 days. On May 1, there were 4761 available rentals.

Other information: Visitors, please be aware that Monsoon Season has begun, and we may have windstorms and thunderstorms over the next few weeks. You may feel dumb putting rain gear in your bag for a trip to Vegas, but you never know. One more detail, the spread between conventional and FHA mortgage interest rates seems to be narrowing. Be sure to weigh all your options before you choose a mortgage product!

You can always reach me by clicking the “Contact Me!” link in the sidebar or call the number at the top of the page. I am available to help both buyers and sellers at the present time, subject to change. Friday Figures is published by Bridget Magnus on BridgetMagnus.com and is her property, even though any GLVAR Realtor can access this data.