COLUMN: Carmel Hopkins

Apartments in Nevada come in all sizes and shapes, and the ever-enterprising Jean Norton set out to do a survey.

Norton is chief assistant to Charles Horsey, the state of Nevada's administrator of the Housing Division of the Department of Business and Industry. She began her quest to quantify and qualify apartment living in the greater Las Vegas Valley, published the first results in June 1997, and has been publishing the informative guide every June since then.

In 2000, the survey began covering the greater Reno/Sparks area.

"Developers in Southern Nevada began looking to the Reno/Sparks area and wanted better information," Norton said recently. "So, we hired a consulting company that set up a database, did the interviews and we put out a separate report for 2000."

The staff of the Housing Division in the Northern Nevada office took over the duties for 2001 and 2002.

"This is the first year I've done both areas," Norton said. "The database is so much smaller for Reno/Sparks that it was easy to pick up the information."

Because she was able to do both markets, Norton published the two markets together.

"This helps us internally making decisions, looking at the two markets," she said. "Plus, it helps financiers and developers who are interested in both markets."

The Nevada Housing Division is one of the major financiers of multifamily housing through tax credits, tax exempt bonds and other avenues.

"We have financed more than 20,000 units in the state," Norton said. "We are a significant player in the multifamily market."

Horsey said tax credits became a large part of construction in the "affordable" multifamily housing market.

"Because land is so much more expensive in the Reno/Sparks area, the Housing Division definitely has been a major financier of multifamily housing projects," he said. "Almost all the housing in the rural parts of the state, particularly senior housing, have been built with money from tax credits."

The division administrator pointed out that the apartment survey is invaluable not only to the state when deciding where multifamily housing is needed, but also to nonprofit and for-profit companies.

"We know the areas where the vacancy rates are low and are able to pass along this information," Horsey said.

Norton said the big difference in the Las Vegas area is the incredible growth. "We have such high growth and that means growth in investors and changing properties."

Many complexes have been divided up -- such as four- to six-unit buildings sold off to investors where the financier lives in one apartment and rents out the others.

Also, Norton pointed out that a growing number of apartment complexes are being converted to condominiums.

"While this is not a census, the database is broad-based enough that the formula is consistent from year to year," Norton said. "Ninety to 92 percent of identified units is a good barometer of what's going on."

In Southern Nevada, the vacancy rate of 7.6 percent probably is attributable to the low interest rates that spurred renters to become homeowners.

The lower vacancy rate in Reno/Sparks -- 5.8 percent -- is probably because that area's single-family housing is more costly.

An interesting graph shows that at the end of the year-to-year study, the mean rental rates were about the same in both metro areas.

Horsey said he was pleased with the reception the survey has received.

"The public tends to look at us as a typical bloated bureaucracy wasting money," he said. "This survey is a great example of wisely used funds, as is the use of tax-free bonds and tax credits to build needed housing."

The Housing Division is totally self-supporting -- a fact that is little known -- and filled with great people who are dedicated to ensuring Nevadans have affordable housing opportunities.

Carmel Hopkins, real estate product manager for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Las Vegas Sun, can be reached at 380-4574. Her e-mail address is chopkins@ reviewjournal.com. Snail mail is P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.

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