Reports show Utah lodging industry on upswing

Reports show Utah lodging industry on upswing
Hospitality » Occupancy levels rising, but nightly rates remain down, prompting caution.

By Mike Gorrell
The Salt Lake Tribune

Two separate lodging industry reports suggest that key segment of Utah's economy is improving, but full recovery will be slow in coming.

Hotel occupancy rates statewide and in Salt Lake County last month exceeded levels achieved in March 2009, the first time since April 2008 that year-over-year increases were realized.

Similar results also emerged in a monthly report tracking the performance of lodging establishments in Western destination resort communities. That report, by the Denver-based Mountain Travel Research Program, found that occupancy rates last month in those posh places were 9.6 percent higher than March 2009.

March's improved showing was not as pronounced in conventional communities, with Salt Lake County hotels recording a 5.2 percent increase last month. Hotels statewide filled 2.9 percent more rooms on a nightly basis, according to the Rocky Mountain Lodging Report, which also is based in Denver.

Although both sets of results are "great positives," according to Utah Hotel & Lodging Association executive director Michael Johnson, he was reticent to get too excited at this point.

"There's some hesitancy to say it's because we've recovered," he said. "Occupancy has gone up, but hotels have held their rates low, knowing people are still looking for deals.

"People who used to take a couple of small trips a year or one big one put it off last year. They don't want to put it off again. Unlike last year, they feel their jobs are secure and they're more comfortable, so they're traveling again -- but looking for deals."

Good snow in March and an earlier Easter also helped boost occupancy levels at resorts and southern Salt Lake Valley hotels, Johnson said.

"But there are still a lot of unemployed people who won't be traveling and still a lot of companies that have cut back on meetings. It's hard to know when those meetings will come back," he said.

"A lot of [hotel] properties are celebrating now, but it's because they don't have to cut their budgets even further. We have to put it into the context that there's a long way to go."

Ralf Garrison, author of the Mountain Travel Research Program's report, shared Johnson's perspective that it's too soon to rejoice too much about the latest figures.

March of 2009 was a bad month for the industry, so besting its results does not necessarily equate to March of 2010 being "good," he said. Still, it was the third consecutive month with year-over-year increases in actual occupancy for property management companies in 15 resort communities in Utah, Colorado, California and British Columbia.

"These figures indicate that a positive trend has now been established. It is now virtually certain that the winter season occupancies will exceed those of 2008-09," Garrison said. "But our enthusiasm remains cautious since occupancy rates remain fragile and overall revenues continue to lag behind those of last year."

His report projected occupancy this season will be 1.3 percent better than the previous winter. But in line with Johnson's concern, average nightly rates were down about 5 percent, indicative of consumers being rate conscious.

"Now that we are seeing the momentum shifting slowly to the more positive side of the spectrum -- in the ski industry, travel industry and the broader economy -- as a [mountain travel] industry we can be optimistic about carrying this strength into the summer season," said Garrison, who is now looking to the 2010-11 ski season with "cautious optimism."

mikeg@sltrib.com
Filling more rooms

Utah hotels posted higher occupancy rates last month than in March 2009, the first year-over-year increase in almost two years. Rooms filled nightly:

Salt Lake County » 73 percent
Ogden » 66 percent
St. George » 63 percent
Davis County » 61 percent
Utah County » 59 percent
Cedar City » 48 percent
Logan » 46 percent
Mountain resorts » 56 percent
Other parts of Utah » 57 percent
Statewide » 65 percent

Source: Rocky Mountain Lodging Report

Utah banks enter 2010 in better shape

Utah banks enter 2010 in better shape
Recession » State supervisor says it's too soon to tell if the industry has touched bottom.

By Paul Beebe, Salt Lake Tribune
Updated:04/10/2010 06:45:27 PM MDT


Several community banks in Utah struggling with bad loans tied to real estate appeared to turn a corner for the better at the end of 2009.

But with two failures already this year and other banks still carrying overdue or defaulted real estate loans on their books, it's hard to know with certainty that lenders are firmly in recovery mode.

Lenders say their banks have raised new capital, written off toxic real estate loans and boosted reserves for future loan losses. And despite ongoing weakness at many banks, depositors' money -- insured up to $250,000 per account by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- isn't at risk, they say.

Still, many admit the danger isn't over. While a slow recovery is taking hold, they think home prices will continue to sink this year, leaving banks with little margin for error.

Meanwhile, bank lending remains weak, threatening the ability of businesses to finance expansion and new hiring that could drive Utah's 7.1 percent unemployment rate down from its highest level since 1984.

"We believe that we won't make a lot of progress in the economy until the last quarter, and then in the last quarter things hopefully will start to rebuild," said Paul Mathews, president of Holladay Bank and Trust.

"If I were guessing, we are probably at least a year away from the bottom," said Ron Spratling, the bank's chairman.

Holladay was one of an assortment of community banks with precarious levels of real estate loans to enter 2010 in better shape than just three months earlier.

Prime Alliance Bank of Woods Cross, SunFirst Bank and Village Bank in St. George, Capital Community Bank of Provo and First Utah Bank in Salt Lake City also stabilized or reduced the proportion of their troubled loans to their capital and loss reserves.

The six lenders also fattened their capital cushions to levels exceeding the FDIC's standards for well-capitalized banks. Shareholders of First Utah Bank, for example, added $1.5 million in December, President David Brown said.

And while First Utah's "troubled asset ratio" of capital to bad loans still exceeded 100 percent at the end of the fourth quarter, much of the real estate it took back when borrowers didn't repay the bank is under contract to be sold, Brown said.

"Things are perhaps better than you see," he said.

Community banks are probably holding their own, said Tom Bay, supervisor of banks for the Utah Department of Financial Institutions. But, he went on to say, it's too soon to tell if the banking industry has touched bottom and is recovering.

"They are tied to the economy like everyone else. They are just hoping, like everyone else is, that things will start to fall into place, as far as the economy is concerned," Bay said.

Some lenders weren't able to weather the Great Recession. In January, Bay's department seized Barnes Bank after its troubled asset ratio to capital climbed to 320 percent, bringing the Kaysville bank to its knees. Rumors the bank was in trouble caused a huge run on its deposits, depleting its capital.

Last month, the department closed Ogden's Centennial Bank. Its ratio had ballooned to 829 percent. Both banks had lent heavily to land developers who defaulted when real estate values plunged.

Two banks heavy into real estate lending -- Gunnison Valley Bank in Gunnison and Orem's Western Community Bank -- saw their troubled loan ratios climb during the final three months of 2009. Neither has failed, but both face different futures.

Western has reached a deal to sell 51 percent of the bank to a Utah County group calling itself Rock Canyon in Organization. The investors intend to expand into retail, manufacturing and agricultural lending.

Gunnison, in Sanpete County, is profitable, and President Paul Andersen believes the bank "is looking a lot better."

Gunnison has lined up $4 million in new capital. It has stopped making real estate construction loans and is focusing instead on agriculture and consumer lending. And the bank has cut the value of most of its real estate loans because they are no longer worth the amount shown on its books.

"Things have stabilized. We've still got some [real estate loans] out there, but they've been written down. So our losses are going to be nowhere near what they were," Andersen said.

In February, the FDIC ordered Village Bank in St. George to develop a plan within 60 days for boosting its already hefty capital reserves. The agency also told Village Bank to purge its worst loans within 10 days.

President Douglas Bringhurst said Village Bank has raised additional capital and is foreclosing and writing off loans in order to bring the size of its portfolio into line with its capital.

But while Bringhurst says the bank is doing better, he won't say it's healthy.

"I don't have an answer to that," he said. "We have signed an agreement with the FDIC to work through the problems they have identified, and we are in the process of fulfilling their wishes and doing what they want us to do."

Some bankers think regulators are too pushy. Howard Headlee, who directs the Utah Bankers Association, said Bringhurst may have been unwilling to make a stronger case for Village Bank because of his contact with FDIC examiners.

"I know he's tired," Headlee said. "Dealing with the regulators is an exhausting process. But when you take a step back and take a look at their numbers, [Village Bank] has a lot to be proud of.

"They are a long way from what most people would consider an unhealthy bank," Headlee said.

Spratling, chairman of Holladay Bank, said Barnes and Centennial banks could have survived if the FDIC had given them more time to work out their problems.

That view is gaining some traction in Congress. Two weeks ago, Rep. Walt Minnick, D-Idaho, and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., asked the Government Accounting Office to assess whether federal and state banking regulators are being unreasonable in their examinations of community banks.

Overzealous field examiners are also provoking banks to curtail their lending, which exacerbates the economic downturn, Minnick and Frank said last month in a letter to the acting comptroller general, whose agency supervises national banks.

Utah retains top ranking in economic outlook report

Utah retains top ranking in economic outlook report
Deseret News
Published: Wednesday, April 7, 2010 8:34 p.m. MDT

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah retained the top economic outlook ranking in a new report by the American Legislative Exchange Council.

The third edition of "Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index" had Utah top-ranked a year ago, based on 15 state public policy variables. Utah was ranked 18th in economic performance, based on three variables "highly influenced by state policy."

The report's authors analyzed how economic competitiveness drives income, population and job growth.

In the economic outlook rankings, Utah was followed by Colorado, Arizona, South Dakota and Florida. New York was ranked last.

The report is available at www.alec.org. ALEC is nonpartisan individual membership association of state legislators.

© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

EDCU: Commercial Real Estate Recovery: Are We There Yet?

Has Utah's commercial real estate market hit bottom? Are the capital markets unthawing? Will the retail sector be the first to rebound? Will investors swoop in and gobble up record bargains on distressed properties?

Like other areas of the country, Utah's commercial real estate market was hit hard by the recession. In fact, 2009 was a difficult year for the market in most respects; however, 2010 looks much more promising and 2011 even better. While no one has a crystal ball, EDCUtah's partners from the commercial real estate sector say they are cautiously hopeful that improvements in Utah's job market will lead to the recovery of the commercial real estate sector.

You can read the enlightening story about Utah's commercial real estate market and where it is headed in EDCUtah's spring Site Selector Quarterly (SSQ) newsletter, which is being distributed this week to site consultants, real estate brokers, business leaders, and many other interested parties across the state and nation. Written from the perspective of EDCUtah's partners in the commercial real estate market, the feature story provides an engaging look at the market, its challenges, and how it is connected to the state's job market.

Read the full story online in our Site Selector Quarterly newsletter.

Utah job picture shows improvement

Utah job picture shows improvement

By Jasen Lee, Deseret News
Published: Tuesday, April 6, 2010 9:34 p.m. MDT

SALT LAKE CITY — A rise in national employment is pointing to some positive results for Utah small businesses.

The Zions Bank Small Business Index for Utah jumped to 95.9 in March, up from a revised 91.6 in February.

The strongest U.S. job gain in three years was seen as one more sign of renewed national economic growth, ultimately a positive development for Utah's small businesses, according to Kendall Oliphant, senior vice president at Thredgold Economic Associates who compiled the data for the report.



"We do have evidence that Utah job growth is improving," Oliphant told the Deseret News. "The gain in March marks six consecutive months of improvement in the small-business index."

The index measures business conditions from the viewpoint of the Utah small-business owner or manager. A higher index number is associated with more-favorable business conditions. The index uses 100.0 for calendar year 1997 as its base year.

Factors that are moving the index higher include stronger economic performance in the Rocky Mountain region, as well as across the U.S. and around the globe, Oliphant stated.

"In addition, the pace of Utah job losses is slowing, and we anticipate monthly employment gains to be reported by summer," Oliphant said.

Utah's unemployment rate was estimated at 7.1 percent in the latest month, up from the revised 6.9 percent rate in the prior month. Total Utah employment fell an estimated 27,700 jobs during the past 12 months.

In contrast, the U.S. economy gained an estimated 162,000 net new jobs in March. However, the national unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent in March.

"Utah follows fairly close to what happens across the U.S.," Oliphant said.

He stated that job growth would likely be the trend in the Beehive State in the very near future.

"We anticipate (year-over-year employment) to turn positive in the next few months," he said.

e-mail: jlee@desnews.com

Utah business-conditions index rises in March

Utah business-conditions index rises in March

By Brice Wallace, Deseret News
Published: Thursday, April 1, 2010 11:33 a.m. MDT

Utah's business conditions improved just a hair in March, according to a monthly gauge released Thursday.

The Goss Institute for Economic Research said Utah's Business Conditions Index was 55.9 in March, up from 55.8 in February.

The index ranges from zero to 100, with a figure higher than 50 indicating an expansionary economy over the next three to six months. It is derived from a survey of the state's supply managers.

Components of Utah's overall index for March were new orders at 59.5, production or sales at 60.6, delivery lead time at 51.1, inventories at 57.1 and employment at 51.1.

"When the government releases March employment data, I expect it to show that Utah's level of employment was virtually unchanged for the first quarter of 2010," Ernie Goss, the institute's director and also director of Creighton University's Economic Forecasting Group, said in a prepared statement.

"Based on our surveys over the past several months, Utah will add jobs, albeit at a slow pace, for the second quarter of 2010. Even as the state adds jobs, I expect the state's unemployment rate to remain above 6.5 percent for the remainder of 2010."

The three-state Mountain region — consisting of Utah, Wyoming and Colorado — posted an index of 56.6 in March, a figure Goss described as "healthy" despite being down from February's 58.6. Still, it was the sixth consecutive month for the index to be above growth-neutral 50.0.

Utah was the only state of the three to see month-to-month improvement.

"While the region has yet to record overall and significant positive job growth according to government data, surveys over the past several months indicate that the region experienced slight positive job growth for the first quarter of 2010," Goss said.

The region's manufacturing and value-added services sectors are experiencing strong business activity, Goss said, adding that he expects the increase in activity to extend to the rest of the regional economy in the months ahead.

Colorado's index, above 50.0 for the sixth straight month, was 57.0 in March, down from February's 58.8. Wyoming's index in March was described as "still healthy" at 57.5 despite falling from 65.0 in February.

The Goss institute uses the same methodology as a national index undertaken by the Institute for Supply Management. ISM said Thursday that the national figure in March was 59.6, up from 56.5 in February. It represented the eighth straight month of expansion and the fastest growth since July 2004, when the index was 59.9.

Contributing: Associated Press

e-mail: bwallace@desnews.com
© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

Utah’s job losses 'more moderate' in February

Utah’s job losses 'more moderate' in February

The Deseret News
Published: Thursday, March 18, 2010 8:53 p.m. MDT

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's economy is slowly improving, with more moderate job losses in February, according to an employment summary issued Thursday by the state Department of Workforce Services.

February employment numbers show that Utah's nonfarm wage and salaried job count has contracted by 2.3 percent over the past 12 months, based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers. Since February 2009, about 27,700 jobs have been lost from the state's economy, leaving total wage and salary employment at just under 1.17 million.


The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 7.1 percent, up 0.3 percent from January and a full percentage point higher than just one year ago.

Last month, 95,300 Utahns were considered unemployed. Nationally, unemployment stayed at 9.7 percent.

The report noted that "the employment change number is noticeably improving because of the time frame now under reference. … Last year's rough patch makes this year's modest declines look less severe."

The report added, "There is also building evidence that the job market is starting to slowly awaken and that the employer community is beginning to again look for workers with which to expand their business output."

For example, Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs on Thursday announced the expansion of its Utah regional operations to approximately 1,150 employees, up from about 720 currently.

Despite that optimism, one local analyst expressed a bit less confidence in the jobs market.

Unemployment numbers are expected to rise in coming months, not because the economy is getting worse but because would-be workers who had given up will again start looking for work, said Randy Shumway, chief executive officer of The Cicero Group, a market research and consulting firm that tracks economic indicators.

"Despite an increase in jobs, unemployment will creep to 10 percent or higher," Shumway said. "As there's positive energy, more will enter the labor market," and that trend will be followed by "hopefully, stabilizing and tapering off" of the unemployment rate.

e-mail: lois@desnews.com, jlee@desnews.com
© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

Mountain West output, jobs trail nation in economic recovery

Mountain West output, jobs trail nation in economic recovery
Recession» Study says Ogden-Clearfield a beacon of strength thanks to exports.

By Brandon Loomis
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 03/16/2010 06:46:22 PM MDT

The Intermountain West is heading into new and unwelcome economic territory, according to a quarterly report by the Brookings Institution's regional study program at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

For the first time in 35 years, the region is lagging behind the rest of the nation's recovery from a recession and may need some "soul searching," according to Brookings Mountain West co-director Mark Muro. Heavily invested in real estate and construction in such previous growth areas as Las Vegas, Boise, Idaho, and St. George, he said, the region as a whole crashed hard and needs diversification.

It particularly needs export businesses, he said. One exception is the Ogden-Clearfield metropolitan area, whose high export levels have put it in relatively strong position heading out of the downturn. The report singles out Electronic Arts, a video game maker that's technically in the Ogden-Clearfield zone because of its location in south Davis County, as performing exceptionally well through export royalties.

EA has announced it will soon move its 100 employees south to downtown Salt Lake City.

"Places that are exporting have been relatively fortunate and had something else to draw on," Muro said. That's why Ogden-Clearfield and Albuquerque, N.M., are the only two major metros in the region to have returned to their pre-recession economic output in the fourth quarter 2009, according to the Brookings report. They're also the only two to add
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jobs in the fourth quarter, though they're not anywhere close back to pre-recession employment levels.

"It's quite an accomplishment to be simply not losing jobs right now," Muro said.

Exports account for about 16 percent of Ogden-Clearfield's economic output, compared with 10.8 percent in the Salt Lake metro area.

Utah as a whole is faring better than much of the region. Salt Lake's employment is off 4.9 percent from pre-recession peaks, compared with losses of 10.7 percent in Boise, 10.6 percent in Phoenix and 9.8 percent in Las Vegas, according to the quarterly report. That's no surprise to University of Utah economist Pam Perlich, who said Utah consistently ranks among the nation's most diverse economies.

Since shedding its 1970s image as having little but energy production and federal jobs, she said, the state has developed substantial manufacturing, military, biomedical and technology sectors. The state's universities help drive the economy, she said, and people have continued moving here even as jobs were lost over the past three or four years -- an indicator that they're betting on Utah's recovery.

What saved the Wasatch Front from bottoming out the way Phoenix has?

"Salt Lake's not known for second homes," Perlich said. Though St. George's retirement-based construction sector took a hard hit, she said, Utah as a whole didn't ride as high on the real estate bubble as much of the West did.

The Ogden region also benefits from relatively high levels of high school graduation, Brookings finds. Education levels -- especially in college towns with many bachelor's degrees -- appear to buffer the recession, Muro said.

"It's good to be educated when the bottom falls out," he said.

Ogden-Clearfield -- including all of Weber, Davis and Morgan counties -- has increased its "Gross Metropolitan Product" 1.8 percent from its pre-recession high, Brookings finds. That's good for a No. 8 ranking nationally.

Salt Lake's output remains down 1.9 percent from before the 2007 start of the crash, and Provo-Orem is down 1.5 percent.

Construction-heavy economies continue to suffer more. Boise's output remains down 4.1 percent. Las Vegas is off 4.4 percent.

In previous recessions the Intermountain West carried the promise of many jobs, even if they weren't always the best jobs, Muro said. This time, employment in the region's metro areas remains 7.4 percent below pre-recession figures, while the nation's top 100 metros are down 4.6 percent and the nation as a whole is down 4.9 percent.

"It's a time of maybe needed deep reflection about the sources of future growth in a region that has always promised rapid snap-back [before]," Muro said.

A good place to start would be in producing more, he said, instead of relying on consumption, including real estate.

bloomis@sltrib.com

Utah economy sputters to life, but pain remains

Utah economy sputters to life, but pain remains
Recession » Though pace of decline has eased, recovery will take time to take hold.

By Paul Beebe
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated:03/13/2010 05:08:21 PM MST

Maybe the best that can be said about Utah's economy is that it is neither in deep recession nor in full-on recovery mode.

Instead, the $110 billion amalgam of goods and services is in limbo, straddling an amorphous line between shadow and light, no longer shrinking rapidly but growing too slowly to help 91,000 of out-of-work Utahns any time soon or erase the upheavals endured by the unemployed since the U.S. slump began 27 months ago.

In fact, some labor experts say, a jobs recovery that gets us back to numbers close to those in early 2008 may not happen until 2013 at the earliest -- five years after the slide began.

Still, a consensus is building that the worst of the recession is over.

"We have Utah in a moderating recovery, which means that it is still contracting but at a slower pace than last year, and I do think the Utah economy will be entering recovery in the next couple of months," said Augustine Faucher, an economist with Moody's Economy.com.

Enough evidence exists for Gov. Gary Herbert to assert Utah has crossed into this twilight. In his State of the State address in January, Herbert insisted "the economic tide is turning," even though a $750 million deficit hung over lawmakers' heads as they began their session.

Although there is agreement among politicians and some economists, the view among many jobless Utahns isn't as optimistic.

"It might be getting better for the president and the governor because they have all the money. But for people like me, we don't have the money to pay for rent or groceries," said Jesse Espitta, 31.

Espitta is afraid. Unless he finds a job immediately, he will be homeless at the end of this month. A string of unskilled jobs ended in November 2008, and he has been struggling ever since to find work.

"I'm so scared right now," Espitta said. "There are so many other candidates that have more experience than me."

Yet in the realm of economic prognostication, agreement is forming around the governor's message, and the harmony is coming from several directions.

"We can agree with that. The worst part is definitely over," said Jeannine Catalzi, an economist with IHS Global Insight, an economic think tank in Lexington, Mass.

Said Jim Judd, president of the Utah AFL-CIO federation of about 50 union groups: "We are turning the corner on the economic downturn in the state of Utah."

To assert better times are coming means forecasters must conclude that ongoing drags on the economy are outweighed at least slightly by a string of positive signs.

On the one hand, nonresidential and commercial construction activity is still sluggish and almost 13,000 construction workers are out of work, according to the Associated General Contractors of America.

On top of that, mortgage foreclosures are still piling up, real estate values remain weak and federal tax credits for home buyers will dry up in April.

Yet, the pace of job losses is moderating. Job postings at Workforce Services offices have doubled in the past year, and initial claims for unemployment benefits are declining.

Sales of existing and new single-family homes have turned up, although numbers are still low. Deals in the months between June and January exceeded those in the same months a year earlier, said Jim Wood, director of the University of Utah's Bureau of Economic and Business Research.

"There are signs that retail sales have bottomed out. Declines were running at 10 percent in the first two quarters of 2009. They've dropped to about 2 percent by the end of the year," Wood said. "All of this plays into the (state) revenue numbers. They aren't as bad as first thought."

But whether Utah is poised to exit the recession at the same pace as the nation as whole is not as clear. Global Insight's Catalzi says it will, but others are more cautious.

With a diverse economy, young population, comparatively stable work force and reasonably priced homes, the state will be a leader among western states and emerge "probably along with the economy as a whole," she said.

But Moody's Faucher doubts that Utah's unemployment rate will ease before at least September. And because the housing market collapsed later in Utah, the recovery will lag other states, he said.

Paradoxically, as the economy gathers steam, the unemployment rate probably will rise even more.

The rate stood at 6.8 percent in January, highest since March 1997. But with rising numbers of job postings, idled workers are trickling back into the job market. Until they find work, they will push the rate up, said John Mathews, northern region economist at the Department of Workforce Services.

The rate will stay high until employers see enough demand for their products and services to warrant recalling or adding new workers, Mathews said.

Using unemployment numbers that have been adjusted to remove seasonal fluctuations, the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget believes the dreary drumbeat of month-over-month job losses ended in August.

But, economist Juliette Tennert added, "that doesn't mean we are in a phase of month-over-month growth. Basically we are getting to the point where we are bouncing around the bottom."

The number of jobs lost to Utah's economy during the recession is unmatched by any downturn in almost 60 years. Employment numbers peaked in January 2008 at 1.26 million. If the bottom was reached in August, the economy shed 61,300 jobs, a decline of 4.9 percent.

"It certainly stands alone. We haven't seen that since the 1950s, and that was when we were shutting down the Korean War," said Mark Knold, chief economist at the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

Jobs were lost across virtually the entire nonfarm employment spectrum. Heaviest hit, however, were construction, manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade. About the only sectors that didn't suffer heavy losses were health care, education and government.

Knold thinks the soonest Utah will get back to 1.26 million jobs is 2013 -- five years after the economy began to shed jobs -- for a net gain of zero.

"And that's just getting back to where we were in 2008," he said. "That's not creating jobs to absorb the people who are (graduating from high school or college and) ageing into the work force."

Philip Nguyen can't wait another three years for the job market to loosen. The 45-year-old cook has been out of work since his employer's Chinese restaurant closed four months ago. His prospects for another job aren't promising.

Nguyen has been living at the Road Home shelter in Salt Lake City for two months. He is skeptical of the governor's claim of an economic recovery any time soon.

"It's really hard. I (have been) looking for five, six days a week. I apply everything, but nothing coming up," Nguyen said.

If there's a silver lining, it is that high unemployment rates drive lots of people back into the education system. Those who might have quit high school when the economy was expanding return to receive their diplomas and perhaps go on to college. Same for college and university graduates. They might go on to earn advanced degrees.

"So what you end up with down the road is an even better-educated work force than when the downturn started," Knold said.

In time, historians may come think of this decade's two recessions as really just one economic decline interrupted by six years of growth. The seeds of the dot-com recession of 2000-2001 and the downturn triggered in late 2007 by the subprime crisis and the ensuing credit crunch had their beginnings in the 1990s, Knold said.

"Yes, you have two separate downturns. But both are correcting the excesses of the 1990s -- the easy credit and the disrespect of risk that is inherent in a capitalistic economy."

pbeebe@sltrib.com

Is Utah headed for a commercial real estate crisis?

Is Utah headed for a commercial real estate crisis?

KSL.com
March 10, 2010

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Congressional Oversight Panel recently sounded the alarm for another mortgage crisis, this time among the country's retail and office buildings. The panel chairman warns of "significant bankruptcies among developers and significant failures among community banks."

So, does that mean foreclosures in the commercial real estate market deliver another sting from the recession? While national and local analysts say there will be pain, Utah commercial real estate will not take the biggest hits.

Look down Main Street in Salt Lake City, or the business district in your community, and you'll see many signs for available office and retail space. The oversight panel's warning states that "over the next few years, a wave of commercial real estate loan failures could threaten America's already-weakened financial system."

Nearly 3,000 small and mid-sized banks have a risky concentration of commercial real estate loans. The panel fears impending losses could jeopardize the stability of those banks and further weaken the economy.

Nearly $1.5 trillion in real estate loans on the books of those banks needs to be refinanced in the next few years. Commercial real estate values dropped drastically during the recession, so about half of those borrowers owe more than the properties are worth. That makes refinancing troublesome, just as it has been for homeowners upside down in their home loans.

But Zions Bank economist Jeff Thredgold sees a difference between the commercial real estate woes and the housing breakdown.

"There will be some hits, there will be some losses, there will be some problems; but it's not going to be a shock to the system," Thredgold says.

Last year, 150 banks failed. The FDIC has taken control of 20, so far this year, and has 700 banks on its watch list.

"There will be additional bank failures," Thredgold says. "That's typical after a recession, especially the one we just finished."

But Thredgold does not expect the impending foreclosures in the commercial real estate market will cause the kind of economic turbulence experienced when the housing bubble burst.

"Everybody knows the problems in commercial real estate are there," he says. "The banks have been setting aside massive reserves to deal with the problems that are coming. They've been writing down the values of loans and writing down the values of properties that might have already been foreclosed on."

According to CoStar Group -- a Bethesda, Md., real estate research company -- office vacancies in the 12 largest markets range from 15 to 27 percent; in Salt Lake City, only 10 percent.

Ethan Reed is a CoStar senior research manager who studies the Salt Lake Market. He says the fallout here will be much less than in major cities across the country. "Salt Lake City has been an outperformer compared to the national average for at least three or four years now," Reed says.

He cites a stronger-than-average growth rate, more economic stability and lower unemployment than the national average. Salt Lake also gives many businesses a more affordable place to do business.

"In a time when companies are trying to figure out how to save a buck, there are ones looking longer term and seeing Salt Lake City as a low-cost alternative," Reed says.

But across the country, CoStar analysts think the worst is still to come.

"We expect that this distress is going to play out over the next year or two, and then the market will rebound," says Norm Miller, CoStar vice president of analytics.

In part, that's because new construction for commercial real estate stopped. The real estate analyst says banks are restructuring many loans. Real estate investors will lose a lot of equity, but average consumers may feel little pain.

If the federal government forced lenders to foreclose on all loans that are underwater, Miller believes most banks in the country would be insolvent, and we would experience a financial collapse.

But Miller says, "If these loans are able to make the mortgage payments, and we only see foreclosures on the ones that have negative cash flow, then the effect will not be nearly as severe."

Miller says we may not recognize a lot of commercial real estate changes in our communities because eager buyers will pick up distressed properties at a bargain, and keep the office and retail businesses operating.

"Investors are being affected, but at the consumer level, with real estate, buildings don't disappear, and good buildings are still good buildings," he says.

Bottom line: Our analysts do not think the impending commercial real estate troubles will plunge the economy into another round of recession.

E-mail: jboal@ksl.com

Is Utah headed for a commercial real estate crisis?

Is Utah headed for a commercial real estate crisis?

KSL.com
March 10, 2010

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Congressional Oversight Panel recently sounded the alarm for another mortgage crisis, this time among the country's retail and office buildings. The panel chairman warns of "significant bankruptcies among developers and significant failures among community banks."

So, does that mean foreclosures in the commercial real estate market deliver another sting from the recession? While national and local analysts say there will be pain, Utah commercial real estate will not take the biggest hits.

Look down Main Street in Salt Lake City, or the business district in your community, and you'll see many signs for available office and retail space. The oversight panel's warning states that "over the next few years, a wave of commercial real estate loan failures could threaten America's already-weakened financial system."

Nearly 3,000 small and mid-sized banks have a risky concentration of commercial real estate loans. The panel fears impending losses could jeopardize the stability of those banks and further weaken the economy.

Nearly $1.5 trillion in real estate loans on the books of those banks needs to be refinanced in the next few years. Commercial real estate values dropped drastically during the recession, so about half of those borrowers owe more than the properties are worth. That makes refinancing troublesome, just as it has been for homeowners upside down in their home loans.

But Zions Bank economist Jeff Thredgold sees a difference between the commercial real estate woes and the housing breakdown.

"There will be some hits, there will be some losses, there will be some problems; but it's not going to be a shock to the system," Thredgold says.

Last year, 150 banks failed. The FDIC has taken control of 20, so far this year, and has 700 banks on its watch list.

"There will be additional bank failures," Thredgold says. "That's typical after a recession, especially the one we just finished."

But Thredgold does not expect the impending foreclosures in the commercial real estate market will cause the kind of economic turbulence experienced when the housing bubble burst.

"Everybody knows the problems in commercial real estate are there," he says. "The banks have been setting aside massive reserves to deal with the problems that are coming. They've been writing down the values of loans and writing down the values of properties that might have already been foreclosed on."

According to CoStar Group -- a Bethesda, Md., real estate research company -- office vacancies in the 12 largest markets range from 15 to 27 percent; in Salt Lake City, only 10 percent.

Ethan Reed is a CoStar senior research manager who studies the Salt Lake Market. He says the fallout here will be much less than in major cities across the country. "Salt Lake City has been an outperformer compared to the national average for at least three or four years now," Reed says.

He cites a stronger-than-average growth rate, more economic stability and lower unemployment than the national average. Salt Lake also gives many businesses a more affordable place to do business.

"In a time when companies are trying to figure out how to save a buck, there are ones looking longer term and seeing Salt Lake City as a low-cost alternative," Reed says.

But across the country, CoStar analysts think the worst is still to come.

"We expect that this distress is going to play out over the next year or two, and then the market will rebound," says Norm Miller, CoStar vice president of analytics.

In part, that's because new construction for commercial real estate stopped. The real estate analyst says banks are restructuring many loans. Real estate investors will lose a lot of equity, but average consumers may feel little pain.

If the federal government forced lenders to foreclose on all loans that are underwater, Miller believes most banks in the country would be insolvent, and we would experience a financial collapse.

But Miller says, "If these loans are able to make the mortgage payments, and we only see foreclosures on the ones that have negative cash flow, then the effect will not be nearly as severe."

Miller says we may not recognize a lot of commercial real estate changes in our communities because eager buyers will pick up distressed properties at a bargain, and keep the office and retail businesses operating.

"Investors are being affected, but at the consumer level, with real estate, buildings don't disappear, and good buildings are still good buildings," he says.

Bottom line: Our analysts do not think the impending commercial real estate troubles will plunge the economy into another round of recession.

E-mail: jboal@ksl.com

Foreclosure heat still rising

Foreclosure heat still rising
Housing » U.S. rate up by smallest amount in four years, but Utah activity is up 90 percent.

Staff And News Services
Salt Lake Tribune

The pace of foreclosure-related filing nationally may finally be slowing down, but in Utah the rate continues to increase dramatically.

RealtyTrac Inc. said the number of U.S. households facing foreclosure in February grew 6 percent from the year-ago level, the smallest annual increase in four years. By comparison, foreclosure activity in Utah jumped 90 percent.

Nationally, more than 308,500 households, or one in every 418 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, the company reported. That was down 2.3 percent from January.

In Utah, where the real estate market began to slump two years later than most other parts of the country, 3,430 households, or one in every 275 homes, received a notice. Utah has the sixth-highest rate of filings in the report.

The filings include a range of actions, from default notices, in which homeowners are simply behind in their payments, to notices that a bank is taking possession of a home.

Hundreds of thousands of homeowners nationally are still being evaluated for help under loan-modification programs.

But many analysts say most of those borrowers will eventually lose their homes, sparking a new round of filings later this year.

"It's premature to declare victory just yet," said Rick Sharga, a RealtyTrac senior vice president.

Banks repossessed nearly 79,000 homes last month, down 10 percent from January but still up 6 percent from February 2009.

The RealtyTrac report follows an encouraging report last month from the Mortgage Bankers Association. It said the percentage of borrowers who had missed just one payment on their home loans fell to 3.6 percent in the October to December quarter, down from 3.8 percent in the third quarter.

Although that was a surprising piece of positive news, foreclosures were still at record high levels. The number of borrowers who have either missed a payment or are in foreclosure was at 15 percent.

A record 2.8 million households were threatened with foreclosure last year, Realty-Trac said, and the number is expected to rise to more than 3 million homes this year.

The foreclosure crisis forced the federal government and several states to come up with plans to prolong the process so delinquent borrowers can try to find help. But those efforts have barely dented the problem.

The Obama administration's $75 billion foreclosure prevention program has helped only 116,300 homeowners in the past year.

Foreclosed homes are typically sold at steep discounts, lowering the value of surrounding properties. Cities lose property tax dollars from homes that sit empty and lower property values.

Economic woes, such as unemployment or reduced income, are expected to be the main catalysts for foreclosures this year. Initially, lax lending standards were the culprit, but homeowners with good credit who took out conventional, fixed-rate loans are the fastest growing group of foreclosures.

Among states, Nevada posted the nation's highest rate of foreclosure-related filings, though they there were down 7 percent from January and down more than 30 percent from a year earlier. It was followed by Arizona, Florida, California and Michigan. Rounding out the top 10 were Utah, Idaho, Illinois, Georgia and Maryland.

The metro area with the highest foreclosure rate in February was Las Vegas. Though one in every 90 homes there received a foreclosure filing, filings were down 9 percent from a month earlier. Filings in the No. 2. metropolitan area, the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area in Florida, were up 31 percent from a month earlier.

Also topping the list of foreclosure hot spots were the California metro areas of Modesto, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario and Stockton.

Feds work to insure Centennial customers

Feds work to insure Centennial customers
Economy » Ogden-based bank held too many bad loans.

By Cathy McKitrick and Bob Mims
Salt Lake Tribune
Updated:03/06/2010 06:56:00 PM MST

Ogden » Centennial Bank's parking lot was full Saturday. Not with customers, but with employees and federal regulators working through the weekend to cut insurance checks to depositors in the wake of the bank's failure.

Those checks should be in the mail Monday, said Richard Schmalzer, regional ombudsman with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., who directed Saturday's operation.

Centennial was closed Friday afternoon by state regulators and handed over to FDIC officials. Schmalzer and other banking experts blamed the bank's demise primarily on bad loans made during a more-than-2-year-old slide in the real estate market.

"The bank incurred significant losses in ADC loans" -- acquisition, development and construction, Schmalzer said. "Centennial Bank was identified [by FDIC] as a problem bank for more than a year."

While most of the failed bank's accounts are insured, up to $1.8 million in deposits might not be, Schmalzer said. Those accounts would exceed the $250,000 limit guaranteed by the federal agency.

The bank, with branches in Ogden, Layton, Clinton, South Jordan and Orem, had about 3,000 depositors, a large number of them either brokered or Internet accounts, he said. The final total of uninsured deposits could be lower as regulators continue digging into the details of Centennial's accounts.

"We're in the process of fully identifying which accounts may be uninsured," Schmalzer said. "The ones we need more information on, we'll be in touch with those depositors.

"Our role is to wind down the affairs of the institution," he said. "This is not a functioning bank any more."

Centennial has about 70 employees.

Utah Department of Financial Institutions Commissioner Ed Leary, whose agency declared the bank insolvent Friday afternoon to pave the way for the FDIC's takeover, acknowledged Centennial's failure -- the second of a Utah community bank this year -- might not be the last in the foreseeable future.

"Given the state of our economy now, the banks' conditions [leading to failure] were not unexpected," he said Saturday. "It is evident to most of the world that we are in a bad economy. [These failures] are just more examples of that."

Centennial was one of nine community banks recently identified by the FDIC as having asset issues, primarily due to overdue and defaulted real estate development and construction loans. Barnes Bank of Kaysville went under in January. In all, four banks and one credit union in Utah have failed since January 2008.

In all those cases, the financial institutions had gambled on speculative real estate construction and land loans, records show.

With Centennial now in FDIC receivership, eight Utah banks remain in peril, according to FDIC data compiled by the American University School of Communications Investigative Reporting Workshop: First Utah, of Salt Lake City; Holladay Bank and Trust, Holladay; SunFirst, St. George; Village Bank, St. George; Gunnison Valley, Gunnison; Western Community, Orem; Capital Community, Provo; and Prime Alliance, Woods Cross.

Efforts to reach Larry Grant, a senior lending officer with Centennial's Ogden branch, were unsuccessful Saturday.

However, Grant recently told The Tribune that the bank's fortunes had begun to decline in September 2007 when the bottom fell out of the state's real estate market.

Nonetheless, Centennial's investors had taken hope in a turnaround when, in September, Vision Bankcard of Orem announced yet-to-be-finalized plans to take a controlling interest and bring in new capital.

Howard Headlee, president of the Utah Bankers Association, said he had hoped Centennial's fortunes could be salvaged.

"It's sad that it turned out this way," he said.

Headlee praised the FDIC system for working flawlessly through the recent recession and said depositors have no reason to panic.

"The Utah banking industry is working in a joint effort to help Centennial customers transition to other FDIC-insured institutions," Headlee said. "The next few days will be centered on helping them -- and evaluating what could have been done differently with Centennial."

Zions Bank has agreed to accept Centennial's direct deposits from the federal government, including Social Security and veterans' payments. Zions served a similar role when Barnes Bank of Kaysville closed in January.

Both Schmalzer and Headlee urged people to use the Electronic Deposit Insurance Estimator on the FDIC Web site at www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/index.html to determine if their accounts are structured to be well-protected.

Utah economy better than most, executives say

Utah economy better than most, executives say

By Jasen Lee
Deseret News
Wednesday, March 3, 2010

SALT LAKE CITY — Most Utah business leaders believe the state's economy is faring better than the rest of the nation, according to a report released this week.

The Zions Bank Utah Quarterly Economic Forecast indicated that during the fourth quarter of last year, 65 percent of panelists said Utah's economy is "somewhat better" and 8 percent believe it is "much better" than other states.

Results from the survey showed that 70 percent of executives could point to specific signs they have observed in their companies that show the economy is turning around.

"Momentum seems to be building in the business community," one panelist said. "We see increased interest in products that haven't been popular since the recession started."

Another panelist stated, "We are increasing capital expenditures, advertising and staffing."

Business leaders also report a relatively steady level of optimism about the financial futures of their companies. Using a 10-point scale (with 1 indicating "very pessimistic" and 10 "very optimistic"), the current quarter's mean score of 6.36 reflects a "slightly optimistic" viewpoint among executives, the report said.

The 40-page report was conducted by Salt Lake City-based independent research firm Dan Jones & Associates.
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In 2006, 1,169 business executives were recruited to form the study panel and to complete quarterly surveys. Subsequently, other business owners and high-level executives have been allowed to join the panel to share their confidential views on the economy.

"Although the majority of Utah business leaders feel the economy is stronger in Utah than in the rest of the nation, they do not concede that the current economic crisis is over for their company," Pat Jones, co-owner of Dan Jones & Associates, said in a news release. "But on the bright side, predictions for increases in work forces are at their highest level since the beginning of 2008."

The report said that throughout 2009 and specifically in the fourth quarter, 37 percent of Utah business leaders said their companies' economic health would be "better" in the upcoming quarter, compared to 21 percent who predicted it would be worse.

Additionally, for the first time since the second quarter of 2008, a higher percentage of Utah executives — 29 percent — anticipate their work forces will increase in the upcoming quarter, compared to 21 percent who believe their work forces will decline.

But the highest percentage of panelists — 49 percent —said the size of their work forces would stay the same.

A survey showed that 36 percent of executives indicate that if they need to make budget cuts in their companies, cutting low-level employees would be their first option, while 25 percent would reduce salaries first and 24 percent would slice employee benefits.

For the fifth consecutive quarter, employee health insurance costs were the top concern among Utah executives, followed by the impact of inflation on business expenses, salaries and wages, followed by gasoline prices.

e-mail: jlee@desnews.com

Utah's unemployment rate rose to 6.8 percent in January, but economists upbeat

Utah's unemployment rate rose to 6.8 percent in January, but economists upbeat

By Mike Gorrell
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated:03/02/2010 02:04:09 PM MST

Despite a slightly higher jobless rate in January (6.8 percent), state economists said monthly employment data released Tuesday reinforce perceptions of economic improvement.

"Signs that the worst of the economic downturn are behind Utah continue to emerge," said Mark Knold, chief economist for the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

The number of nonfarm wage and salaried jobs in Utah in January was down 2.9 percent from the same month a year earlier, he noted. That rate of contraction, which translates into 35,300 fewer jobs, was up a bit from December (2.8 percent). But it was still below year-to-year comparisons for the summer and fall of 2009. They were up to 4.5 percent.

Knold also cited continued evidence of new jobs being created. "The number of Utah job openings posted on various Internet Web sites have been rising for several months. In addition, new unemployment insurance claim activities are beginning to moderate noticeably," he added.

Still, the unemployment rate rose to 6.8 percent, up from December's revised figure of 6.6 percent (December earlier was listed at 6.7 percent).

At 6.8 percent, about 91,500 Utahns were considered unemployed in January compared to 77,600 a year earlier. The U.S. unemployment rate for January, announced two weeks ago, was down to 9.7 percent, from 10 percent in December.

Acknowledging that a higher unemployment rate seems to contradict perceptions that the worst is over, Knold said a rise in jobless numbers "is expected at this stage in an economic rebound.

"The worst of the employment slide seems to have found its bottom around August 2009, although the job market is still in more of a stabilizing than an expansion mode," he added. "At best a slight economic recovery is underway, and if so, historically, the unemployment rate continues to rise during this stage for an undetermined length of time."

Knold said the unemployment rate also tends to creep up during this phase of recovery because idled workers who previously had stopped looking for work, "begin to trickle back into the job search arena ... Until they find a job, they actually push up the unemployment rate."

All gauges point to modest growth

All gauges point to modest growth
Utah manufacturing improves but trails Wyoming, Colorado

By Brice Wallace
Deseret News, March 1, 2010

Utah's economic outlook continues to improve, according to a monthly business conditions gauge released Monday.

The Goss Institute for Economic Research's monthly business conditions index for the state rose to 55.8 in February from January's 52.7.

The index ranges from zero to 100, with a figure higher than 50 indicating an expansionary economy over the next three to six months. The index figure is derived from a survey of the state's supply managers.



Components of the overall index for February were new orders at 59.5, production or sales at 60.3, delivery lead time at 49.9, inventories at 59.2, and employment at 50.2.

Utah's overall index generally has been rising since last April. It is at its highest point since reaching 60.6 in October 2007.

"Manufacturing firms in the state have lost more than 11,000 jobs over the past year, or more than 7 percent of the state's manufacturing base," Ernie Goss, director of the institute and Creighton University Economic Forecasting Group, said in a prepared statement. "Based on surveys over the past several months, I expect slight manufacturing job gains and flat overall job growth for the state for the second quarter of 2010."
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The three-state Mountain States region saw its overall index rise for the fifth straight month. It climbed to 58.6 in February from January's "healthy" 55.6, Goss said.

"Readings over the past several months indicate that the regional economic rebound that is under way will pick up steam in the months ahead... . The likelihood of the regional economy dipping back into recessionary territory has diminished significantly according to our surveys of supply managers. While I expect the overall regional economy to expand in the months ahead, I continue to expect job growth to be subdued, especially for rural areas of the three-state region."

Colorado's index rose to 58.2 from January's 56.2. Wyoming's grew to 65.0 from January's 62.8.

The Goss institute uses the same methodology as the Institute for Supply Management uses for a national index. The nationwide figure was 56.5 in February, down from 58.4 in January.

Contributing: Associated Press

e-mail: bwallace@desnews.com

Utah's commercial real estate market still struggling

Utah's commercial real estate market still struggling
Jasen Lee, Deseret News
Published: Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010 2:01 p.m. MST

SALT LAKE CITY — The economic meltdown has hit Utah pretty hard, particularly in the real estate realm. And while the residential market is may be on the verge of a turnaround, the commercial market has yet to hit bottom, according to a local analysts.

Speaking to an audience of real estate professionals Tuesday at the Marriott City Center, Ron Schulthies, executive vice president and chief lending officer for the Bank of Utah, said the commercial sector continues to struggle.

"There are leaders and laggers in this economy, and commercial real estate is a lagger," he said.

Schulthies added that while the industry is still in an economic funk, the stage is set for a comeback, with lenders poised to support quality development projects.

"(Banks) have excess funds. … There is a lack of demand, and we would love to put money to work," he told the audience of about 50 industry insiders.

He said banks have a "tremendous incentive to make loans" because doing so would yield a much higher rate of return on investment than the institutions are currently getting with their funds essentially sitting idle.

Despite the hardships experienced in the commercial sector over the past couple of years, John Taylor, investment specialist with Commerce Real Estate Solutions, said the Wasatch Front "is doing better than most markets."

"We're stabilizing. The fundamentals (of our real estate) are still pretty good," he told the Deseret News.

Taylor said that since the downturn, prices in the commercial real estate market have dropped significantly, which has altered the landscape in a profound way.

"There was too much money chasing real estate," he said. "Now there is a lot of money chasing real estate … but it's smart money."

Potential investors "are not going to make dumb decisions," Taylor added. "They are going to make sure the property can pay back the debt and pay them the return that they need."

He said that for the foreseeable future, the local commercial market will continue to adjust and correct itself back to a point of lower, more reasonable prices and eventually equilibrium.

He said projects like the LDS Church-owned City Creek development and the recently completed 222 South Main office building will be positive influences on the long-term viability of the downtown business district and the local commercial real estate sector, especially compared to the outlook for hard-hit neighboring states like Nevada and Idaho.

"The fundamentals of (the economy) are much stronger here," Taylor said. "If we looked at a 15- or 20-year trend, we're doing really well right now."

e-mail: jlee@desnews.com
© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

Outlook improves for Utah small businesses

Outlook improves for Utah small businesses
Deseret News
Feb. 9, 2010

The outlook continues to improve for Utah's small businesses, according to a monthly gauge released Tuesday by Zions Bank.

The Zions Bank Small Business Index for Utah was 88.7 in January, up from a revised 82.5 in December.



While the experts believe that what's being called "the Great Recession" ended in the summer of 2009, after a nearly two-year run, unemployment continues to dog recovery. Normally, having low unemployment rates is considered a bad thing for the index, which looks at economic conditions through the eyes of small-business owner or managers. Higher unemployment rates usually mean businesses have a larger pool from which to pluck good employees.

Utah's unemployment rate, estimated at 6.7 percent last month, was a continued climb from the previous 6.3 percent rate of the month before, with 34,700 jobs lost over 12 months. A year earlier, unemployment was 4.1 percent. Nationally, more than 8 million jobs have been lost.

The high unemployment, coupled with weaker consumer spending, has created "business challenges" that negatively impact the index, according to Jeff Thredgold of Thredgold Economic Associations, which prepares the report. A rising jobless rate "also suggests weaker job gains or greater losses, lesser income growth and slower retail spending, all factors which lead the index lower," he wrote.

The index notes that unemployment rates "have likely peaked in many states" but said others may move slightly higher in coming months.

The good news is that the U.S. economy has seen some growth over the past six months, and that will eventually benefit the states, which are still suffering effects of recession, according to Thredgold.

The index uses 100 points for calendar year 1997 as its base year and is revised as new data becomes available.

e-mail: lois@desnews.com
© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

Think 2011 for commercial sector recovery

Think 2011 for commercial sector recovery
Economy » Retail rebound likely to precede that of multifamily, industrial real estate, conference speakers say.

By John Keahey
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated:02/09/2010 07:16:42 PM MST

The massive City Creek project might be on target for completion in 2012, but that's not soon enough to bounce the Salt Lake Valley's commercial real estate market out of the doldrums this year.

"I'm skipping 2010," Michael Morris told several hundred commercial real estate executives meeting in Salt Lake City Tuesday morning, emphasizing 2011 should be significantly better.

The Zions Bank executive vice president's comment got a laugh, albeit a nervous one, from those attending the 16th annual Utah Commercial Real Estate Symposium.

Morris told attendees that inventories of leasable space are expected to increase and pricing per square foot will continue "to get pushed down." But as the year progresses, he noted, some commercial sectors will start a slow rebound.

"Multifamily housing will get financed first" as banks start loosening up their lending, he said. And retail, which was the first sector to get slammed hard when the recession starting mounting in Utah in mid-2008, could also be among the first to rebound, he said. Next in line will be the industrial leasing sector.

Other speakers at the morning-long symposium echoed Morris' outlook.

Wesley Cornelison, a principal in CB Richard Ellis, thinks 2010 likely will bring "flat to slightly negative growth" in the office sector of commercial real estate. He expects "it will take several years to work out office space inefficiencies once job growth starts to rebound."

As for lease rates, landlords will "compete for fewer tenants ... and [rates] will experience downward pressure."

A bit of good news for commercial leasing companies -- though bad for construction firms -- is the reality that "speculative office construction is not expected in 2010," he said. That's because 559,771 square feet of newly constructed office space came online during the past year, led by completion of 222 Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City encompassing 426,671 square feet within 22 stories (no 13th floor).

Some of that space will be filled this year without the pressure of new projects, he said.

Vacancy rates throughout the valley are at 17.2 percent, a dramatic increase from 13.7 percent at the end of 2008 before the recession started to hit with a vengeance in Utah.

But it's going to take some time to get that bigger number down, Cornelison said, noting that companies would have to create more than 12,250 jobs in order for that figure to come down to 9 percent.

"We're all under water," he told his colleagues. "But there is no reason to panic. The surface is right above us."

Troy Hardy of Coldwell Banker Commercial took attendees down memory lane in his talk about the retail segment. He picked 2007 as "arguably the best year in the history of Utah retail ... lease rates climbed substantially and vacancy rates dropped to near negligible levels."

And major players, such as Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Costco and Starbucks, "continued aggressive expansion plans statewide."

Then, "a crack appeared" in 2007's fourth quarter.

"Since retail follows rooftops, it wasn't hard to see that 'the darling of Utah's commercial real estate market' would misstep with the residential meltdown of 2008," he said.

His prediction for 2010 is that evidence of a rebound "may be hidden from view during the first two quarters, [but] retailers will slowly come out of hiding and ultimately, as consumers spend, residential rebounds and unemployment stabilizes, the retail segment will again become the darling of commercial real estate."

jkeahey@sltrib.com

Economic tidbits

In his speech Tuesday at a commercial real estate symposium in Salt Lake City, Zions Bank's Michael Morris tossed out these bullet points in discussing the residential and commercial markets:

Mortgage debt nationwide totals $10.5 trillion.

Twenty-three percent of Americans owe more in mortgage debt than the value of their homes.

The mortgage delinquency rate in the U.S. is 8.1 percent.

By December 2009, 697,026 Americans modified their mortgages, saving an average of $550 a month in payments.

Commercial debt nationwide totals $3.5 trillion.

$1.4 trillion of that debt will mature in the next three years.

Banks hold a majority of commercial debt, $1.6 trillion.

Commercial property values nationwide are down 43 percent, to 2002 levels.

There have been 150 bank closures since the downturn began, with another 300 to 500 expected.

Utah business conditions slip slightly

Utah business conditions slip slightly

Deseret News
Published: Monday, Feb. 1, 2010 8:46 p.m. MST

Utah's business conditions slipped in January but remained above a level deemed to be in expansion mode, according to a monthly gauge released Monday.

The Business Conditions Index, compiled by the Goss Institute for Economic Research, was at 52.7 in January, down from December's 55.0.

The index ranges from zero to 100, with a figure over 50 indicating an expansionary economy over the next three to six months. Utah's index is based on a survey of purchasing managers.

Components of Utah's overall figure were new orders at 58.5, production or sales at 60.1, delivery lead time at 42.3, inventories at 57.2 and employment at 45.5.

"Manufacturing in Utah has not improved as significantly as in Colorado," Ernie Goss, director of the institute and the Creighton University Economic Forecasting Group, said in a prepared statement. "Expansions in new orders and production for the month failed to generate job gains for durable and non-durable producers. I do expect job gains in the months ahead, however."

Utah is part of a Mountain States region that saw its index move down to 55.6 in January from December's 59.1. It was 55.4 in November.

Colorado's index in January was 56.2 from December's 62.8. Wyoming's fell to 62.8 from December's 64.4.

The Goss institute uses the same methodology as a national index compiled by the Institute for Supply Management. That organization on Monday said its national index, which it considers a gauge of the manufacturing sector, read 58.4 in January, compared with 54.9 in December.

It was the sixth straight month of expansion and its highest level since 2004. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected a level of 55.5.

Manufacturing activity has become a pocket of strength in the economy, though some of it flows from temporary factors such as customers needing to add to depleted stockpiles of goods. New orders, a sign of future growth, jumped in January to its highest level since 2004. So did current production. Order backlogs grew, along with prices companies paid. Thirteen of 18 industries said they were expanding, led by the apparel, textile mills and machinery sectors.

China's manufacturing also expanded in January, and the outlook was positive despite government efforts to cool inflation by tightening control over bank lending, two surveys showed Monday.

U.S. manufacturers have been pumping up production to feed their customers' depleted stockpiles. The ISM said manufacturers' inventories contracted at a slower rate in January. Still, their customers' stockpiles fell to an all-time low.

As their customers try to restock their shelves, manufacturers need to ramp up production to match their demands. That could mean hiring more workers, which would help invigorate the economic rebound. ISM's employment measure grew last month.

"Production growth is finally beginning to tax existing work forces to the point where companies need to expand employment, and, critically, have enough confidence to do so," said Pierre Ellis of Decision Economics.

AK Steel Holding Corp. said in January that it had hired some new employees as production increased to about 85 percent of capacity, compared with 45 percent six months earlier.

Still, companies aren't hiring at a rate anywhere near enough to replace the more than 7 million jobs lost during the recession. The manufacturing sector has lost 2.1 million jobs.

"We're just not going to recapture those," said Wells Fargo chief economist John Silvia.

Companies that laid off workers in the past are being cautious about rehiring, even as their business improves.

Raj Batra, president of a unit of Siemens USA that helps update industrial corporations' equipment and software, said more of his customers are interested in modernizing their factories. Still, he doesn't plan to rehire laid-off employees.

"We still have ample capacity," Batra said. If necessary to meet demand, he said he plans to use contract workers but doesn't expect to add to full-time payrolls anytime soon.

e-mail: bwallace@desnews.com
© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

Utah employment losses continue

Utah employment losses continue
Jobs » But the rate shows the recession is slowing.

By Mike Gorrell, The Salt Lake Tribune
01/22/2010 08:13:53 AM MST

Utah's unemployment rate rose almost half of a percentage point in December to 6.7 percent -- the highest since it was 6.8 in March of 1987.

The number of Utahns considered unemployed rose to 91,200 from 86,200 in November.

At the same time, however, the state had only 34,700 fewer jobs last month than in December 2008. That's an improvement over the 38,800 jobs that had been lost in a year-to-year comparison between the Novembers of 2008 and 2009.

And Utah's unemployment rate remains far below the 10.0 percent national average.

How can these divergent numbers co-exist?

The analogy that comes to mind for Mark Knold, Utah Department of Workforce Services chief economist, is this:

"Say I'm a patient who is ill. I'm at a point where I'm lying in bed and wanting to die. The next day, I don't feel as bad, but I'm still sick," Knold said.

"That's where we are right now in this recession. Am I still sick? Yes. Am I recovering? Yes. You can say 'yes' to both at the same time."

Fourteen months after the financial collapse sent the national and state economies reeling, The upshot, is "the current employment picture is not repeating last year's free fall," Knold wrote in his monthly employment summary.

"Utah's economy remains weak, but indications are that, at worst, the economy has stabilized and found a bottom," he added. "At best, it is starting to expand and meekly add jobs again."

Pete Taylor, a vice president for the Sandy-based affiliate of Management Recruiters International, shares Knold's perspective.

"A year ago, companies were paralyzed," he said. "There's not that same feeling now. Some companies are moving forward, filling positions that have been on hold or they haven't felt the urgency to deal with. But there's a lot of caution."

Knold's report for December said the retail-sales industry was representative of the slightly improving situation. Employment during the peak of the Christmas sales period was up by 800 over the previous year.

That upturn prompted Tricked Out Accessories, which has 15 locations in Utah, to open three more next month in Hawaii, said Marc Patterson, a regional manager of the company that sells cell phone and iPod accessories from stores and mall kiosks.

"December was our biggest month ever as a company. And January is still looking to be really good," he said, noting that Tricked Out Accessories has grown to 50 employees. "If retail wasn't doing good, we wouldn't be able to open new stores and hire more people."

At the end of 2009, health care remained Utah's strongest industry, adding 6,200 new jobs to payrolls during the year. The construction industry was the year's big loser, dropping 12,200 positions or 14.9 percent of its work force from December of 2008.

The ski season's slow start resulted in the leisure and hospitality sector eclipsing manufacturing as the state's second hardest-hit industry. It lost 8,800 jobs in 2009, a 7.8 percent decline, while manufacturing companies pared 8,500 jobs, a 7.1 percent drop.

"Restaurants have lost the most jobs in this sector, yet there are also losses in the accommodation industry as well," Knold said.

But like the state economy as a whole, he saw improvements in this sector that were not reflected in the numbers.

"The psychology toward the ski season is better. Last year, the economy was just starting into its free fall and people froze up like ice cubes. People were very reticent about taking ski vacations," he said.

"But now, even though the economy is bad, that gloom-and-doom psychology isn't there," Knold added. "There just isn't as good of snow. So if we have a big dump, people might not have the hesitation about taking a ski trip."

mikeg@sltrib.com
---

New jobless claims

First-time claims for unemployment in Utah last week mirrored a surprising jump nationally that showed how scarce jobs remain in the road to economic recovery.

The Utah Department of Workforce Services reported Thursday that 4,284 new claims were filed in the week ending Saturday, down from 4,368 the previous week but still higher than any week since early February 2009. The four-week average of 3,690 new claims also was the highest since mid-March of last year.

Nationally, 482,000 new claims were submitted, up from 446,000 the previous week and the highest level since mid-November. The four-week average was 448,250, the U.S. Labor Department reported.

"The trend in the data is still discouraging," Diane Swonk, chief economist for Mesirow Financial, wrote in a note to clients. "Hopes for a positive employment number in January ... are rapidly dimming."

Source: The Associated Press contributed.

Utah jobless rate rises to 6.7%

Utah jobless rate rises to 6.7%
Deseret News
Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010 10:10 a.m. MST

Utah's unemployment rate and job losses continue to climb.

The unemployment rate in the state rose to 6.7 percent in December 2009, up 0.4 of a percentage point from November and comparing with a 4.1 percent rate a year earlier.

The U.S. unemployment rate remained at 10 percent in December.

The state figures, compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, were released Thursday by the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

About 91,200 Utahns were considered unemployed in December, compared with 57,300 a year earlier.

The department said nonfarm wage and salaried jobs in Utah shrank by 2.8 percent in 2009, with 34,700 jobs removed from the state economy during that period. Total Utah employment is about 1.21 million.

Construction has taken the biggest hit in job losses, down 12,200 from December 2008 and more than 36,000 from December 2007. Utah's construction employment has fallen to levels last seen in 2004, the department said.

On the plus side, health care added 6,200 jobs in 2009.

— Brice Wallace
© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

S. Utah's economy down but rebounding as 2010 unfolds

S. Utah's economy down but rebounding as 2010 unfolds

By Mark Havnes, The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 01/13/2010 08:46:02 PM MST

St. George » The St. George economy is a long way from where it was in the mid-'90s, when the city regularly topped the lists of premier places to live and work.

But the area is gradually rebounding, according to Lecia Parks Langston, a regional economist with the Department of Workforce Services for Utah. She spoke during a breakout session at the annual Washington County Economic Summit Wednesday in St. George.

"To use a quote from Mark Twain, the death of the economy has been greatly exaggerated," said Langston. "We are in a recovery phase."

Her remarks echoed those of Gov. Gary Herbert, who said he was optimistic about the future of southern Utah and the state, saying Utah has weathered the sour economy better than many others. He attributed that to a fiscally prudent Legislature and a healthy rainy-day fund.

Herbert said job creation through support of private enterprise, not government meddling, is key to a prosperous future. "We understand that by creating jobs everything else can be taken care of in any area."

Washington County was hit particularly hard by the recession. Its unemployment rate was close to 8 percent at the end of last year, compared with a state average closer to 6 percent. But tourism is up in the area, he said, especially at Zion National Park, where visitation rose 5.4 percent last year.

"There are pockets of success," said Herbert, restating
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priorities from his inaugural address -- growing the economy, education and energy development.

Langston said construction jobs took the biggest hit in Washington County, where 4,000 have been lost since the peak boom year of 2006. There was also a drastic decline in number of residential building permits issued, from a high in 2005 of 3,860 to just 560 from January through November 2009.

Washington County also experienced the highest rate of mortgage foreclosures in the state last year, 7.4 percent.

Earlier in the day, U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett told conference participants that although many economists are claiming the worst is over, the country has a ways to go. Unlike state and municipal governments, the federal government operates by different rules when it comes to balancing the budget.

Bennett said mandatory programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will be funded without question, consuming two-thirds of the nation's budget. What's left goes toward discretionary programs, including defense, the most expensive.

In a time when revenues are down, borrowing is the only way the government can function and fulfill all its obligations, he said.

He encouraged banks to start lending, especially to small businesses. "The economy runs on credit and confidence. All new wealth comes from risk-taking."

mhavnes@sltrib.com

Forecaster: Utah population spike over next 20 years will create demand for housing

Forecaster: Utah population spike over next 20 years will create demand for housing
Real estate » Realtors told that downturn might have bottomed out.

By John Keahey, The Salt Lake Tribune
Jan. 11, 2009

Chris Nelson is way out there when he lays out the future -- say 20 years out there.

And what the director of the University of Utah's Metropolitan Research Center forecasts for the state's housing market during the next two decades gave a Salt Lake City ballroom full of hundreds of Realtors a lot of hope Monday.

Though that is countered by some uncertainty in the year ahead, his bottom line was this: By 2030, the state will be the fastest growing in the nation, pulling in another 1.5 million residents on top of the 2.7 million already here, and 700,000 new jobs will be created.

"We are -- you are -- big time," he told the audience.

That means more houses need to be built, along with more commercial square footage. And he state, particularly the Wasatch Front, is behind in what is needed.

"This pent-up demand, combined with growth, needs to be dealt with," he told the Realtors during their annual Housing Forecast breakfast at Little America Hotel.

While Nelson had the podium and was describing a world still two decades away, those in the audience also were perusing a handout from James Wood, director of the University of Utah's Bureau of Economic and Business Research. Wood dealt with more immediate issues.

He predicted that Salt Lake County can expect a 3 percent growth in home sales during 2010, or 9,100 units. But there are some big caveats tied to lending.

"Could this slight up-tick signal that 2008 was the bottom of the downturn and the rebound is under way?" he asked in the report. Then he answered his own question. If so, "the contraction was short-lived, only two years but vicious in its magnitude."

As far as housing prices are concerned, they will continue to fall another 3 percent to 5 percent this year, bringing the overall price decline in Salt Lake County during the past two years to 15 percent. But there is a bright spot. Prices should be "stable to slightly improving" in 2011.

For Realtor Lavar Campbell, the prognostications were all good news.

"You don't usually see a lot of that optimism elsewhere," he said. "It's nice to see that things are looking up."

Realtor Colleen Howcroft said the forecasts "gave us a lot of hope. It looks like we're going to build back up this year, and 2011 will be better."

The big question real estate agent Ben Goodwin had after the session was, "Are banks going to be willing to lend," given tighter restrictions now in place?

That question also occurred to the U.'s Nelson.

"The demand will be there. Will the banks be there to help?" he said in an interview following his talk.

Nelson's numbers are staggering. If you push his time frame another 10 years, to 2040, he predicts the entire United States will need to add 287 billion square feet of residential and commercial real estate between now and then. Dropping back to a 2030 scenario, he estimates that along the Wasatch Range -- from Logan to Provo -- 450,000 units will need to be built, a 50 percent increase over what is available today.

And for commercial space, 1.1 billion square feet will have to be added. That's 120 percent more than the 750 million square feet that exist now.

He asked his breakfast audience, where the additional square feet will go in a region that already is filling up. It will have to come in multi-family housing and involve a new way of looking at creating neighborhoods.

Not only that, he pointed to demographics that show that Utah's non-Anglo population in Ogden, Salt Lake City and Provo will grow by 600,000 by 2030.

Because a lower percentage of this demographic is comprised of home buyers, he said, "more than half of all new houses built will have to be in rental mode."

jkeahey@sltrib.com


By the numbers A growing demand

Utah's housing industry will grow with heightened demand from a growing population, according to a University of Utah forecast. Some forecasted numbers:

3.6 - million people along the Wasatch Front by 2030.

1.35 - million housing units needed by 2030.

42 - percent rate of growth in next 20 years in Salt Lake City.

3rd - National rank of Wasatch Front's growth rate among metropolitan areas.

Adding another 1.1 million people over the next 20 years along the Wasatch Front will mean an additional 450,000 new or rebuilt housing units.

The worst is over for Utah, national economies

The worst is over for Utah, national economies

By Mike Gorrell
Salt Lake Tribune
01/07/2010 02:48:45 PM MST


Using different words, national and state economists offered the same message Thursday in delivering the 2010 Economic Report to the Governor.

"A theme of emerging recovery" is how Juliette Tennert, chief economist in the Governor's Office of Planning Budget, characterized conditions in Utah.

Nationally, "the worst is over. We've hit bottom," echoed David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's, a 150-year-old financial-services company whose stock, bond and credit ratings are watched closely by the business community.

"We're at the stage of the cycle where things are not getting worse," he added, cautioning that there will be a slow recovery from "a terrible recession that could have been a lot worse. ... But half a recovery is better than none. You take what you can get."

Their comments were made to Gov. Gary Herbert and about 350 business people at the downtown Salt Lake City Marriott during a breakfast meeting organized by the Salt Lake Chamber and the Wasatch Front Economic Forum.

Heading into his first budget session with the Legislature, the new governor said his top priority is to protect the jobs that Utahns already have and to create opportunities for existing businesses to grow and for outside companies to come in.

He said Utah is better positioned than most states to accomplish those goals, but he acknowledges: "I don't want to minimize that people are hurting out there." Herbert also vowed to the business people that "we'll do all we can to keep government off your back and out of your wallets."

Tennert's outlook projected that Utah's unemployment rate will increase this year to 6.8 percent (it was 6.2 percent in November). But that negative increase will be moderated by increases in average pay, a slowdown in the decline of home prices and a return to positive growth in retail sales (2.2 percent) from 2009's discouraging 8.3 percent drop.

While state revenues will have declined by $1 billion from 2008 to 2010, Tennert said the downward slides of income and sales taxes are both decelerating.

mikeg@sltrib.com

Economic growth in Utah is still holding steady, report shows

Economic growth in Utah is still holding steady, report shows

By Jasen Lee
Deseret News
Published: Monday, Jan. 4, 2010 8:40 p.m. MST

The Utah economy held steady for the second consecutive month, a newly released report shows.

Utah's Business Conditions Index, compiled by the Goss Institute for Economic Research and based on a survey of supply managers, stood at 55.0 in December — identical to the November index, the institute said Monday.

The latest figure matched the highest for the index since 60.6 in October 2007.

The index ranges from zero to 100, with a figure above 50 indicating an expanding economy over the next three to six months. The institute uses the same methodology that is used in a national survey conducted by the Institute for Supply Management.

Components of Utah's overall index for December were new orders at 64.5, production or sales at 61.1, delivery lead time at 34.7, inventories at 64.5 and employment at 50.3.

"Over the past decade, Utah lost almost 15,000 (jobs) or 11.6 percent of its manufacturing employment," Ernie Goss, director of the institute and Creighton University's Economic Forecasting Group, said in a prepared statement. "Most losses were due to productivity growth of more than 50 percent over the decade."

Utah is one of three states in the report's Mountain States business conditions index. The region's overall index in December rose to 59.1 from November's 55.4.

The index indicates improving economic conditions in the months ahead for the three-state region of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, the report stated.

Among the measures of economic confidence in the region, the report said supply managers added to their inventories for the month with the December inventory index climbing to 66.1 from 52.7 in November.

"After 13 straight months of trimming inventories, supply managers have reported increases for two straight months," Goss said. "In the December survey, over 81 percent of supply managers indicated that their inventories levels were now about right."

Colorado's December index fell to 62.8 from 70.3 during the previous month, while the Wyoming index was 64.4, up from 53.7 in November.

e-mail: jlee@desnews.com

Unemployment rate in Utah dipped a bit in November

Unemployment rate in Utah dipped a bit in November
Deseret News
Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009 10:07 p.m. MST

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's unemployment rate improved slightly in November, although its nonfarm wage and salaried job count continued to decline, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and the Utah Department of Workforce Services. But a state economist warned that unemployment is not finished climbing.

It probably won't rise drastically, but Mark Knold, chief economist for the department, doesn't expect unemployment rates to peak for about six months.

The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 6.3 percent in November, down from October's 6.5 percent. Knold said that number was probably an outlier, so the return in November to 6.3 percent was more in line with the slight monthly increases. "If you do enough surveying, every now and then you get a hiccup or an outlier," he said.

Last November, Utah had an unemployment rate of 3.8 percent, which was a 2.5 percentage-point increase over November 2007. The state says that about 86,200 Utahns were considered unemployed last month, compared with 52,600 in November 2008.

The national unemployment rate fell two-tenths of a percent to 10 percent in November.

Unemployment is a "lagging" indicator, meaning one of the last to change between a recession and recovery, Knold said. And many things can drive up unemployment numbers, because counts involve those who are actively searching for work. Numbers can fall when people have given up and temporarily dropped out of the search. People returning to college — and they're doing that now in droves, he said — can improve the numbers because they are no longer counted among those looking and not finding work. Even optimism can drive up unemployment, because it sometimes moves people back into the job market.

The nonfarm and salaried job count for November 2009 shrunk by 3.1 percent, which was an improvement over October. An estimated 38,800 jobs have been removed from the state's economy over the past 12 months. Total wage and salary employment is now 1.21 million.

Those slowing job losses are the "theme" in Utah's unemployment picture, Knold said. Utah apparently hit its low point in this recession in August in terms of job loss.

According to Workforce Services, the sector that fared best for job growth was health care. Government employment has expanded, too. Construction showed the biggest job loss, down 11,900, but manufacturing wasn't far behind with 10,700 fewer jobs. In that broad category, though, four areas of nondurable goods made gains: food, beverages, apparel and petroleum products. Together, the four make up 16 percent of Utah's manufacturing base.

e-mail: lois@desnews.com. TWITTER: loisco
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