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HIGH POINT — The hotels are booked, cars rented and cigars fully stocked in all the local shops. When the High Point Market opens Monday, the city will be ready.

But how much furniture will have sold when the market ends on Sunday is anybody's guess. A housing crisis, credit crunch and weak dollar have made it a gloomy year for the furniture industry so far — and analysts predict it will get worse before it gets better.

It's too soon to tell for sure, but High Point Market Authority President Brian Casey said he still expects attendance at the spring market to be good.

"The economy is definitely on everyone's mind," Casey said. "But based on what we've seen so far, our attendance is actually tracking somewhat ahead of last April, so we are feeling positive."

It may sound strange, but Casey said the economic downturn could actually boost market attendance.

"Sometimes when there are challenges like we're facing now, people find these markets a good resource for finding ways to face it," Casey said. "We're still seeing strong attendance among the big-box retailers, and the design community is playing a larger role in the market than they have in the past."

No matter how many people attend, analysts said everyone will have one thing on their minds: Will the economy continue to get worse, and when will we see the bottom?

"We won't see the bottom this year," said Stefan Wille of Canada's AKTRIN Furniture Information Center. "That's bad news for the furniture industry, in all sectors."

Wille said that in a credit crunch, furniture retailers really feel the squeeze.

"Furniture is something that is more and more heavily financed," Wille said. "To a certain extent the furniture industry has to blame themselves. All these years of advertising with no down payment, no interest, don't pay anything for three years. This is something that stimulated this culture of buying everything on credit."

On the manufacturing front, Wille said the American furniture industry has been hurt on a number of levels. The weak dollar has made imports expensive and the industry is facing increased competition from Asia — from China and Vietnam to relatively new suppliers like India and Bangladesh.

Wille said he believes there will be a rebound next year — probably a strong one. But that won't help buyers at this week's market.

"The people buying at the spring market are buying for the second half of the year," said Jerry Epperson of Virginia's Mann, Armistead & Epperson Ltd. "And 57 percent of our furniture is sold in the second half of the year. We need a better second half."

Epperson said he believes that could happen if housing prices stabilize by summer, the government's economic stimulus checks get pumped back into the economy and the credit situation loosens up. Still, he said, not everyone in the business will make it.

"We've lost a lot of retailers already," Epperson said. "We'll probably lose more. In the near-term people are looking at that with distress, but these are the weakest retailers. The ones who survive will be the strongest ones and the ones who are in the best shape to be there when the business comes back."

Epperson said this year's market likely will be full of people trying to navigate these rough waters — people with a lot on their minds.

"Everybody really has a battle mentality right now," he said. "We're just looking forward to the end of this."

Casey said a strong battle mentality is important.

"I think what is underlying the success of this market is the attitude of the people," he said. "That's what really underlies the success of the economy as a whole, too. The better the attitude of the people, the better chance we have of getting out of this rut we're in sooner than later."

Contact Joe Killian at 883-4422, Ext. 228, or joe.killian@news-record.com