Mortgage industry about to attract fresh capital - 08/30/08 10:26 PM
Investors are returning to the residential real estate market and that is a sign of a turnaround in the making. It may not happen tomorrow, but it's coming. There are all sorts of investors who desire to take advantage of the slumping market. In Las Vegas, for instance, they are looking around for single-family houses, condominiums and townhomes to buy and are finding bargains up and down the valley. Some might purchase just one or two of them while others go for a block of attractively-priced property.
These investors certainly are helping in reducing the glut of homes currently available for … (6 comments)

FHA boosting mortgage insurance premiums - 08/28/08 06:53 PM
FHA has made a remarkable comeback in the last several months. Many of the creative home loan products that fueled the recent boom, especially those under the banners subprime and Alt-A, are rapidly being swept into the dustbin. FHA has stepped into the vacuum, offering low down payment options to borrowers who are itching to buy a property while prices are still as attractive as they are. FHA's market share in 2006 was about 2%, rather trivial number, and now it's around 23% and is expected to climb to 30% by the year's end, according to Inside Mortgage Finance.
But FHA … (10 comments)

Las Vegas developer earns Builder of the Year honors - 08/26/08 10:10 PM
The green housing movement appears to be making further gains as the consumer is becoming increasingly aware of how valuable its contributions are to the reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas generation. Concordia Homes, a Southern Nevada developer for years, was recently recognized by Las Vegas Business Press as the Developer of the Year in the green building category.Concordia has for a long time produced homes using Energy Star guidelines, but then it reached a point where it felt it needed to do better than that. Energy-savvy home buyers were looking for more and it wanted to respond, so when it … (4 comments)

Real estate appraisers continue to feel the heat - 08/23/08 11:07 PM
Very little appears to have changed with appraisers over the last several months when it comes to the value they establish on a home that's up for sale or refinance. Many of them feel pressured by someone involved in the transaction to come up with the right price, or hit the number, usually meaning it should be inflated to satisfy their needs, says the Appraisal Institute. It could be a mortgage originator doing it, a real estate agent or even the nice lady whose flower beds are immaculate. Or another source. Anyone who could benefit from a higher valuation.
Inflated appraisals … (16 comments)

Southern Nevada resales stellar, new home sales lacking - 08/21/08 10:14 PM
The Las Vegas real estate market has turned into a rather disjointed spectacle. As the July stats show, compiled by local housing specialist SalesTraq, existing home sales continued on its recent accelerating pace by recording 3,173 closed transactions in July, which is a nice 56.5% jump from July of last year. What's important to keep in mind, however, is that around 60% of these sales were foreclosure-related. Banks have been pricing their REOs, real estate owned, with passion just to get rid of the non-performing inventory and that is one large reason why resales are doing so well now.
On the other … (4 comments)

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the ropes - 08/19/08 10:56 PM
The two mortgage heavyweights have been the backbone of U.S. housing finance scene for decades and have provided the intended liquidity to the market. This in turn allowed more people to buy a home to live in, the ultimate goal of the system. Then in the early 2000's the real estate market grew hot, piping-hot in select states like California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, and as history suggests all out-of-control booms come to a crashing halt sooner or later. Like now. To fuel the boom, mortgage lenders, large and small, jumped head first on the housing bandwagon to make enormous amounts … (13 comments)

Foreign real estate buyers more prudent now - 08/16/08 09:37 PM
Now is a good time to buy residential real estate in the U.S. as prices are softening nicely in many regions and there is plenty of inventory to choose from. Mortgage money still remains affordable, although several loan products have been tossed and underwriting guidelines have become tougher. This development has been also noticed abroad and those aspiring to own property here have made a serious move to get something.
According to a NAR, or National Association of Realtors, study in which it surveyed 4,000 agents 26% of them had a minimum of one foreign customer and roughly a half of … (8 comments)

Las Vegas land prices soften up, except on resort corridor - 08/15/08 06:43 PM
The way the residential real estate market today is going in Southern Nevada it's no surprise that raw land values here are heading south. Demand for land is way down as the housing sector struggles with a large inventory of new and resale homes. Even if a builder wanted to purchase acreage for a project, getting financing now would be a challenge in this lending environment. The slowing economy doesn't help much either. 
In the second quarter median vacant land price stood at $570,279 per acre which turns out to be $148,232 less than at the same time last year, or a … (10 comments)

Southern Nevada luxury market under pressure now - 08/12/08 09:45 PM
All along it has looked as if the general real estate slowdown here in the Las Vegas valley would leave the high-end segment largely unmarked. Mortgage lenders felt confident for a long time about the viability of the luxury market and kept underwriting loans here for those who needed them. Many, of course, were able to close a purchase by bringing in a sack of cash and that was it.
The outlook has changed, though, quite a bit in the last year or so. The segment has slowed down considerably and is now going through the same type of adjustment that … (4 comments)

Fannie Mae makes news with Alt-A adjustments - 08/09/08 08:38 PM
Fannie Mae, the giant player in the secondary mortgage market where it buys loans and either keeps them in its own books or packages them for resale, just announced a hefty second quarter loss of $2.3 billion. A loss was expected but this was much more than what experts had anticipated. Anyway, that's one thing. The other is that this will result in some painful adjustments to its lending practices toward Alt-A loans.
Alt-A mortgage falls in between the prime and subprime products and is normally applied for by borrowers with a nice credit background but can't or won't disclose income … (18 comments)

Las Vegas existing home sales continue to improve in July - 08/08/08 07:03 PM
For avid real estate market observers in Southern Nevada the recent news from GLVAR, or Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, were for the most part positive. In the July statistics it just published two out of the three more important categories the figures are kind of easy on the eye. The numbers are derived from the MLS, or Multiple Listing Service, which usually leaves out new homes sold by local builders.
The category that easily garners the most attention nowadays is the single-family house resales. In July 2,592 of them were closed, a nice jump from June's 2,226 which turns … (6 comments)

CityCenter condos could play a key role - 08/07/08 06:34 PM
Just a few days ago MGM Mirage reported that it is about to wrap up financing for its huge CityCenter project on the Strip. The total cost of the development is tagged at $9.2 billion and it still needs about $3 billion to cover the rest of the construction. According to the company it could have secured the funds earlier but balked at the supposedly unfavorable terms.
The commercial finance market is getting tighter by the day, going the way the residential mortgage market already is. If the banks are willing to lend commercially in Las Vegas, their terms will reflect … (6 comments)

Las Vegas second home buying could be affected by new housing bill - 08/03/08 12:48 AM
The mammoth recent housing bill has gazillion provisions in it, covered in detail on about 600 plus pages of fine print. There is the potential mortgage refinance assistance for those in payment distress, there is the tax credit for first-time homebuyers who qualify and so on. Lots of material that when all of it is implemented and working in the months ahead it is expected to provide a helping layer of stability to the still wobbly mortgage and real estate markets.
One of the new stipulations touches on vacation properties and it can have an unknown effect on Las Vegas where … (10 comments)

Freddie Mac ups incentives to stem foreclosures - 08/01/08 12:07 AM
Freddie Mac, the government-backed entity that buys mortgages on the secondary market to provide liquidity, is getting more aggressive in trying to slow down the foreclosure train on loans it owns. Evidently it feels it has to do more than what it has done thus far in order to minimize the damage. Its new initiative is to better reward workouts by mortgage servicers.
When a home loan servicer completes a repayment plan with a distressed borrower Freddie Mac will compensate it $500, up from the previous $250. And loan modification payment goes up from the current $400 to $800. Compensation increases … (12 comments)