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builder: Excess supply an uninvited drag on housing recovery for years - 09/04/10 09:17 PM
The prevailing housing mess was for the most part caused by too many homes chasing too few buyers. That's a classic case - Economy 101 stuff on college campuses - of real estate supply and demand going their separate ways. A not just a tad, but by a mile, to put it mildly. Of course, easy mortgage money egged on the housing market to ever further heights that ultimately began defying gravity. Even that precarious stage lasted longer, despite a host of red flags being hoisted, than many real estate observers foresaw.
Moody's Investor Service recently reported that at the end … (13 comments)

builder: Private transfer fees experience the ire of FHFA - 08/23/10 10:25 PM
It looks like the Federal Housing Finance Agency - or FHFA - is getting ready to introduce new regulations later this year that would prevent Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks - FHLBanks - from investing in mortgage loans tagged with these now notorious private transfer fees. This would then effectively bring major government-controlled home loan players in agreement about them, because FHA already is, according to HUD's regulations, banned from insuring mortgages on homes with private transfer fees. They are considered "legal restrictions on conveyance" in FHA talk.
These private transfer fees are brought to life … (16 comments)

builder: Fannie Mae gets tough on appraisal changes made by mortgage lenders - 07/11/10 12:18 PM
The real estate market meltdown has exposed many painful and game-changing weaknesses in how business was conducted in the years past. In the quest to make as much money as possible scores of mortgage files were pushed through with incomplete or doctored information. Now, with foreclosures the topic of the day, mortgage lenders are receiving growing demands from investors like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy back loans they originated haphazardly. That can be devastating to the bottom line.
To deal with the costly buyback menace many mortgage shops have commenced tinkering with appraisals, of all things. As an appraisal … (6 comments)

builder: Las Vegas real estate may not be as affordable today as it seems - 04/20/10 08:58 PM
The housing market bust in Southern Nevada - home to communities like Summerlin, Silverstone Ranch, Henderson, Mountains Edge, North Las Vegas and Rhodes Ranch - has taken down with it homeowners, mortgage lenders, real estate agents and builders, and a host of others closely tied to the industry. It has been as brutal a segment collapse as any in history. One of the most plundered victims has been the price. Homes in some of the newer subdivisions have lost as much as 60% of their value in just a few years.
To scores of once-happy and optimistic homeowners the word underwater … (4 comments)

builder: Las Vegas new homes sell a little better in May - 06/25/09 07:32 PM
Changes for the better are hard to come by for home builders in Southern Nevada, as marketing their product continues to face an uphill battle. In the meantime the resale home sector is getting a lot of attention from buyers and real estate investors thanks to the low price structure there, that being the main reason for the yawning disparity. Both are struggling equally with tight mortgage guidelines, scarce down payment accounts and the adverse effects of the high unemployment here.The May housing report, fashioned by Home Builders Research, does offer some hope for new homes, namely in the number of … (2 comments)

builder: Las Vegas new home sales anemic in March - 04/23/09 05:12 PM
It sure isn't pretty. Southern Nevada home builders have a hard time finding buyers for their product, even with aggressive incentives like discounted mortgage rates and upgrade packages. It obviously is disheartening for them to watch the resale segment, specifically the lower end of it, crank out contract after contract into escrow.Home Builders Research, a Las Vegas valley industry observer, says that there were 491 new home sales in March, which adds up to 1,132 for the year's first quarter. That is a 61% drop from last year. So, the bleeding continues and the end to that appears to be way out there.
Namely because … (2 comments)

builder: Southern Nevada new home sales nosedive - 02/20/09 03:33 PM
This is an all-time low for any month. Only 284 new houses were closed in January in Las Vegas, as was reported by Home Builders Research. That adds up to an annual total of 3,408 for 2009, assuming the market continues at the same pace to the end of the year. When this figure is compared with the almost 40,000 homes sold at the market's peak in 2005, the difference is dramatic. It simply and coldly points out how far out of control it got on the upside thanks to rampant speculation, easy mortgage money and unrealistic expectations.
Yet, there is … (6 comments)

builder: Southern Nevada new home sales crawl along in October - 11/20/08 09:42 PM
Las Vegas home builders are finding it rather hard to attract buyers to their product lines. This has been going on for months while the resale segment has been heading in the opposite direction, chalking up decent gains.
In October there were 842 new home closings, a small drop from September, but still the sixth consecutive month when the number is below 1,000, as was reported by Home Builders Research. This represents a considerable decline from the same time last year when 1,324 homes were sold. Through October 2008 the figures are 46% behind last year's, a disturbing fact.
Price disparity … (2 comments)

builder: Las Vegas housing experts discuss their wobbly marketplace - 10/25/08 07:42 PM
Every quarter Southern Nevada real estate insiders meet up to talk about pressing issues in the industry and as is well-known now there are a lot of them to get into. It's aptly called the Crystal Ball housing outlook. Couple of items in the last meeting stand out for further comment and deliberation.
One of them is new home construction. The market boom in Las Vegas was at its hottest roughly from 2004 to 2006. Right in the middle of that, or 2005, local builders produced 38,000 new homes when consumer demand then justified only 25,000, reports SalesTraq, a real estate … (8 comments)

builder: Southern Nevada new home sales still slow - 10/18/08 09:19 PM
The good news in Las Vegas real estate come from the resale segment where sales have been improving gradually all year. It's the new homes that are continuously finding it hard to attract buyers. The latest statistics for them aren't pretty.
For September, new home closings reached only 976 units which in turn add up to 8,292 for the year-to-date tally and that is a steep 46.7% drop from last year, reports Home Builders Research. Another way to look at the decline is to compare the third quarter sales of 2,545 to the all-time top performer that was the fourth quarter … (4 comments)

builder: Las Vegas benefits from Nevada Energy Star Partners' efforts - 09/20/08 10:45 PM
Energy Star is a program put together by EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, to promote the use of energy-efficient products practically everywhere, from homes to work places and everything in between. It covers a lot of territory. Energy Star designation requirements have evolved over the years as technology has advanced. In the housing industry today, its specifications for instance entail the setup of high-efficiency A/C systems that are sized correctly, the installation of windows that at least meet, preferably go above, current Energy Star standards and the use of energy-efficient appliances and lighting fixtures.
Nevada Energy Star Partners is the driving force of … (0 comments)

builder: 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 … (12 comments)

builder: Las Vegas new home sales now follow a more stable pattern - 07/19/08 09:55 PM
Since last summer new home sales have been gradually declining in the valley and evidently reached the bottom of the cycle around January of this year. Since then the numbers have been pretty even, but by no means something to write home about. Yet, in the absence of losing any more ground for several months the market is obviously trying to turn this thing around and get going again.
According to Home Builders Research, a Southern Nevada industry expert, a low total of 777 spanking-new single-family houses were closed in June and when that is compared to the record 3,233 sold in … (6 comments)

builder: Coyote Springs put on hold for now - 05/11/08 10:15 PM
 Development in metropolitan Las Vegas is pushing in all directions, along the cactus-dotted desert floor and up and over craggy foothills and mountains surrounding it. When about 5,000 to 6,000 people move here every month there has to be housing and services for them, but as developable and reasonably-priced land is becoming increasingly scarce, the city is understandably forced to spread further out.
 A few years ago another master-planned community was announced straight up north about 60 miles from town, way out in the high desert, named Coyote Springs. It's a 40,000 acre spread that'll hold 159,000 homes one day and … (0 comments)

builder: Las Vegas real estate prices turn more affordable - 04/26/08 08:07 PM
The current crunch that descended on the Southern Nevada housing market is slowly working on what it is designed to do. It was invited to the valley by stark economic realities that had learned the bazaar had grown overheated and was actually about to spiral out of control. Home prices were zooming, builders were putting up way more houses than was needed and the mortgage money was cheap and accessible to just about anybody.
The crunch watched the frantic housing activity for a stretch and then saw it best to intervene, swooping in to save the day. And its actions are finally … (4 comments)

builder: Mortgage foreclosures more common in outlying Las Vegas suburbs - 04/17/08 08:52 PM
Very little has changed in the last few months. Nevada still ranks as number 1 in the country in mortgage foreclosure filings with 18,087 for the first quarter of this year, according to California firm foreclosures.com. The state just can't seem to shake that undesirable position. Clark County has nearly 16,000 of that total which in turn aims the red spotlight right on Las Vegas.The noteworthy aspect here is that the large majority of the foreclosures are in the outlying suburbs. In the new home subdivisions where builders large and small kept putting up house after house during the recent exceptional … (2 comments)

builder: Hoover Dam bridge construction at full speed again - 03/06/08 12:25 AM
One day back in September of 2006 was rather unkind to the new Hoover Dam bridge project. Winds that faithful day were robust, to the tune of 55 miles per hour, and managed to knock down a vital cableway structure used to ferry building materials over the rocky Black Canyon construction site. Without it much of the work had to be temporarily suspended.
The mishap has delayed the opening of the Mike O'Callahan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge from late 2008 to the fall of 2010. It'll provide much relief to the current situation where traffic on U.S. Highway 93 has to slow down … (2 comments)

builder: Cosmopolitan condos back in business - 03/02/08 12:34 PM
A few weeks ago Cosmopolitan was walking on thin ice after the development's lender Deutsche Bank served it a notice of default. Despite the currently low mortgage rates the condominium segment in Las Vegas is slogging through an over-built and soft market. Cosmopolitan fell victim to these trying circumstances, as have so many other similar projects.
Since receiving the dreaded default notice the developer went to work in a bid to save the $3 billion undertaking on the Strip. And apparently his efforts paid off. Global Hyatt Corp., already a small stakeholder, and Marathon Asset Management have decided to join the project … (6 comments)

builder: Las Vegas home builders going green - 01/23/08 11:33 PM
 
Southern Nevada Home Builders Association, or SNHBA, is becoming very active in embracing the green housing concept. It has combined efforts with the Green Building Initiative to draw up guidelines for the Southern Nevada Green Building Partnership, an entity that sets standards for water management, energy use and the employment of recycled and renewable construction materials in the valley. It issues certificates to builders who participate in the program, assuring home buyers that certain criteria have been met.
Thus far five local builders have signed up and they are Pinnacle Homes, Pulte Homes, R/S Development, Signature Custom Homes and Signature Homes. … (16 comments)

builder: Nevada heads national population growth rate - 12/28/07 10:32 PM
Nevada has been in the news a lot lately for problematic reasons related to the mortgage industry and residential real estate issues. But after a long drought it again has something to cheer about. It once more is the fastest-growing state in the union, after being edged out last year by Arizona. The official growth rate is 2.9% for the calendar year closing out July 1, bringing its total population to over 2.56 million, as was reported by the Census Bureau.
The trend is expected to follow the same path in the coming years. Clark County, home to Las Vegas, holds well … (4 comments)