Vegas is getting Hot but those Appraisers

No, I don't mean weatherwise. That's around the corner. I mean the Media is saying it's a cold market to be in and that's not true. It's been a long time since I have had four properties in escrow as I do now and my wife has 18 properties in escrow as well. (You know who the boss is in my house.) It is true that the properties are being sold at 40 to 50 percent of the original sales price but sales are on fire. Naturally Short Sales rule right now. When searching for properties there might be 800 listed but take out the short sales and it goes down to 150. Then  take out over 1300 sq ft and single story and it goes down to 12 to choose from. All that means is that as Realtors we have to go back to working hard to get ahead of the rest of the pack. I had a property two weeks ago that was first day on the market and had three cash offers over list. Fortunately I for once gave my Buyer''s the right advice and we won the race. That's an indication how Hot it is in Vegas. 47 to 50% of homes are being bought with cash. FHA forget it. You almost have no shot at all. As far as listing a property at the right price it's another challenge. We listed one for $109,000 in a neighborhood where there was a home that was in ultra bad condition listed for $85,000 and my owner had recently invested 14K to bring the home up to pristine condition and the appraisal came in at 85K. Did the Appraiser use the MLS for his opinion ??? Another very creative Appraiser does the job of killing a deal. We listed one we sold for 800K three years ago for 400K and hope the appraisal comes in on that one.. We all know that appraisals are making it difficult to finalize a lot of deals. I emailed an Appraiser that writes for a Realtor magazine and asked him how they can justify appraising a pristine home that an owner has had pride of ownership in for years and has his home on the market priced at 350K and compare it to a home in the same subdivision that was totally trashed out that sold for 260K that needed 60K worth of rehab. I also asked him why we don't have two types of appraisals, one for normal properties and one for distressed properties. He told me they were working on it. What that means to me is that we as Realtors have to keep working on it twice as hard as well. It's not that we haven't heard any of this before in our own communities except for the fact that Vegas is hotter than those outside of Vegas think. Just a Rant about the same old stuff. Primarily,I wanted everyone to know the real story about our town.