las vegas: Las Vegas short sales can sting homeowners later on - 10/15/09 09:02 AM
Mortgage banks have been pushed between the rock and the hard place in today's reeling real estate market. They are trying to make the right moves to keep their bleeding books from totally blowing up during this perfect storm as more and more home loans go bad. To deal with that, they generally look at three basic options; a mortgage loan modification, a short sale or then the foreclosure, the infamous word that has been in the media a lot lately.
Southern Nevada - with communities like Henderson, Boulder City, Summerlin, Mountains Edge, Southern Highlands, North Las Vegas and Green Valley … (8 comments)

las vegas: Las Vegas real estate numbers show small improvements in September - 10/10/09 11:36 AM
Southern Nevada - accommodating communities like Anthem, Summerlin, Henderson, Mountains Edge, North Las Vegas, Southern Highlands and Pahrump - resale housing segment took a cautious step forward in September, after going the other way in August. A curious trend might be developing, actually so predicted by some industry experts, where the real estate market will find the bottom and then will bounce along there for some time. Despite very attractive mortgage money and truly appealing home prices that may be all it can do for now, as the economy remains weak and unemployment is pushing deeper into double digits.
For September there … (7 comments)

las vegas: Las Vegas mortgage lenders to dissect MGM Mirage's CityCenter price rollbacks - 10/06/09 10:33 AM
The real estate market blowup hasn't spared any segments from its fury here in Southern Nevada - including Henderson, Anthem, Mountains Edge, Southern Highlands, Summerlin and North Las Vegas. Condominiums have been spanked as harshly as the single-family houses. Luxury high-rise condos on the Strip and elsewhere in the vast valley, thought by some to be above the tussle, have absorbed the same unhealthy punishment. No project could hide from it.
CityCenter by MGM Mirage, the $8.5 billion upscale mission, also has a large condominium component in it, beside the usual chic casino, convention, hotel and retail offerings. It'll have about 2,400 … (6 comments)

las vegas: Mortgage lenders now more inclined to lower principal - 10/03/09 11:47 AM
The home loan industry has been steadily resisting giving homeowners any principal reduction breaks throughout this real estate inferno.The government has been all over it to do mortgage modifications at a reasonable clip in an effort to keep the foreclosure epidemic from getting out of control. The banks have been slow in helping out even with them. The ones they have channeled through have generally been rather tame, all too often leading the borrower to redefault within months.  
Mortgage loan providers, banks and investors that is, have obviously decided to change course somewhat.In a fresh report from OCC, or the … (70 comments)

las vegas: Las Vegas claims top spot in an upbeat housing study - 10/01/09 06:31 AM
Southern Nevada - including Henderson, Summerlin, Southern Highlands, Green Valley, Mountains Edge, Anthem and North Las Vegas - has graced the pages of many publications in recent years regarding the improbable real estate meltdown and subsequent mortgage foreclosure rampage here. It usually ended up topping many of the national statistics that measured how deeply these negative housing market conditions have affected the area. That has not been fun reading for the locals. Going from a boom town to a bust town so quickly can be rather deflating.
Las Vegas real estate news have got cautiously better, though, in recent months. And … (9 comments)

las vegas: Fannie Mae tightens mortgage requirements a notch - 09/28/09 11:07 AM
The key home loan financier operating on the secondary mortgage market has seen much better days with its immense portfolio. Just like most other lending institutions it, too, has been slowly bleeding as foreclosures keep shaking its once solid foundation. So much so that Washington had to bail it out a while back. Yet, it's still doing what it was mandated to do, invest in mortgage paper.
Fannie Mae, to stem growing losses, is gradually hiking mortgage underwriting criteria, though. In the latest round of updates that'll go in effect November 1, the borrower's FICO has to be 620 or better … (8 comments)

las vegas: Fed to continue buying mortgage securities into 2010 - 09/24/09 06:37 AM
The secondary mortgage market is the life blood of the massive housing industry. If it catches any kind of ailment, the consequences can be rather dire. A serious virus invaded it not so long ago - it can also be called the great escape of the private investor - and threatened to bring the besieged real estate market to its knees. Or worse.
The Fed had to step in to fill the void and started buying Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities, or MBS, to maintain liquidity. To give the housing industry a chance to work itself out … (2 comments)

las vegas: Las Vegas real estate prices slow to recover? - 09/21/09 12:11 PM
Moody's Economy.com analyst believes housing values will take a long while to regain the levels they reached around 2006, the peak year of this recent ultra expansion. Prices went up at a rather steep curve and then hit the breaks and plunged at a breath-taking velocity. With that a lot of other economic fundamentals were thrown out the window, too, and there apparently are the seeds to the sluggish real estate recovery.
Housing values will take 20 years to reach the earlier high point in California and Florida, the Moody's Economy.com forecast says. That's possible knowing what those states have gone … (8 comments)

las vegas: International real estate buyers shying away from U.S. - 09/17/09 03:09 PM
When mortgage financing was still widely available here a few years ago and housing prices kept on racking up steady gains year after year, the foreign purchaser often thought he'd found the ultimate in property ownership. Heck, many Americans thought so, too. Then things on Wall Street and in Washington got out of control and the word meltdown was fast becoming a popular way to describe what happened. Not only to the real estate market but the entire economy. It got ugly.
International real estate buyers learned their lesson pretty quick and have scaled back their enthusiasm toward our product - … (10 comments)

las vegas: CityCenter Las Vegas earns LEED certifications - 09/15/09 06:17 AM
MGM Mirage's CityCenter project going up right on the Las Vegas Strip received some very good news from the U.S. Green Building Council. The mammoth upscale undertaking won't open until December, but an otherwise tough year for the gaming firm is finally showing a peek of the sunny side of things as finishing touches are being applied there.
LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, gold certification for the development it has sought from the onset has been granted for some of the components, including the non-gaming condominium and hotel tower Vdara. Receiving the same is the 4,000-room hotel Aria … (8 comments)

las vegas: Southern Nevada existing housing stats down a bit in August - 09/10/09 11:13 AM
Las Vegas valley - with communities of Green Valley, Summerlin, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Sunrise Manor - real estate market eased up some as the summer progressed, actually to no surprise. July was already somewhat weaker than the several previous months that had been increasingly strong. Mortgage rates remain very favorable, as do home prices, but even these factors weren't enough to prevent a slight downward movement.
Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, or GLVAR, relates this time that 3,229 single-family houses were closed in August, a 14% drop from July. That's one thing, the other is that in August … (4 comments)

las vegas: FHA market share increases, but cash reserves shrink - 09/06/09 09:07 AM
FHA is a mortgage loan insurer that has stepped into the rather sizable vacuum the recent housing finance market collapse created. Inside Mortgage Finance reports that its market share has jumped from a paltry 3% in 2006 to a strong 23% in the second quarter of 2009. It has become very popular especially with first-time home buyers because of its as low as 3.5% down payment requirement and more accommodating underwriting guidelines. Those parameters, actually, have to be well-liked by all borrowers.
As real estate prices have been steadily sinking in several areas, among them of course Las Vegas, FHA's increased … (13 comments)

las vegas: Mortgage securities purchasing by the Fed under discussion - 09/04/09 11:53 AM
The Federal Reserve has become the bedrock of the mortgage market, whether it likes it or not. It's buying just about all of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac paper, the conforming kind, to provide badly needed liquidity in the secondary market. Private investors are almost non-existent over there; for lack of funds to participate, for still harboring loads of toxic home loan securities in their books or just being wary about getting back into the recently-devastated mortgage bond business.
In the Fed's August Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, meeting one of the topics around the table touched on the … (9 comments)

las vegas: Housing may not pull the economy out of the fire this time - 09/01/09 09:05 AM
Residential real estate plays a large role in U.S. economy. Recessions are an inevitable experience in a market economy like ours. They come and go. Historically housing has been the engine that has usually generated the necessary momentum to pull the country back onto a path of solid growth. This time, however, things could shape up differently.
Co-chief investment officer at Pimco, a huge bond fund from Newport Beach, California, Bill Gross makes that argument. His reasons include reduced consumer spending, more government regulation and a newly-discovered trend for people to save. All basic macro-economic developments and definitely valid points.
The … (6 comments)

las vegas: Southern Nevada mortgage challenge in the making - 08/30/09 11:11 AM
Las Vegas real estate market has undoubtedly seen better days. Anyone who knows something about the timely topic is well aware of that. Now there is an altogether new, bizarre twist to the notion.
National Association of Home Builders, or NAHB, convention comes to Southern Nevada every January to showcase the latest in their product lineup. It really is an impressive event and usually draws huge crowds year after year. One of the annual must-see displays is a model house, called The New American Home, which introduces the hottest new technologies available in home building. Domanico Custom Homes from Las Vegas … (4 comments)

las vegas: Las Vegas real estate among most affordable again - 08/27/09 06:12 AM
Southern Nevada - like Green Valley, Summerlin, Henderson, Spring Valley and Eldorado - was rapidly pricing itself out of the housing market a few years ago. The recent unforgettable boom pushed home values way past the average household income, forcing many to buy property with flexible mortgages that they really couldn't afford, or leaving others out of the market altogether.
That was the flavor of the Las Vegas real estate scene then. Things, fortunately, have changed drastically from those days.
BusinessWeek.com and a research shop Reis made some advanced calculations to rank the top 20 cheapest housing markets in the whole … (12 comments)

las vegas: Home buyers beware, walkable neighborhoods command higher prices - 08/24/09 11:11 AM
Real estate, they say, is all about location, location, location, and that is in a certain way backed up by a recent study commissioned by CEOs for Cities. It's a nationwide cross-sector group of urban movers and shakers from academic, business, civic and philanthropic fields committed to building and sustaining the next generation of strong American cities. They if anyone ought to have a finger on the pulse on this topic.
"Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities" is the report's title, prepared by Joseph Cortright from Impresa, a Portland consulting operation. Basically what was measured was … (10 comments)

las vegas: New joint venture to buy distressed residential real estate - 08/20/09 07:04 AM
The co-founders of $1.5 billion fund have long resumes highlighted with mortgage, FHA, Wall Street and financial regulation experience in executive positions. Richard Stewart Jr., CEO of Heritage Capital Resources and Peter Monroe, CEO of National Real Estate Ventures, have carefully assessed the turbulent state of the national housing market and decided to pool their talents to buy and sell distressed real estate. In doing so the plan is to "help return foreclosed homes to productive use, prevent many foreclosures and also allow us to work with banks, servicers and federal agencies to reduce evictions."
Their forward-looking joint venture has also … (4 comments)

las vegas: Mortgage securities gaining acceptance again? - 08/17/09 12:50 PM
Mortgage-backed securities were some of the most-sought-after paper on Wall Street not so long ago, when the residential real estate market was still cruising along smoothly. The yields were solid and risk was seemingly minimal. Everybody and his nephew wanted at least some of them in their portfolios.
Then the mortgage securities business rolled right over the cliff, shoved there by the rapidly-deteriorating housing market. And the deep hurt was on, felt all across the industry. Now even well-qualified borrowers find it challenging to obtain a home loan, for refinance or purchase, as requirements have tightened considerably. The government had to … (36 comments)

las vegas: First-time home buyer tax credit usage monitored by IRS - 08/14/09 12:49 PM
The real estate market has been pumped up nicely with the up to $8,000 first-time buyer tax credit, Las Vegas definitely being one of the beneficiaries. Many renters go for it here and acquire good homes that have become very affordable during the prolonged housing and mortgage slump. The program runs through November, 2009, so those thinking about it should get their ducks in a row pretty soon.
To claim the credit is relatively simple, basically requiring the filling-out of form 5405, sending it in and the qualified money should be coming within a couple of months. That and as it … (6 comments)