las vegas: Nevada leads in underwater mortgages - 12/21/08 09:10 AM
Nevada sits atop another mortgage- and real estate-related list, a placement that no one really wants. The Silver State, together with Arizona, California and Florida, enjoyed unprecedented real estate price appreciation during the recent boom cycle and now the same states are topping the national list of most homes with negative equity, in other words underwater. Those who grow too fast usually have to pay the price sooner or later.
First American CoreLogic took a look at county real estate records across the land and then analyzed property prices with its own automated valuation models and finally issued a report on … (14 comments)

las vegas: Las Vegas new home sales lack gusto in November - 12/19/08 03:42 AM
The outlook for home builders in Southern Nevada remains rather bleak. It has been a tough real estate market throughout the year for the entire industry and especially so for new homes. This year, 2008, will be a year to remember in the business. Mortgage money has become outright inexpensive lately, though, so perhaps the coming months will bring more traffic for the struggling segment.
As for the pure numbers, there were only 643 new home closings in November, a noteworthy decline from 1,521 recorded at the same time last year. That comes to about a 58% change for the worse. … (4 comments)

las vegas: Las Vegas real estate now undervalued says national report - 12/11/08 02:44 PM
Homeowners across Southern Nevada know that their properties have lost quite a bit of value during this incredible mortgage and housing meltdown. It's a somber feeling to first watch the equity in a home shrink down to nothing and then to make matters worse in many cases the spiral has continued on down to create an upside down situation. That surely isn't what home ownership usually means. So, in the big scheme of things, how low have the prices dropped in town?
An intriguing report was just published by IHS Global Insight, a forecasting shop, and National City Corp., titled House … (12 comments)

las vegas: LV existing home sales stay on an upbeat course in November - 12/09/08 08:32 AM
The holiday season is upon us although this year it might be more subdued than in a long while due to the overall weakness in the national economy. The mortgage and housing markets have taken unprecedented punishment in most parts of the country that requires extraordinary efforts and just plain old time to turn around. Las Vegas real estate, for its share, has paid dearly for past excesses but has lately shown some flickers of hope that perhaps a tentative recovery may be forming.
November stats from Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, or GLVAR, back up the cautiously upbeat sentiment. … (6 comments)

las vegas: The ailing housing market needs more than lower mortgage rates - 12/06/08 03:22 PM
Up to now Washington has come up with quite a few different remedies to lift the reeling real estate market out of the jaws of defeat. Most of them have focused on helping the battered mortgage industry and it surely looks like the right road to take. Yet, the results have been less than satisfactory. The carnage goes on as foreclosure filings keep piling up and empty houses dot the landscape.
With that in mind, still another idea has been tossed out there for public discourse. What if the government, more specifically the U.S. Treasury, would subsidize mortgage interest rates so … (10 comments)

las vegas: Some home buyers find the real estate market testing - 12/02/08 02:05 PM
First-time home buyers with good credit, say in Las Vegas, are jumping in delight over the vast selection of low-priced residences they can now put offers on. And do even more than that, they can also bargain for seller help in covering mortgage costs and other related stuff. Home loan foreclosures and the glut of inventory have brought down values to levels not seen in years and that has created terrific opportunities.
There is, however, a large segment in the huge housing market that is left holding the short end of the stick on this. That is the homeowner who has … (6 comments)

las vegas: Northwest Las Vegas slated for condominiums and a mall - 11/29/08 12:54 PM
Little by little more plans are being announced regarding new commercial and residential real estate projects to be built throughout Southern Nevada. These are for the most part the first steps in the long process but show that a few developers are coming out of hibernation to prepare for the moment when they can actually start going vertical. They are anxious to get cracking as soon as the market conditions allow it.
Triple Five Nevada is among the front runners in this. Its plan calls for a good-sized mall to go in the Centennial Hills area in the northwest corner of … (4 comments)

las vegas: MGM Mirage studying sale of land in Las Vegas - 11/28/08 08:49 AM
The weak economy is forcing many Southern Nevada resort operators to revisit their master plans. Not too long ago the trend was to acquire land on the Strip and almost anywhere else in town with idea of building more hotel rooms, casinos and luxury condominiums because the traffic seemed to be there. Now the focus has shifted rather dramatically away from further expansion to just being able to survive this nasty downturn.
MGM Mirage wants to do just that by seeking to unload some or all of the raw land it owns here. It has several choice Strip lots to offer, … (10 comments)

las vegas: Home builders are extending the tin cup for Washington aid. Should they be rewarded? - 11/25/08 01:22 PM
It's becoming the fad of the year that major industry lobbyists are sent to march up the long, stone steps of the U.S. Capitol and ask for federal help for their flagging businesses. The belief seems to be that Congress is the cradle of group therapy that will cure their ills by handing out taxpayer money and somehow that will turn their fortunes around. The mortgage lenders have been there, the insurance lobby has been there, the banks, the car manufacturers, the list is long.
Now it's the home builders.
They did get a modest tax credit package passed in the spring but … (18 comments)

las vegas: Southern Nevada new home sales crawl along in October - 11/20/08 01:42 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)

las vegas: Las Vegas has more to offer than a snowed-under real estate market - 11/18/08 01:12 PM
Conversations regarding Las Vegas used to be about the rapid growth here, new dazzling resorts going up on the Strip, relentless summer heat and how many Cirque du Soleil shows the town can actually accommodate. That was fun then, a few years ago. Now the talk is largely about home values nose-diving, mortgage foreclosures and empty luxury condominiums unable to find new owners. All anyone can say is; how quickly the mood can change.
Yet, it's not all gloom and doom in Southern Nevada. Consider this. AAA just announced its latest Five Diamond Award winners in restaurants and hotels and a … (11 comments)

las vegas: Las Vegas foreclosures take a breather in October - 11/15/08 12:29 PM
Overall, it has been a tough year for Clark County, Nevada, home of Las Vegas, when it comes to residential real estate. One of the bright spots has been the availability of mortgage money at affordable rates that has kept matters on some sort of a path toward a distant normalcy. Wherever that might be. The solution to that largely rests on how soon the marketplace can first arrest and then reverse the persistently high foreclosures here.
The statistics just released by Foreclosures.com for October appear to offer a ray of hope for Southern Nevada. Real estate owned, or REO, in … (12 comments)

las vegas: Resales in Las Vegas continue strong in October - 11/11/08 09:44 AM
Southern Nevada housing market is trying to shake loose from the grip of a memorable downturn, a word that many here have a hard time recognizing because the town has been topping the national growth charts for so long. The slump ended up being worse than just about anyone who knows anything about it could've imagined.
There are some signs now that it is about to turn the corner for the better. In October sales of existing single-family houses kept up with the recent improving trend as 2,718 of them were successfully closed, reveals a Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, … (12 comments)

las vegas: Developers already planning future projects in Southern Nevada - 11/08/08 02:36 PM
Las Vegas real estate is in a slump, a description that is widely accepted throughout the community. It started with the residential sector and has now spread over to the commercial and resort sides as well. There are some cautious signs that the housing market is beginning to make some noise as resales, specifically in the lower end of the price scale, are attracting homeowner-candidates and long-term investors. To some it's an early indication that a turnaround is already visible on the horizon and they are busy drafting plans for future developments.
GSG Development is one of them, a valley firm … (2 comments)

las vegas: Las Vegas land values hit the down slope - 11/06/08 12:02 PM
Now it's the raw land's turn to be in full price retreat. It couldn't be too far behind what is presently happening to single-family house and condominium price points in Southern Nevada. The market grew really soft and all sectors in it have to face the music before any hopes of a sustainable recovery can get off the blocks. This appears to be the last leg of the equation that now has to go through the necessary correction.
In the third quarter this year 427 acres changed hands while at the same time in 2007 484 acres did that, reports Las … (6 comments)

las vegas: Aviation Nation in Las Vegas this weekend - 11/04/08 08:22 AM
This is one of the occasions air show aficionados world over don't want to miss. Locals and visitors to Sin City this weekend have the opportunity to go to Nellis Air Force Base to take in all that a well-run air event is supposed to be. It's scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, November 8-9, 2008, with gates flung open at 9:00 AM both days. Parking is available at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for free and general admission to the show is free as well, so how can that be beat.
The air portion of the event includes the famous Thunderbirds, … (6 comments)

las vegas: Nevada heads problematic mortgage ranking - 11/01/08 12:02 PM
Silver State's residential real estate was wounded badly in the bubble that burst so spectacularly some time ago. Of course it's not alone in it but that's scant relief. Sales at least in Las Vegas have slowed to a crawl, although especially resales have picked up lately, prices have headed south and the inventory is still high. Now another statistic is published to inform how deeply the housing mess has affected the state.
Nevada tops the list that ranks states by how many homes each has upside down, meaning the existing mortgage balance is higher than the property is worth. This … (10 comments)

las vegas: Las Vegas housing experts discuss their wobbly marketplace - 10/25/08 12:42 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)

las vegas: Mortgage money widely available while other bank activity freezes - 10/21/08 10:47 AM
The media is all over the map describing in sweeping headlines how the American and international financial systems are on life support. Central banks across the globe are pumping all sorts of cash into their respective banking sectors to stay ahead of the advancing wildfire and keep the entire inter-connected financial network from collapsing. It's important news, of course, and has caught consumers from Las Vegas to Washington in this tantalizing development.
There is at least one sector in the U.S. financial system that is presently surprisingly stable, though. It's the mortgage business. True, it does have some issues to deal … (10 comments)

las vegas: Southern Nevada new home sales still slow - 10/18/08 02:19 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)