nevada: 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)

nevada: 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)

nevada: 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)

nevada: 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)

nevada: National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 to be held in Las Vegas - 07/30/09 04:31 PM
Center for American Progress Action Fund, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, and University of Nevada, Las Vegas are the hosts for this one-day gathering here in Southern Nevada. It's set for Monday, August 10, 2009, starting at 10:00 AM at UNLV's Cox Pavilion. Click here for more info.
National Clean Energy Summit 2.0: Jobs and the New Economy, that's the full title for the event, aims to stimulate debate over the deployment of clean energy, energy efficiency, good job creation, advances in energy independence and creation of economic prosperity for Nevada, the country and the entire world. That is … (2 comments)

nevada: Homebuyer tax credit may be expanded - 07/24/09 04:43 PM
Las Vegas housing market alone would be a big beneficiary if it did happen. Southern Nevada has already seen solid gains this year in sales thanks in large part to the first-time buyer tax credit of $8,000. This incentive is set to come to an end December 1.
NAR, or National Association of Realtors, and the mortgage industry are currently working on Congress to keep it going well into 2010. It has such a good track record, so why not. They have two other worthwhile ideas in mind as well.
The tax credit ceiling ought to be hiked to $15,000 is … (6 comments)

nevada: HARP, or Home Affordable Refinance Program, limit goes up to 125% loan-to-value - 07/22/09 03:26 PM
Relief Refinance Mortgage by Freddie Mac falls under this banner. It's now official that the previous limit of 105% has been pushed up to 125% loan-to-value, or LTV, something that Washington had been tossing around for a bit. "This is a change that will put affordable refinancing opportunities within reach of performing borrowers who have suffered the effects of local home price erosion," explained a Freddie Mac wool suit. Qualifying homeowners are current on their payments and have a mortgage owned or guaranteed by the agency.
Freddie Mac's Relief Refinance Mortgagehas some nice features, too. It lets borrowers finance closing and … (5 comments)

nevada: FHA mortgage coming on strong in Las Vegas - 07/14/09 09:11 AM
FHA barely had any market share in Southern Nevada a few years ago because the conventional product was generally offering home loans with better terms. And then comes the mother of all housing slumps that manhandles the conventional mortgage segment and gives FHA another chance to show what it can do. And it's rising to the occasion.
Much of the real estate activity in Las Vegas is now at the lower end of the market where prices are truly affordable, be it a single-family home or a condo or a townhouse. Values have been mercilessly rolled back to the levels of the … (2 comments)

nevada: Southern Nevada existing home sales jump in June - 07/10/09 02:32 PM
Las Vegas housing market is gradually changing for the better. The key word is gradually. There have been subtle hints about it in the past few months and more are trickling in.   
As stated by GLVAR, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, a total of 3,785 single-family homes were closed in June, climbing a respectable 16.3% from May. What's even better is that this is a 70% improvement from the same month last year. REOs still dominate but it doesn't matter as long as the market remains active. Strict conventional mortgage guidelines kept these numbers from going even higher, … (2 comments)

nevada: CityCenter Las Vegas weak condo values trouble some buyers - 07/07/09 09:44 AM
It was expected. Southern Nevada housing market has been buffeted by gale-force winds, brought to its knees by rampant overbuilding, unchecked speculation, foreclosed mortgages and weakened economy. That includes the luxury high-rise condominium segment that was once flying as high as the International Space Station. As predicted, prices in condos have retreated by long strides as well, not just in small steps.
The elegant and massive CityCenter project on the Strip, an $8.4 billion gig, has been sucked into the same spine-tingling spiral. It has three residence destinations to offer; Veer Towers, The Residences at Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas, and Vdara … (2 comments)

nevada: Las Vegas new homes sell a little better in May - 06/25/09 12:32 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)

nevada: Upper half of the housing market feeling the heat now - 06/19/09 03:20 PM
Early on in this real estate meltdown the subprime mortgage drew all the attention with its high foreclosure rates. As the default numbers mercilessly accelerated in the lower half of the market the prices in this category headed in the other direction, at an increasing pace. To many optimistic housing observers, including yours truly, the overall damage would largely be contained in the lower end. The argument went that prime borrowers knew how to budget better, that they had other investments to rely on in case of trouble, that they already were familiar with what home ownership entailed, and so on.
… (12 comments)

nevada: Southern Nevada resale housing inventory falls in May - 06/09/09 03:31 PM
Another whiff of optimism over the local real estate market blew into the Las Vegas valley this week. Any small improvement anywhere in the industry stats is nowadays welcomed with wide-open arms. So, let's take it.
In the latest statistical report on the housing market here just released, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, or GLVAR, discloses that the inventory of homes fell by 9.3% from the same time last year. Moreover, there were 21,181 units in it in May, about 1,000 less than in April when the number stood at 22,112. This statistic has remained alarmingly high despite the … (2 comments)

nevada: Las Vegas near the top for most undervalued housing markets - 06/04/09 02:56 PM
Let's go right to it. In the 10 Most Undervalued cities Las Vegas placed third, according to IHS Global Insight. The firm put the report together by analyzing household incomes, historical prices and housing densities and then arrived at statistically normal home prices which were subsequently weighed against actual values of a city. The difference either placed the area in the overvalued or undervalued category.
In this study, Las Vegas median home price was determined to be $140,000, meaning it is 40.9% undervalued. That is a high number.
It's hard to say if this is good news or the other kind … (4 comments)

nevada: Las Vegas new single-family house market draws recovery prediction - 05/26/09 02:19 PM
A lot of time and money is spent annually in foreseeing the future in a variety of areas. From the familiar to the strange. As expected, the mortgage and real estate markets have seen their fair share of this. Some of these studies are more accurate than others, after they are later independently checked for accuracy. But overall, the results of these novel exercises appear to be off the mark, sometimes way off.
In any case, here is the latest for Las Vegas. According to a new housing market study completed by the Concord Group, Southern Nevada can expect its new … (14 comments)

nevada: Southern Nevada resales up in April - 05/09/09 11:09 AM
There is some optimism in the dry desert air that the Las Vegas real estate market is hitting bottom. At long last. Perhaps. It's still too early, though, to go into any definitive announcements about that. The patient's vital signs do remain quite mixed, that's why.In any case, 3,198 single-family homes were closed in April, as was reported by GLVAR, or Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. In the year-to-year comparison that adds up to a big leap of over 78% and on a month-to-month basis it translates into a solid 7% gain from March. These numbers warm a lot of hearts in … (6 comments)

nevada: More Las Vegas homes go underwater - 05/07/09 11:30 AM
Home values are still falling nationally. More in some areas and less in others, but they still seem to be in retreat. People who bought property in the last five years or so are in real danger of being underwater. Or upside down. That's when the balance on the underlying mortgage is higher than the home's value. Those who put nothing or very little down are most vulnerable.
Zillow.com, a prominent real estate website, just released a report on the first quarter of 2009 according to which 21.9% of all homeowners nationwide are now taking a bath. It was 17.6% in … (2 comments)

nevada: Mountains's Edge Las Vegas tops national list of master-planned communities - 05/02/09 02:32 PM
Who would have thought such a list even existed in this real estate market? Especially since the new home segment is having major trouble in moving inventory almost everywhere, including here in Southern Nevada. But it's true. Robert Charles Lesser & Co., a housing advisory firm, is behind the study that keeps track of home sales in master-planned communities nationwide and then ranks them. Mountain's Edge claimed the high spot on the best-selling list with 879 houses sold in 2008, although overall sales there went down by 49%. It's somewhat surprising that even that many properties were closed there considering all … (6 comments)

nevada: MGM Mirage's CityCenter project gets new life - 04/30/09 11:41 AM
It has been a tough few months for the Las Vegas casino operator. It has been using all its creative means to stay out of the clutches of bankruptcy. The economy has been very unkind to it, and the rest of the Southern Nevada's gaming firms. Not only that, but the slumping real estate market here has weakened the city's overall viability. To top it all off, it was recently sued by Dubai World, the 50-50 joint venture partner on CityCenter, for alleged project mismanagement.
A new page was just turned on the development, however. MGM Mirage and Dubai World have … (4 comments)

nevada: The Conference Board says consumers more confident - 04/28/09 11:32 AM
That's music to a lot of ears. The widely-known index that measures consumer attitudes and buying intentions jumped 12.3 points in April, representing the best showing for it since November. Despite that, it would be premature to pop any corks yet and let it flow. The banking sector continues to wallow in deep trouble and the job market has seen much better days.
Still, it is a sign that sun is beginning to shine through gaps in the dark clouds overhead. The mood from the steady drumbeat of mortgage foreclosures to layoffs to corporate trouble is seemingly shifting, although cautiously, toward … (8 comments)