VEGAS INC Coverage
A Las Vegas research analyst said today the number of homeowners who are delinquent in their mortgage payments suggests the region is only halfway through its housing crisis.
A report released today by California-based research firm CoreLogic said the 90-day delinquency rate for homeowners improved in February to 18.83, down from 19.09 percent in January and down from 21 percent in February 2010.
That’s the lowest the delinquency rate has been since August 2009, but Larry Murphy, the president of SalesTraq, said the delinquency rate is still too high and doesn’t bode well for the Las Vegas housing market.
Since January 2007, 86,736 homes have been foreclosed upon in Las Vegas, Murphy said. That’s one of every seven homes.
Murphy said he’s concerned the high number of delinquencies could result in a similar number of foreclosures or cases where homes are sold as part of a short sale in which the owner owes more on the mortgage than the home is worth.
“Another 80,000 distressed sales will undoubtedly keep downward pressure on sales prices, even those properties which are not distressed,” Murphy said in a report he issued today. “If this scenario is valid, it means we are approximately halfway through the most severe housing crisis in Nevada.”
Murphy said banks have sold more than 82,000 homes in foreclosure inventory and added that banks have a remaining inventory of about 11,000.
Statewide, the delinquency rate fell to 16.63 percent in February. Nationally, the delinquency rate was 7.7 percent in February.
Las Vegas had a 9.25 percent foreclosure rate in February, down from 9.4 percent in January but up from 8.63 percent in February 2010, CoreLogic reported.