Las Vegas Sun NewsForeclosures continue to hold down Las Vegas home prices
Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
StumbleFriday
11 May 2012
10:19 a.m.
The latest residential real estate data show a good-news, bad-news scenario continuing for Las Vegas.
The bad news is that among 146 of the largest housing markets in the United States, Las Vegas was one of 72 markets to see prices decline in the first quarter from a year earlier.
The median price was down 4.8 percent, from $128,300 to $122,100.
That’s according to the National Association of Realtors, which this week said in a report that despite the declines in 72 markets, there are signs of strength in real estate prices nationwide.
That’s because in the just-concluded first quarter, 74 markets posted price increases, up from just 29 markets with increases in the fourth quarter.
While first-quarter prices in Las Vegas were down on a year-over-basis, they’ve increased on a month-to-month basis for three consecutive months ending in April, according to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.
Even with the latest increase, to a median of $127,900, Las Vegas homes are selling for bargain prices to those who have cash or can obtain a mortgage.
And that’s the good news.
“On a square-foot basis, we’re probably one of the best deals in the United States right now,’’ GLVAR President Kolleen Kelley said in an interview Thursday.
Prices have been rising amid tighter supplies linked to a slowdown in banks putting foreclosures on the market as they try to comply with new foreclosure-documentation standards.
Realtors also have noticed an increase in banks agreeing to short sales, in which homes are sold for less than their mortgage debt, Kelley said.
Weighing all these factors, Kelley isn’t predicting any dramatic price increases anytime soon.
“We still have a lot of foreclosures to work through,” Kelley said.
Las Vegas and Nevada will likely see elevated foreclosure rates for some time, a new report from credit data collector TransUnion says.
The company this week said that in the first quarter, Nevada maintained its No. 2 spot behind Florida on the list of states with the highest mortgage loan delinquency rates.
Nevada came in at 11.16 percent of its home mortgages delinquent, or at least 60 days past due, an improvement from the year-ago quarter’s rate of 14.19 percent.
Still, Nevada’s rate in the first quarter of this year was well ahead of the U.S. rate of 5.78 percent.
Nevada’s problem with mortgage delinquencies and resulting foreclosures swelled during the recession, which pushed unemployment up to levels that remain elevated at 12 percent.
In another development, Atlanta-based homebuilder Beazer Homes Inc. announced it created a real estate investment trust (REIT) to buy, refurbish and lease recently-constructed homes.
The new business, called Beazer Pre-Owned Rental Homes Inc. (BPRH), is launching with the contribution of nearly 200 such homes in Phoenix and Las Vegas to the REIT.
Beazer said this contribution, valued at $20 million, is part of $85 million raised for the venture so far.
“BPRH intends to become a leader in the single-family rental homes business and is one of the first REITs focused exclusively on the single-family home rental market,” the company said in a statement.
Kelley, at the GLVAR, said the trend of investors acquiring foreclosures and other homes to rent out isn’t a bad thing — even if it means some of those homes won’t be listed for sale in the short term.
“It’s better to have the water moving than to leave it stagnant,” she said.
Share
Join the Discussion:
Previous Discussion:
Discussion 4 comments
Only trusted comments are displayed on this page. Untrusted comments have expired from this story.
Most Popular
Call it like it really is; the Obama economy not the Bush economy is the reason foreclosures keep occurring.
What the liberal media fails to speak of is that had Obama put stimulus 1 into rebuilding America's infrastructure, we'd be out of this nightmare he owns. Instead, he used $38 billion for infrastructure on not so shovel ready projects and the rest was spend on programs that produce nothing useful or meaningful to stimulate the economy where people could afford to make their house payments.
There is zero leadership in this country, since a certain group took over congress in 2007 this country has gone down hill and all they have done is step on the gas. TARP and bank bailouts will probably be looked at as the single dumbest and economic disastrous actions ever taken. Selfish fools.
This story should have been labeled a "bad news, bad news" story.
When the majority of sales in an area are so-called "distressed" sales -- that is, foreclosures and shorts -- they are not sales at "bargain" prices, they are sales at MARKET prices. You're not getting any sort of deal. Whether you like it or not, that's now the market.
So the entire "good news" half of this story is bogus. It's spun out of whole cloth from a realtor's cheerleading quote and based on a bogus premise. That premise is that prices that are "low" -- on a relative basis to three or four years ago -- are hence "bargains."
That's nonsense. This article, and Delen Goldberg's piece, have the GLVAR's fingerprints all over them.
Isn't this years "bargain" next years "inflated" price? The numbers clearly show the bottom hasn't been reached. Yes, the drop in home values is slowing but it's still going down.
...ugh. Tim and warrior. This has almost NOTHING to do with politics and everything to do with basic economics. This isnt cause by what happened in the last 4-6 years. This goes back much further than that and it is due to BOTH parties. The fact that you continually (this is meant for Tim) come into these comment threads and speak about how bad the 'other guys' are, just goes to show how deluded you really are about reality. It's pathetic. Get your news from something other than Fox, Drudge, Washington times etc. Get your news from less biased sources like Marketwatch or Bloomberg.
Vegas had it's boom, and it's bust, and now is searching for a period of stasis. The coming problem that I see, is that Vegas (like Dennis Williams said) depends on gambling. Tourism is up, but gambling is down. The casinos are losing money. Or at least not making nearly what they need to. If I had to guess I'd say that it's because word is getting out that the machines are set too tight. Instead of having around 45 winners out of 100 (that's 55 losers that the casino gains on), you now appear to get fewer than 10 winners, meaning 90 losers. 90% losers means fewer people willing to gamble when they are here, which means continued losses. It's a trend that will take a long time to reverse, IF THEY CAN.
The article is about foreclosures Dennis so your constant bashing of the Vegas ie a "One Horse Town" doesn't exactly hold true. If un-employment rate is 12% which is incorrect its more like 20% than that means that 80% of us are employed. The problem is qualifying for the loan as most people don't have cash to buy outright. Foreclosures will continue until people out of work get jobs and if that means moving out of state well then thats what they need to do.
By the way Dennis have you rode your bike to Florida yet or have you just decided to walk since you don't like to drive and think everyone needs the excercise?
See the massive crime scene here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4qSr3lC6...
Southern Nevada's foreclosure crisis and low home prices are the results of poor planning, an over-reliance on the construction and real estate industries to create jobs, and lax financial regulations that allowed for predatory lending and high-stakes gambling w/ derivatives. I'd like to focus on the first two causes.
There were over 40K new housing permits issued in Clark County in 2005. The years immediately before and after totaled well over 60K combined. There were 127 builders who were issued 20 permits or more in 2005. As of 2011, there were fewer the 2000 permits issued and only 12 of those builders remain. Many of those builders were from out of state, and when the crash came, a crash they all fueled with their intense greed and desire to throw up as many homes as possible and let the investors buy them up, they went out of business. It was a false market fueled by speculation-- nothing more. And it has cost our community dearly.
Who were all these homes being built for, construction workers coming to build more homes? Sure, let's say half of those new homes were being built for people looking to move out of rentals or into larger, more luxurious homes. But the other half? Investors.
They lined the campaign coffers of so many of our local elected officials in order to grease the wheels for new permits and subsidized development - take a look at past C&E reports for those county commissioners and city council members and you'll see how much influence. Millions of dollars spent in campaign contributions, millions more in lobbying. An unstoppable machine created by these developers and construction industry titans to ensure that they would write the rules as they see fit, even when many of us shouted from the top of our lungs that this was unsustainable and there would be terrible consequences.
In addition, the over-reliance on construction jobs and everybody and their sister getting into the real estate game, well no wonder the housing crisis failed. We stopped building and selling. What were all of these construction workers who came here from all over the country going to do next? Would they try to work at one of the 1000s of nail salons, fast food joints, or frozen yogurt stands that seemed to be opening at the rate of 10 a day for five years? How about one of the dozens of Big Lots or Dollar Stores that sprung up all over the valley? And how about those realtors who were so busy patting each other on the back for selling homes to investors looking to flip their way to wealth, maybe they would take those jobs?
Housing prices plummeted because nobody thought to ask "What will we do when we've overbuilt our valley and all of these temporary jobs are gone?" Did everyone really believe that the economy would never stall, especially one based on growth? Remember "growth pays for growth"? Yea, right.
And of course, this speaks volumes:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/nov...
"To a certain extent, that is how we got into this mess," Ritter said. "We all just encouraged each other to go farther out on a limb and take more leverage. I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and I am hoping it is not a locomotive coming. But ultimately in Vegas the good news is there is very limited supply, and when things turn round here, values are going to increase relatively quickly. I think the market has the capacity to become very strong again."
He warned: "When we come out of this thing, we need to be more conservative. We need to use less leverage if any leverage at all. It is going to be long time before banks jump back in the lending game for land and land developers, and even to a large extent the builders."
Thanks Dipstick. Although i would recommend looking at the tourism numbers again because they have started turn around.
Ty - Really? Im sure this has NOTHING to do with the fact that the Atty General Mrs. Masto is continuing to go after banks for fraud is it? She is one of the few atty's general that are going after those who committed crimes in the housing debacle. Why try and shut her down?