Jun 08
17
Some time back I mentioned that many countries do not have the same level of regulation for real estate agents that we have here in the United States. Did you know that many states model their rules for real estate salespeople and brokers in part on the National Association of Realtors’ Code of Ethics? Well, in Britain, there is a movement to institute basic minimum qualifications and standards for “estate agents”, including a regulatory body and what appears to be disclosure requirements.
Maybe you remember when I wrote about Barbara Ehrenreich getting it wrong? Now Brad DeLong says she “has gone totally off the rails” when she insists that only the rich can afford to live in beautiful places. I suppose a lot depends on what a beautiful place means to you.
Objective data — actual real figures — show that the Las Vegas real estate market is getting better, thank you very much, with 3000 pending sales and an additional 4000 contingent.
As for the much hyped RealtyTrac figures that 1 out of every 118 Nevada homes got a foreclosure notice in May, that figure seems a bit odd. The last time I found a foreclosure figure “odd” it turned out to be totally bogus. Their figures also indicate that “Nearly 74,000 properties were repossessed by lenders nationwide in May, while more than 58,000 received default notices,” while Foreclosures.com said that nationally, “Lenders took possession of 74,570 homes in April, down more than 5 percent from March….” They also found that “Clark County had 4,426 preforeclosures in April, more than double the 2,029 preforeclosures in the same month a year ago. The number is down from a record 6,152 preforeclosures in March. REOs, or real estate owned by the lender through foreclosure, declined to 1,911 in April, compared with 1,937 in March.” In fact, you can see their stats right here: Nevada had 4,985 new foreclosure filings in May, compared to 5,177 in April and a high of 6,876 in May. And they saved me the trouble of adding up the number of homes total in each county: 742,752 total homes in the state. One out of 149 homes is still alarming, but improved. You can click on Nevada to get a county-by-county list: Clark County as a whole had 24,585 foreclosure filings year-to-date, including 4,222 in May as part of a 2 month decline, for a total of 4.80% out of our total 512,253 households. Keep in mind that many of the foreclosures from earlier in the year are already in the hands of the bank — and in some cases sold already. So the real news turns out to be both better and worse than originally reported.
And I promised a bonus: You know you’re a real estate investor when….
That’s all for today. Make it a good day.
