It must be nice to be a Congressman. They’re already out for the Independence Day holiday. Of course they left a few little things undone. Like, say, that bill that might have helped homeowners and mortgage companies prevent some foreclosures. Don’t get me wrong, the ideas on the table were far from perfect, but they were better than nothing.

Vacant homes — abandoned, foreclosed, or simply waiting to be sold — are now a serious problem in many communities across the nation. It’s no longer just an “inner city Detroit” sort of issue; even “nice” neighborhoods have boarded up homes that attract parties, drug use, vandalism, and theft.

However, even if we had enough buyers for these properties, there is the problem of getting the money to purchase (and renovate where needed) all those homes. We still have a “credit crunch” where many banks don’t have money to lend. Some of them over-extended credit to construction firms that were themselves overextended. Some of those builders have slashed prices just to raise capital, and in the process slashed market values in the neighborhoods they were building.

But today there is more to talk about than doom and gloom. Today in the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors (GLVAR) MLS, we have 21,390 available homes, 16,806 of them Single Family Residences. This level is high, but stable. In addition, we have 7,032 homes that are “contingent” or “pending”. These homes have signed purchase contracts, and the overwhelming majority of them will close within 30 to 60 days. However, the sale is not final yet. Of the available homes, 11,171 are currently vacant (54.7%); 5,809 are short sales (27.2%); 4,737 are REO/foreclosed/bank owned (22.1%). All those percentages are up over last month, and they represent “motivated sellers.” These figures must be taken along with these (courtesy of our friends over at Frothing Developer): taxable sales in the Valley are up (meaning economic growth, and the promise of more jobs); home sales are better than they were this time last year; and despite a regional “recession”, net new residents of 4,600 in May. That’s a slow way to fill those available homes, but it’s better than nothing.