Not that I agree with their list, but you might want to check out Lifehacker’s Top 10 Real Estate Links. By way of disclaimer, I do not recommend using Zillow as a serious price comparison tool. First and foremost, it treats foreclosure auctions as equal to sales.  If you see a house that “sold” for 30% less than everything else in the neighborhood 3 months ago, that’s not a sale.  That’s what was owed when the bank took it back!

Tips on real estate listings and fliers are really aimed more at Realtors, but I think Joe and Jane Average can learn from these tips too.

Echelon is paused but not cancelled. Not a problem.  It just pushes some of our growth a little into the future.  Truth be told, that’s probably a good thing in the long run.

As far as economic trends in Vegas, I am reduced to “What He Said!“  We still have jobs being created in Vegas, home sales are up in Vegas, and thousands of new residents still arrive each month.

The Fed Funds Rate is down and mortgage rates are up.  If you are confused about how that works, let me give you the ultra short version:  the Fed does not and cannot control the prime rate or mortgage rates.  Period. What the Fed does control is the interest rate banks charge one another, and the rates banks get when they borrow money directly from the Federal Reserve. To learn more about the Fed, please check out their educational site.

Half of all homeowners are still in denial and think the market value of their home has not gone down. I’m sorry to tell them this, but no matter how nice any particular house is, no matter how fabulous the upgrades, no matter how lovely the renovations, no matter how well the maintenance, housing values are down.

Tomorrow is Nevada Day.  Schools, state offices, and many other things will be closed.  It is, however, your last chance for early voting.  Have a great Nevada Day and a safe Halloween!

I think it’s fair to say that more people are getting out of the real estate business than into it right now, but for those of you who are just beginning a career in real estate, this post is for you.  You are getting into the field at a very exciting time, and if you can survive this market, you can handle almost anything the future can possibly throw at you.  Make no mistake however, this is not an easy career path, and the industry has changed a lot over the years.  I realize that the majority of my readers are everyday people looking for information, not real estate professionals, and not aspiring Realtors.  If you are considering a career in real estate, hit the “read the rest of this entry” link. If not, thank you for your patience.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been telling you for a while that we have relatively little supply of rental housing here in Las Vegas.  Between newcomers to the Valley and investors losing rental homes to foreclosure, there are very good reasons for constrained supply!  That doesn’t even account for people who are in rental housing after losing their primary residence to foreclosure.

Today’s news is that Vegas apartment complexes are “running near capacity” thanks to foreclosures. For the moment, average rents are stable at only $1 more than last quarter. I don’t expect rents to remain this low for very long.  The law of supply and demand says that they just can’t while supply is limited and demand is growing!

With the banks wary of lending to investors — and unwilling to loan at all on certain condominium properties — the road out of our rental housing problem is going to be long and winding. On the other hand, there is great opportunity afoot for a well-capitalized investor.

This home is nowhere near Vegas. In fact, it’s in Japan.  And it’s designed not for the comfort of humans, but for the comfort of cats.

But hey, to each his own. This place is truly the cat’s meow.

Yesterday, I decided to see what would happen if I reversed a client’s search:  I used all the criteria they were looking for, but instead of looking at available homes, I looked at sold homes.

Not one home had sold for under $1,000 less than asking price.   Some — including one with no garage door and a seemingly biohazardous fridge — sold for as much as 15% above asking price.

I repeated the experiment with another client search.  The overwhelming majority of homes had sold for within 5% of asking price. I took the latest hotsheet with two days worth of closed homes;  out of 329 sold homes, well over 9 out of 10 sold for within 5% of asking price.  Some 5% higher, some 5% lower. This held true up and down the price spectrum, only breaking down completely in the under $60,000 range.

What does this mean to you?  First, it means that the overwhelming majority of homes that are actually selling are “fairly priced.” To be sure, there are some sellers with unrealistic expectations. Since there are even now 16,000 single family homes available in the Las Vegas Valley, feel free to walk away from those homes that are overpriced!

For that matter, there are some buyers that are willing to bid up in multiple offer situations. Perhaps it is because they are afraid of losing their dream home — or worse yet, losing “yet another” home in a bidding war. Again, buyers need to feel free to walk away from these situations.  There are plenty more homes where that one came from!

It means that if you are putting an offer in on a home, you need to be prepared to make an offer near the purchase price.  With a few exceptions, you won’t get that house with a lowball bid. You don’t necessarily need to offer more than the purchase price — but consider the possibility if you want the seller to pay for your closing costs — but you do need to make a fair offer instead of an insulting one.  This even applies to bank owned properties.  Banks are being realistic in their pricing:  most have given up on recouping the loss from the defaulted mortgage and the fees involved in foreclosing;  they have already inspected the property and know about the terrible thing you think deserves a huge discount.   If I ever catch up with the person who started the myth that you can buy foreclosed properties for 65% less than asking price, she had better watch out.

And finally, if you are considering selling your home, pay close attention when your Realtor talks about “comps” such as currently available homes and homes that have recently sold in your neighborhood.  The currently available homes are your competition for buyers, and the ones that have sold will dictate how the home appraises. I know I know, your home is nicer it has a nicer view it has all the amenities didn’t you see the terrific great room look at those upgrades.  The market will dictate what you can realistically get for your home. Price fairly, and it will move quickly.  In the immortal words of Jim Cramer, “pigs get slaughtered.”

Have a great weekend.

I used to live in the Pacific Northwest, high on a hill in a maritime community.  And down the winding — but at least paved — route down to the main road, there were these charming little cottages, built by a company called Cottage Werks. These eco-friendly little gems featured custom site placement near environmentally sensitive areas, and if you weren’t paying attention, they could blend right into the scenery.  They didn’t have a lot in the way of square footage, but they were well-featured and priced like homes twice their size.

All that being said, I can’t be shocked that Forbes has an article about downsized luxury homes. Nor, that it features developers in the Puget Sound region.

Is Vegas ready for these micro-homes?  Around here something that size is a “casita” off the main house!  But then again, we did just convert our Hummer dealer into a Smart Car dealership, so anything is possible.

While Concordia Homes is not going out of business, they will cease selling homes in Nevada.  They will be returning deposits on homes where construction has not yet begun. Five active subdivisions are being shut down. Here’s an interesting quote from Dennis Smith of Home Builders Research:

This is not strictly about demand. This is also credit. You’ve got buyers and you can’t get loans approved. What do you do? You close subdivisions.

Clearly the “credit crunch” will impact the recovery of our housing market. In this case, it’s reducing future inventory.  While this seems like a good thing for right now, I am forced to wonder if it will still be a good thing a year from now.

As of this morning, there are 289 condos with 1 or 2 bedrooms with a maximum price of $100,000.  Nine of these are less than $50,000 (I feel sure they are most likely in somewhat less than FHA approvable condition).  The lowest priced unit is a mere $34,900, described as a “great location.”  Five of them are listed at $100,000.  The average price is about $82,800. Assuming 10% down and 6.5% interest on a 30 year loan on that “average” condo, the principal and interest are roughly $471 monthly. Want to know more?  Hit the “contact me!” link in the left column.

If you are starting to think it’s a good idea to buy one of those and rent it out, you will want to look at this set of tenant rules from an experienced landlord.  Alternatively, I can set you up with a top-notch manager who works out of my office.

I’ve been hearing a lot of ads on the radio lately for a website called RentalForeclosure.com. The ad does tell the truth about tenant’s rights during a foreclosure: the tenant has very few rights. Nevada does have a loophole for those (rare) cases when the tenant’s lease pre-dates the landlord’s mortgage. It also appears that Nevada is considering additional protections for innocent renters.

Here’s the problem:  legal notices are served to the owner, not the property itself, until the foreclosure is complete. That means the person living in the property might not know anything is wrong until the bank’s representatives show up with a new set of locks for the front door!  Often, the renter will get just a few days notice.  Another twist on the problem is a scam where an unscrupulous “landlord” leases out a random vacant property to someone who thinks they are getting a great deal on a rental. And it is a great deal, until the real owner (usually the bank) shows up.

So what can you do?

First, arrange your rental through a licensed property manager.  Property managers in Nevada are real estate agents — Realtors — who have gone through additional training and have an additional certification to manage rental properties.  The first thing these managers do is make sure the property in question is actually owned by the person who says they own it, and that it is not in foreclosure.

Second, if you don’t know the status of your rented house or condo and you live in Clark County NV, visit the Clark County Website and select “property lookup” from “online services.” Search for your address.  The search will give you the property’s APN or parcel number, which is how the county keeps track of individual properties for tax and recording purposes. From here you can verify the owner, and such.  Use your computer’s “copy” function on the APN, and go to the Clark County Recorder’s website. Select “Search Records”, and then choose “Advanced Search.”  Enter the APN where it says “ParcelNum”, remove all the dashes from the number you pasted, and click on the “Detail Data” button below.  If the most recent entry is something like “breach” or “notice of trustee sale” or “notice of default”, you have a problem and need to call your landlord immediately. Unless there’s a really good answer, start planning to move.

And one more thing,  just because the landlord is in default doesn’t mean you can stop paying the rent.

Although I don’t normally handle rentals except under very special circumstances, I will happily recommend a colleague who does upon request.

As of yesterday, there were 16,124 single family residences available in the Las Vegas Valley. An additional 4457 condos and townhomes were for sale.  This number is just a little higher than last week, but we seem to be holding stable near 16,000 single family homes — and it’s a huge improvement since the first of the year!

Roughly 34% of those houses were short sales, and another 29% were bank owned.

There were almost 6700 homes available for under $110 per square foot; over 2200 of them were under $80 per square foot.  While some of these need some serious TLC, many are in pretty good shape.

Feel free to contact me if you need to know more.