In order to understand how we got to where we are today, we have to look back over the last couple of years. The real estate market enjoyed unprecedented growth across the country, especially in large urban areas. Unfortunately, this growth was built on the shaky foundation of sub prime lending which did collapse or as the media described it, the "real estate bubble burst".
RTTNEWS.COM had an article about a study conducted by Radar Logic Inc., a real estate data company. The New York based company tracked foreclosures across several large cities in the US. From January 2008 to October 2008, during which time foreclosure sales nearly tripled, home prices plummeted. According to the data provided by Radar Logic, Detroit, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Paradise Valley, San Diego and Seattle saw their largest month to month declines in home prices since they began tracking data in January of 2000.
A side effect of the flood of bank owned properties has been the reduction of home prices. As a result, home sales are up 15% from the prior year. In Las Vegas, the latest figures show that bank owned properties represent 75% of all sales, up from roughly 64% in October of 2008 (data provided by Radar Logic).
Despite the slowing of the Las Vegas economy, people are still moving to the valley. An analysis of moving requests conducted by Relocation.com shows that Las Vegas retained its top spot for people looking to make a long distance move in cities with more than 1 million residents. One of the major draws of the Las Vegas real estate market was inexpensive housing (when compared to nearby markets, like Southern California). With such a huge inventory of homes for sale, prices have dropped below historic market value.
What does all this mean for the market? For one thing, all of this activity is helping to speed up recovery. As more properties are bought up, the discounts being offered by banks and new home builders will start to decline.
"There's a pretty active housing market, it's simply at a lower-priced inventory," says Michael Feder, chief executive of Radar Logic. "And there are now bidding wars taking place over homes in foreclosure." Some buyers have been waiting for prices to stop falling and in some areas of the valley they already have.
Sources:
- rttnews.com
- relocation.com
- Forbes.com/realestate/2009/01/12/cities-ten-realestate-forbeslife-cx_mw_0112realestate.html
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Buying investment property in las Vegas
Is 52000.00 for a three bedroom condo on durango drive in Northwest las Vegas a good investment to rent after HOA fees taxes insurance and normal maintenance. Can it make cash flow and appreciate in value over the next five years ?
Condo
Sent you an email.
Las Vegas Real Estate market and short sales.
Just to update the facts, over the past 6 months over 93% of all resale closings have been REO (bank owned) and another 4-5% have been short sales. As a Las Vegas Realtor, I have seen first hand what is happenning to people who fell victim to the sub prime lenders and the phony loans that they were sold.
Other Reasons the Bubble Burst for the Market
Let's not forget those builders who also contributed to the housing bust. Yes mortgage hanky panky (just like corporate book cooking) contributes to it. I'm voicing the opinion that the Homebuilding Industry built very cheap houses - low quality. I've never seen so many sites on the web complaining about these homebuilders. It's an epidemic. Lemons, Lemons and more lemons, Las Vegas has not missed out on these poorly constructed homes. These builders should be ashamed not a very good testimonial... Bruce Karatz was more interested in his own gain manipulating stocks for himself and his directors...
Las Vegas Market
Yeah, Las Vegas, San Diego, Riverside, Phoenix and the other over built cities have taken the brunt of this "bubble burst". Foreclosures represent a majority of the sales going on right now in most markets, I hope that eventually changes so that home prices stabilize...I guess they could just stabilize really low. If something isn't done to reduce the amount of people underwater on their homes, I think we'll see foreclosures remain at these levels for years to come.
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