Recently I attended a breakfast meeting where a realtor with a couple dozen years of experience recounted from his vantage point how the Las Vegas housing market is doing.

The picture wasn’t necessarily optimistic.

Some of his stats:

• 9,200 foreclosures so far this year


• No more building permits will be pulled until October


• Builders are building only for qualified buyers under contract with a three to six month wait time for a new home


• 23,000 new homes are on the books, including condos and townhomes


• 25,338 resales are on the market; the average is 12 to 24,000, which usually represents a 9-month inventory


• 1,400 single family homes were sold last month, which is down from 7,000 last year


• The median single family home price has declined to around $305,000 and ‘experts’ think it will go down another 40% before the market turns around


• Experts say we have another 18 to 24 months of decline before a turn-around


• Growth in the community remains strong; we still have 5,000 to 6,000 new move-ins each month


• High-rises and custom homes, $2 million and up, are doing well; about 20 to 30 sales each month


• Commercial rental rates are steady at around 2.50 to 2.70 per square foot

Continue reading "Real estate by the numbers in Southern Nevada" »

Posted August 2, 2007 8:33 PM by Pete Codella | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This

We ran across an article recently that provided some arguments for renting instead of owning a home. In a market flooded with properties for sale, perhaps there’s some wisdom to this type of approach.

The article, from ManagingMoney.com, highlights the pros and cons to renting versus owning.

If you’re like most people who purchase a home with the intent to sell it after five or seven years, your monthly mortgage payments, about 80% of them according to the article, will go towards paying interest. Not exactly an equity building proposition.

And any equity you do build may be eaten up by repairs, taxes and the cost of selling the home.

If you find yourself in an uncertain employment situation, renting has even more positives, since it’s often a short-term situation and wouldn’t require selling a home in a market with 25,000 other homes for sale.

Continue reading "The benefits of renting in Las Vegas" »

Posted July 23, 2007 7:12 PM by Pete Codella | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This

We’ve all heard the talk: “Real estate in Las Vegas is tanking.”

My father in upstate New York commented that the majority of what he sees and reads about real estate development has a negative slant when it comes to Las Vegas.

We all know properties depreciated last year. And we all know that was after several years of rapid appreciation. This is an open market and adjustments are going to occur.

This week I heard one of my neighbors put their 2,900 square-foot, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom home on the market just to see how long it would take to sell while they considered moving and finding a new home. Two days and two walk-throughs later they had an offer, followed by another offer. In three days their home was sold. Now they’re scrambling to find somewhere else to live and will most likely close on the home with the new owners then rent it back from them for a period of time until they’re able to get everything arranged.

My point in relating this story: as colder temperatures make way for warmer weather, the sleepy Las Vegas Valley real estate market is beginning to awaken. This activity is one of many signs I see pointing to another upswing in 2007.

Of course time will tell who’s right and we all know no one can predict outcomes with complete accuracy. Still, a bet on Las Vegas real estate still has pretty good odds in my book.

Posted February 13, 2007 5:26 PM by Pete Codella | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email This

Welcome to 2007 and continued growth in the Las Vegas housing market. We began the year following a 24 percent drop in housing resales. But that was after consecutive year after year of double digit appreciation. Remember that perspective’s important, folks.

2006, with 41,771 existing homes sold, was still our valley’s third-best year on record. Not quite the alarming real estate trend some national publications would lead you to believe.

In addition, 2006 was the first year that a high-rise condo project was the number one-selling subdivision in Las Vegas. Can anyone else see the writing on the wall? Las Vegas is growing up, literally. We’re becoming more of an urban city. Since we’re surrounded by BLM land, it only makes sense that future development will go up or out to outlying areas.

The Residences at MGM had 979 closings in 2006 with an average price of $593,192. Sun City Anthem and Solera, both single family residence subdivisions, were second and third.

Continue reading "In Las Vegas, the sky’s not falling, it’s being purchased" »

Posted February 2, 2007 12:46 PM by Pete Codella | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This

Thank you Fortune magazine for letting us know that home prices in Las Vegas will tumble over the next few quarters. Anyone want to buy my home now?

The publication says we’ll see a 6.6 percent fall this year and an additional 8.1 percent decrease in home value in 2008.

For those of you who follow the annual listing, Las Vegas’ median home price was supposed to fall 8 to 9 percent last year. According to SalesTraq (as of Nov. 2006), last year’s median home price increased 12 percent. Compared to the first 11 months of 2005, the increase was more moderate at 5.5 percent.

I’m no economist and wouldn’t pretend to be…how boring. There are many economic indicators that seem to point to a steady home value in Las Vegas. Consider move-ins, jobs, an increase in visiting tourists and the healthy performance of our gaming industry, up 17 percent in 2006 over 2005 numbers.

While the magazine’s title conjures up images of fortune tellers, perhaps its crystal ball doesn’t see this desert valley so clearly.

Posted January 10, 2007 12:40 PM by Pete Codella | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This

Since its beginning as a federal government town in the early 1930s when construction of Boulder Dam (today?s Hoover Dam) was begun, Boulder City has strived in many ways to be the antithesis of Las Vegas. Some call BC The Anti-Las Vegas.

Why? From the outset, Boulder City prohibited bars, prostitution, and casinos. For that, construction workers had to trek to Las Vegas to quench their various thirsts.

Today, BC is still at it's visibly the curmudgeon when it comes to city growth and gated communities. The City Council recently banned the establishment of gated communities, somewhat of a surprise for Las Vegas developers. The application for a gated community was intended to keep interlopers out of an RV park.

Continue reading "Boulder City: understanding the maverick" »

Posted April 26, 2006 9:10 AM by Anthony Greno | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This

"Oh yes, we live in Green Saddle Ridge Desert Vista Pointe..." is the headline on one of the more on-target articles in the Las Vegas Sun in a long time, dealing in this instance with names of real estate developments in the valley.

"Judging by the names of Las Vegas communities, we live in Italian villas, or in the hills of Scotland, or in homes overlooking meadows, forests or the Pacific Ocean," ventures the piece by Brendan Buhler in the April 14 edition page one feature.

For a good horse laugh, tune in the feature and its revealing sidebar.

Posted April 14, 2006 9:55 AM by Anthony Greno | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This

"A Million Dollars Down" was the title of a best seller authored by legendary Beverly Hills Realtor Elaine Young that chronicled the trials, tribulations and rewards of being realtor to the stars. A couple of decades ago the title was sensational in that it typified the high-end nature of buying and selling homes in the 90210 ZIP code.

Skip now to Las Vegas, land of high rollers, luxury casino resorts and restaurants, and we now have the onset of a new phenomenon: The million-dollar home is now becoming commonplace. Luxury Homes of Las Vegas, one of the more high-end real estate brokers locally, supplied the March 21 Review-Journal with statistics to that effect.

In 2005, it seems, 642 homes with a price tag of more than $1 million were sold, versus 21 in 2001. Sales of homes priced at more than $2 million totaled 112 last year, compared with six in 2001. And sales of residential properties costing more than $3 million rose to 41 as against one in 2001.

Continue reading "Million-dollar homes said now commonplace in Las Vegas" »

Posted March 21, 2006 1:04 PM by Anthony Greno | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This

Elected and appointed City of Las Vegas officials are pondering a proposal by a Phoenix-based developer to use cheap BLM land for the construction of rent-controlled apartments in Northwest Las Vegas.

Under the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, in effect since 1998, land can be sold to the city by the Bureau of Land Management at a cut-rate price. The city can turn around and sell the land at cost to a developer who would build rent-controlled housing on it.

That?s the crux on an agreement approved March 15 when the City Council granted Tapestry Group, a private nonprofit organization from Phoenix, an exclusive right to negotiate on two parcels of land, according to the March 20 Review-Journal.

One piece of land consists of 20 acres west of Floyd Lamb State Park, off Fort Apache Road, north of Highway 95. The second is 14 acres south of Summerlin Parkway near Tenaya Way. Each site would have about 240 units, the R-J reported.

Continue reading "Rent-controlled apartments for northwest Las Vegas?" »

Posted March 20, 2006 10:46 AM by Anthony Greno | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This

Vegas continues to be an anomaly when it comes to real estate.

The number of single family homes on the market is 27% higher than it was at the end of February 2005 and there are 50% more condos for sale compared to a year ago.

About half of the inventory is selling about every 100 days. Most Las Vegas home owners are remaining firm on their asking price and willing to ride out the time it takes to find a buyer.

Even bank-owned and corporate housing prices have remained steady instead of following the typical law of supply and demand logic which suggests reduced pricing.

This means home bargains are particularly difficult to find.

Sellers who want to move their property faster than the predicted 100 to 120 days will need to reduce their asking price to create a deal too good to pass up.

Buyers searching for great deals should have their financing in place so when they do find the right place they can snatch it up quickly.

Posted March 6, 2006 10:58 AM by Betty Archambault | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This

Considering the booming building craze in Las Vegas, you�d think every general contractor, construction worker, building engineer, architect and their families would be headed here to soak up their portion of the pot 'o gold and Vegas sun.

And perhaps those professionals and skilled workers are headed to Vegas, one of the 8,000 new move-ins each month.

But consider this: with the expansion of the Las Vegas valley - freeway construction, new home construction and office and industrial property construction, not to mention high rise condo construction - there aren't enough skilled professionals west of the Mississippi to build even half of what's proposed.

Continue reading "The perfect gig: being a contractor in Vegas" »

Posted January 31, 2006 11:20 AM by Pete Codella | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This