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February 25, 2011
It’s that time again: time for Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. Here’s the facts and useful information you and your Realtor must know before touring, making an offer, or preparing a listing this weekend. You can see me tell you about the figures live on Getting REAL (Estate) in Vegas on the Vegas Video Network today at 1 PM. This afternoon we will be talking about buying a short sale property. Need to know how a short sale works from the seller’s side? Catch this episode!
Summary: We’ve had another drop in available units, to 15779. The drop was in both distressed and non-distressed units, while contingent and pending units rose in both. It is worrisome that we have almost 400 single family homes available for less than $50,000. Sales prices seem to have fallen into a new range of roughly $110,000-$116,000. The number of rentals available continues to decline; can a rise in rent be far off?
Other Information: We’ve got a lot of good news for the Vegas economy today! A major analysis company reports that our recovery will “accelerate” in 2012. Nationally, Hotel Revenue per Available Room was up over 10%, and traffic to our local airport was up 5% in January. In addition, taxable sales in December jumped over 11%. Yesterday we also learned that the official population of Clark County grew to 1.95 million people in 2010.
Sales of new homes fell sharply in January, but sales of foreclosed homes jumped. This contributed to a price drop nationwide. There is increased inventory of available homes nationwide. Not only is there increased inventory and lower prices for today’s buyers, the interest rate on a 30 year mortgage has dropped to 4.95%.
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the FHA are reporting a combined record inventory of foreclosed homes, all of which need to be sold. While the average length of a foreclosure nationwide has stretched to 17 months, here are a couple of very interesting items on mortgage modifications and how likely Joe Average is to get one.
February 25, 2011
Thanks for dropping by to read Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. Here’s the facts and useful information you and your Realtor must know before touring, making an offer, or preparing a listing this weekend. You can see me tell you about the figures live on Getting REAL (Estate) in Vegas on the Vegas Video Network today at 1 PM. On today’s episode, we will be talking about the process of buying a bank owned property, and the “fix and flip” phenomenon.
Summary: The number of available listings dropped again to 15835. While one might think this was a side effect of the court ruling preventing most Bank of America foreclosures in Nevada, the number of foreclosed homes available did go up. The year-over-year rise in the number of listings available is quite remarkable. No wonder prices went down. The number of contingent and pending listings did jump to over 12,000 this week — hopefully a sign of future closed sales. Even better news: we had almost 2000 fewer contingent short sales than last February. Time on market for recently closed homes continues to go up; prices are continuing to slide. We have less than two months supply of rental housing available in the MLS: we need more investors so we can maintain a supply of affordable rentals.
Other Information: Las Vegas is using $10.4 million in federal dollars to help out one area in the Northwest: the plan is to buy and rehab 56 vacant homes; 40 will be sold and 16 maintained as low-income rental homes. For those keeping score, that comes to an average of $185,700 per home. A national real estate analyst says that the outlook for Vegas apartments is good.
Utah has joined Nevada in saying that Bank of America’s ReconTrust unit can’t legally foreclose in the state, but they’ve taken the matter to Federal court. It will be interesting to see how they rule. In an unrelated bankruptcy case, MERS has been found not to have standing to foreclose. The fact is that illegal foreclosures are going on all over the country. Thankfully, fewer people are behind on their mortgages, but foreclosures are still at record levels. Foreclosures did rise in Nevada.
For those of you who are really into the economics of housing, here’s an interesting article on why prices on new listings are down. Interest rates are back down to 5%. A controversy is brewing: CoreLogic has accused the NAR of inflating the number of homes it says have been sold; the NAR disagrees. Remember, I take all these figures from our local MLS — which is run by our local affiliate of the NAR. I cannot track every For Sale By Owner home, and I depend on closing statistics from the MLS and local title companies.
#96: Breaking Bread with Steve
February 16, 2011
This last week was a sad one for the VEGAS VIDEO NETWORK family. With the passing of Steve Dacri (who hosted “Behind the Curtain”), this episode of the Living in Las Vegas Podcast recounts Scott’s introduction to Steve. Show notes:
- Visit LASIK of Nevada (50% Off Premium LASIK + $200 more if you mention VVN)
- LiLV Stuff
- Listener Line: 206.312.0105
- Sign up for Email Alerts (form found on right side of our website)
- Get your questions answered: OnAirQ@LivingInLV.com
- Weather (69) / LiLV Pool (48 degrees and $500 later)
- VEGAS VIDEO NETWORK News: Let’s Bet! scorecard.
- Remembering Steve Dacri
- Steve Dacri Memorial: 2/20/11 5pm - Davis Funeral Home & Memorial Park (on Eastern)
- Listener Email: Wineries in Vegas
- They do what at the Fireside Lounge (at Peppermill)?
- Hot or Horrible: TJ’s Steakhouse (Hilton)
February 11, 2011
Welcome — or better yet, welcome back — to Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. This is what you and your Realtor must know before touring, making an offer, or preparing a listing this weekend. You can see me tell you about the figures live on Getting REAL (Estate) in Vegas on the Vegas Video Network today at 1 PM. Today, we talk about investing in rent homes in the Las Vegas Valley.
Summary: The number of available units has slid back under 16,000 to 15895. We’re continuing to see downward pricing pressure from foreclosed properties. We did have a rise in contingent and pending units about the same size as the decrease in available units! The number of contingent and pending short sales did jump this week; hopefully this is a one-time event rather than the beginning of a trend. There was also a jump in the number of new leases signed, probably a side effect of people moving after the holidays.
Other Information: For the first time in 10 months, interest rates on a 30 year fixed mortgage are over 5%. I will leave to the experts speculation about how high rates will go. One thing that will likely make rates go up is that the Treasury and the President — and some bank executives — want to find a way for the mortgage market to run without Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It seems likely that minimum down-payments will also go up (I consider this a good thing, even though it would reduce the number of potential buyers I have). Expect something solid by the end of the year. If it becomes harder to obtain a mortgage, prices are likely to go down because there will be fewer qualified buyers.
The official 4th quarter numbers are in, and it housing prices have become stable despite a 1.8% drop in December, which is in turn resulting in strong sales (even without a tax credit!). In addition, January saw a slower rate of “some” foreclosures. This is partly the aftermath of cleaning up foreclosure fraud. This is on top of overall delinquency declining in 2010 — remember, delinquency is what happens before the foreclosure begins, so it’s a leading indicator. Bank of America is trying to clean up its backlog of foreclosures and modifications with a new boss in charge of the mess. If you are behind or struggling to pay your mortgage, there are two must-read items this week: Dylan Ratigan on “Mortgage isn’t a Life Sentence”; and The Market Ticker on “Foreclosure-Related Scams.” In truth, he’s got a lot of good advice on avoiding fraud in general!
In local news, let’s start with a follow-up: the Hard Rock has avoided foreclosure. Our local economy is starting to come back, with 3.7% more visitors in 2010. And the Associated Press has noticed that when it comes to buying a home in Vegas, cash is king.
February 10, 2011
We’ve added an official Facebook Page for the VEGAS VIDEO NETWORK. The ever-so-easy-to-remember URL is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vegas-Video-Network/127567017310352
Because we’ve just launched, we would really appreciate your support by visiting the page and clicking the “LIKE” button.
Thanks!
#95: Returning to the Scene of the Crime
February 9, 2011
Interesting topics this week. . .one casino recovers most of the 1.5 million dollars stolen from it. Another is saved from public foreclosure in the nick of time. And more than half of all homes sold in Las Vegas were paid for in cash. In this episode of the Living in Las Vegas Podcast, Las Vegas locals Scott and Melissa wonder about the mental stability of a casino thief who returns to the scene of the crime (A LOT) and talk about money and casinos. Show notes:
- Visit LASIK of Nevada (50% Off Premium LASIK + $200 more if you mention VVN)
- LiLV Stuff
- Listener Line: 206.312.0105
- Sign up for Email Alerts (form found on right side of our website)
- Get your questions answered: OnAirQ@LivingInLV.com
- Weather (let’s talk about last Monday) / LiLV Pool (we killed it)
- VEGAS VIDEO NETWORK News: The Amazing Johnathan interview was great! Let’s Bet! launches its first episode.
- Melissa discovers a new drink (Pub Crawl, are you watching!?!)
- Melissa files Southwest from LAX to LAS. Her bags? Good question.
- Twitter chatter dies down
- Hard Rock Casino avoids foreclosure
- Bellagio thief caught
- Over 50% of existing homes sales: cash
- Station Casinos hires 1000
February 4, 2011
It’s time for Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. Here’s the critical data you must know before touring, making an offer, or preparing a listing this weekend. You can see me tell you about the figures live on Getting REAL (Estate) in Vegas on the Vegas Video Network today at 1 PM. On today’s show, we’ll be talking about local schools, and I will answer the number one question people ask when they come see me from out of town.
Summary: Available inventory dipped a few dozen to 16040. Over the last month, there has been an encouraging increase in the number of non-distressed properties for sale. The question remains: are these traditional sellers, or investors in the final stage of a “fix and flip”? The number of contingent and pending listings remains solid, and the number of sold properties was very strong this week — mostly because of month-end. Prices of both available and recently sold units dropped over 2% month-over-month. Closings of short sales strengthened, a good sign by any measure.
Other Information: This week, the rate on a 30 year mortgage rose to 4.81% — still levels that would have shocked us as low a year ago. CNBC did a very nice article this morning on what you can expect if you want to get a mortgage right now. Nor are these rates only for a new purchase: 46% of mortgage refinancings are “cash in” — people are willing to bring tens of thousands of dollars to the table to get those low rates (and perhaps get out of an adjustable rate mortgage).
Even though Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are reporting a small drop in delinquency rates, many people have already lost their homes and more will do so in the future. In fact, 1 in 5 mortgage modifications has resulted in a default on the new terms! One must wonder if the problem is the lender, the borrower, the program terms, or the economy.
The latest possible victim of foreclosure in Vegas is the Hard Rock Hotel, which claims that the attempt to foreclose is “without merit.” In unrelated local news, it turns out that Nevada is home to the largest share of illegal workers. This is surprising in light of our unemployment rate. Finally, local history buffs will want to check out this article on attempts to preserve the Paradise Palms neighborhood of Las Vegas (for the terminally curious, that’s in MLS area 301).
February 3, 2011
This is pretty cool news, y’all.
The Amazing Johnathan, the first Strip entertainer I insisted we see when we moved to Las Vegas, is going to be appearing LIVE on Awkward Silence.
What??! YES!
AJ (that’s what his friends call him) will find himself in a “No Holds Barred. No restrictions” interview with our host-with-the-most, Brian Mollica.
AJ will be on the FEBRUARY 3rd, 2011 Awkward Silence episode, which starts LIVE at 6PM (PST). If you’ve ever wanted to ask AJ a question (like, “where’s the best place to go bandana shopping?”), THIS IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO!
See you on Thursday night!
#94: The Professional Musician (2003 vs 2011)
February 2, 2011
One of the things that enamored Scott to Las Vegas when he and Melissa first moved here was that a musician could make a living, and do so without having to work a side job.
Now. . .fast forward eight years — it’s certainly much harder for musicians than it used to be, but there is a guy who has a formula that works, and we’ll talk about him on this episode of the Living in Las Vegas Podcast. Show notes.
- Visit LASIK of Nevada (50% Off Premium LASIK + $200 more if you mention VVN)
- LiLV Stuff
- Listener Line: 206.312.0105
- Sign up for Email Alerts (form found on right side of our website)
- Get your questions answered: OnAirQ@LivingInLV.com
- Weather (wrapping up palm trees blows) / LiLV Pool (still a death trap)
- VEGAS VIDEO NETWORK News: The Amazing Johnathan will appear LIVE on Awkward Silence this Thursday at 6PM
- Listener Email: Horseback Riding
- Zowie Bowie: Hip Hop? Big Band? HUGE Crowds!
- Does Anybody Really Care about all this Twitter nonsense?
