Las Vegas Real Estate Sales

Moving

“A Smooth Sea Never Made a Skilled Mariner” – English Proverb

How fitting to see the above proverb for an advertisement when clicking on Forbes to read the latest article from Forbes — “Where U.S. Home Sales Are Rising” where Las Vegas Real Estate makes center stage for a good reason.

It’s been quite some time since Las Vegas real estate made a national news article with positive news.. the seas have certainly been rough and for the full time Las Vegas real estate agents that have survived, it’s certainly made all of us Full Time Las Vegas Real Estate agents much more skilled.

In the Forbes Article, it mentions that Home Sales in Las Vegas are up 15% because of distressed sellers. From the Article:

The reason? Motivated sellers–those in distress or foreclosure–or banks with too many homes on the books are slashing asking prices in order to unload their properties.

Somewhat true but not entirely. Home sales can’t go up without buyers buying. We can’t have a sale on one of our Las Vegas homes for sale unless we have buyers. The slashed prices for Las Vegas Real Estate are why the buyers are back. If you don’t price the homes to sell.. they don’t sell. For any real estate market (or market for that matter) you have to have a seller AND a Buyer.

From Forbes:

That means buyers are getting deals and hastening Las Vegas’ recovery. In fact, buyers are eating up inventory fast enough that the discounts offered by motivated sellers are tightening as supply contracts.

Not entirely true concerning the discounts. Discounts offered are tightening up because prices have dropped to where Las Vegas Real Estate is extremely affordable again for buyers to buy – without Government bailout programs. The skilled mariners are going to tell you that Government programs have had little to Zero effect on Las Vegas real estate. It’s all about the price now that Las Vegas home values are returning to values before the giant pool of money pushed Las Vegas real estate prices to levels they probably should have never seen under normal circumstances.

Whether a Las Vegas Home sells for $200,000 with no incentives or $215,000 with $15,000 in incentives to a buyer.. it’s still a $200,000 sale.

“We’re clearing out the bad news,” says Kiva Patten, a director at Merrill Lynch

Yes we are which is a great example of how you let the free market stay a free market. When you let the market work it’s own way out, it will take care of itself. While it is unfortunate for Las Vegas home sellers that got caught in the trap due to poor policies put in place by leaders (ignoring what was taking place) that were supposed to be looking out for the people and not the Banking/Financial Industry, it is what it is and will correct itself if you let it.

(I often have to shake my head when the very same people who were not looking out for us give bailout money to the very same people who got us here. It makes as much sense as giving an axe murderer an axe for Christmas.)

Before all of the bailout talk, Las Vegas real estate prices had already taken a big hit in prices as Buyers sat on the sidelines and Sellers would not budge on their prices. There are several real estate markets all across the United States today where Las Vegas was in 2007… doing nothing. I can certainly tell you what happens next because we’ve seen it here in Las Vegas.

Until you have buyers… the only thing printed up bailout money that the U.S. has to borrow is going to do is create inflation by weakening the dollar and that’s not a good thing for anybody.

Let the real estate market work it’s way out… Las Vegas Real Estate is proof that it works. Yes.. it’s painful but the alternative to borrowing a bunch of money to artificially inflate the economy has far more serious long term consequences. The bill has to be paid eventually and it’s better to pay it now before the interest makes it much, much worse.

Even if the bailout money saves some real estate markets by artificially keeping the prices high, people are still going to be selling out of these areas to move to our warm sunshine, no state income tax, low property taxes and VERY well priced Las Vegas real estate.

Paul Francis, CRS
Las Vegas Real Estate
702.592.3058