Reducing Las Vegas Foreclosures

from happening in the First Place

It’s even obvious to the out of town real estate investors that pop into Las Vegas as we take them from property to property in what once were highly desirable neighborhoods with meticulously landscaped yards. Las Vegas Homes that have been foreclosed on or are in the foreclosure process and have been abandoned. Old phone books and leaflets piling up and littering the front entry, trees and shrubbery dying, no trespassing warnings stuck to the garage doors and even piles of leave behinds piled up at the curb for the next garbage haul as somebody else vacates their home to move on.

“There’s one that looks like a foreclosure - is that one available for sale?” I’ll check the status on the property and see where it is in the process I often reply.

At this point I can’t even count how many I’ve seen or checked into. I can’t even count how many times I’ve asked in my mind if it was even necessary to put up the tacky “Bank Owned” or “Foreclosure Home” riders on the real estate signs in neighborhoods where homes easily sold for over $500,000 at one time. Like it’s not obvious that the home is a foreclosure in the first place or it’s a special find for somebody who might just be driving down the street. Geez… we only have over 7,400 Foreclosures currently available for sale on the Las Vegas MLS right now.

My New job seems to have become the cleanup guy. Yep.. that’s me picking up the phone books that were delivered a couple of months ago and putting them inside the house or picking up after the obvious signs of abandonment for Bank Owned Real Estate listing agents that have not checked up on the house in a month or two. Strangely, it seems to have become just another day in a Las Vegas neighborhood…

Las Vegas Short Sales

Every Las Vegas real estate agent seems to want the bank’s business for listing the foreclosures for sale and I certainly can’t blame them. They are priced to sell and it’s probably safe to say that over 75% of the requests I receive from buyers is for a Las Vegas foreclosure. However.. Represent a buyer or or two for these Las Vegas Bank Owned Homes and you come to sense that they want to play by their own rules with questionable practices that any ethical Las Vegas real estate agent would question. Baiting potential buyers with ridiculously low prices that they won’t accept in the first place,  Buyer pays for the CC&R’s, utilities are not turned on for proper inspections, put in your highest and best offer, etc.. etc..

Personally, I prefer listing Las Vegas Short Salesfor sale. I don’t know if it’s because it’s more of a challenge, we have a system set up for Las Vegas Short Sales or if it’s because of the gratitude we receive from Las Vegas homeowners relieved to get out from being buried in debt and moving on the right way. Perhaps it’s the fact that the homeowners we do help out still have pride in their neighborhood, pride in their home and I don’t have to pick up old phone books.

It’s probably a combination of all the above. One thing they all seem to have in common though is just genuinely nice people caught up in an unfortunate situation that’s extremely complicated to understand. The lending practices were just not normal and the real estate appreciation it created was not normal either.

Our Las Vegas short sales listed for sale are for the most part in great condition (in far better shape then most of the Las Vegas foreclosures I’ve seen) and while dealing with the loss negotiators for the banks certainly requires patience with all parties involved in such a transaction, in the long run I think it’s just an overall more positive experience for all parties involved.

For Las Vegas Home Sellers - Don’t be Embarrassed to do a Short Sale

I don’t think anybody wants to walk from their Las Vegas Home and just let it go to foreclosure without trying to do something. But.. the conditioning and programming that has been put into people’s minds over the years creates a feeling of embarrassment for many.

Despite an obvious hardship due to tough economic times, I’ve come across Las Vegas Homeowners who have waited too long doing nothing while draining their savings accounts to make it to the next mortgage payment with feelings of despair. Property management companies further add to this by offering to rent out homes until “the real estate market rebounds and prices go back up” as the solution for not being able to sell homes for what is owed on the home. Meanwhile… the homeowner comes out of pocket each and every month several hundred dollars a month waiting for real estate prices to reach back to the artificial levels created at the peak of the market. Some have waited six months plus and bleeding to death before the realization sets in that there is no quick solution… and there will be no quick solution.

The further distrust of everybody just seems to be compounded with stories of being told when they purchased their Las Vegas home that real estate is always a good investment, you better buy now while rates are low, Las Vegas is running out of land or their lender said they could just refinance after a year, etc..etc..

There is absolutely no reason to be embarrassed to list your home as a short sale.

The causes for the housing bubble are extremely complicated and hard to understand unless you’ve taken the time to go back and follow the procedures created. Cheap interest rates, lax lending, leveraging consumers to the max, everybody suddenly becoming Las Vegas real estate investment experts and even the “experts” often quoted in the dear old Las Vegas Review Journal got it wrong. And even for some of us that did sense this coming, the knowledge of just how bad the mortgage fraud was is kind of beyond disbelief. Once again… we come back to that soul factor which seems to be something that is non existent when the real estate market is great and people just jump into the industry just for the money.

Regardless of why you bought your Las Vegas Home in the first place, if you’ve come across a hardship, need to cut your expenses and need out of your Las Vegas home and owe more then what’s it worth… you are certainly not alone.

For Las Vegas Real Estate Buyers — DO NOT IGNORE Las Vegas Short Sales!

I know… I’ve seen it, potential Las Vegas real estate buyers have told me it, and I know Las Vegas real estate agents are saying it. “Don’t waste your time buying a Las Vegas short sale…”

And.. these are probably the same Las Vegas real estate agents that said appreciation rates for Las Vegas real estate are 20%+ a year, real estate always goes up in price, you need to buy that new Las Vegas home because it goes up in price every phase, A $500,000 home that could only be rented out for $1,400 a month is a good investment, etc.. etc..

I was reminded of the stigma concerning Las Vegas short sales a couple of days ago when a Las Vegas real estate agent and their clients called me from their car off of our sign in front of this great Summerlin Home we have for sale. (Other agent’s questions are in quotes..)

“What’s the Price?”

$215,000

“Is it a Short Sale?”

Yes — but we have very good records of starting it off at $250,000 which includes showings and tracked Internet viewings from Realtor.com and multiple other real estate Internet sites. My partner primarily works on working with the lenders for our Las Vegas short sales and she has a very good record of getting them closed. I do market reports for the zip code on a bi-weekly basis and report these results to the lender/investors so they make the right decisions in approving our Las Vegas short sales.

“My buyers don’t want to deal with a short sale.”

Do your buyers want a great Summerlin home at a great price? I can call the owner and have you take a look at the property within 5 minutes.

“No… my buyers just don’t want to deal with a short sale.”

So… that was pretty much the end of the conversation and even though the buyers could have at least taken a look at the property.. they did not. Once again.. I know there are over 7,400 Las Vegas Foreclosures for sale on the Las Vegas MLS but if it was me looking to buy in that particular Summerlin neighborhood… I would want to take a look at the house. Trust me… you are not inconveniencing the sellers looking to do the right thing and I know it’s easier to show the Summerlin Foreclosure homes.

So.. Why is there such a Stigma about buying a Short Sale?

• Real Estate Agents

Plain and simple. While the banks are no joy to work with due to their overworked staff, understanding how they work in the first place is the precise reason why some real estate agents know (or don’t know) what they are doing with Las Vegas short sales in the first place. The person working the file in Virginia has pretty much zero clue of what’s actually going on for a particular Las Vegas home unless we know how to communicate that to them. That’s what we do.

The proper interviewing process of the Las Vegas homeowner that is facing a hardship has to take place in the first place. Much like qualifying a buyer, we have a set of questions before we’ll even tell a Las Vegas home seller to submit all of the paperwork needed in the first place. WE DO NOT take every Las Vegas short sale request. There has to be a hardship and this has to be documented before we’ll even put the home up for sale. We have a complete set of guidelines for this that we require before we even put the home up for sale.

Yes.. we turn down listings. Imagine that.

• Baiting Las Vegas Real Estate Buyers

MY Biggest Hangup. Baiting a buyer is putting a home up for sale at a ridiculously low price that the bank/investors will never approve of just to get offers in on it with the hope that it will be bid up on price to an acceptable number. Read some of the popular forums on what people think about this tactic and what it does to our industry in building credibility. Yep… once again ridiculous…

Keep in mind what I said to the real estate agent inquiring about our Summerlin Home for Sale and how we started at $250,000 and keeping track of all traffic to eventually reduce it down to $215,000.

We did the exact same thing for our other two approved Las Vegas short sales that will be closing in the next week. One was a North Las Vegas Home and the other was a Green Valley Home.

These Las Vegas Home Buyers Had Patience

I have to give sincere Kudos to the Las Vegas real estate agents that represented the buyers on these Las Vegas short sale deals. We priced them right… they called us and asked the right questions to see if we knew what we were doing in the first place … and their buyers ended up buying some great Las Vegas real estate at a fantastic price. Our sellers are thrilled that they can move on in life knowing they did the right thing and when they rebound… they’ll be able to buy a home a couple of years sooner then if they would have just let it go to foreclosure.

For Las Vegas Real Estate Investors

I mentioned about property management companies seeking out the business to rent out homes “until prices rebound”. Many of these same people are now contacting us to sell their Las Vegas homes with tenants already in place which equates to a fantastic opportunity for you. The tenants are already there, you get to do the due diligence and see them already living in the home and you have no down time that you would have if you bought a vacant bank owned home. Some of our Las Vegas short sales are an incredible opportunity for true Las Vegas real estate investors. Contact me for the newest one we will be putting up for sale next week in the 89052 zip code of Henderson with a dream tenant to be contacted right away when it comes up for sale.

My whole Particular point of this VERY long Las Vegas Real Estate Post…

Somebody contacted me a couple of days ago concerning doing a short sale and they were referred to me by somebody else. Before our meeting I did plenty of research on their property with a detailed Comparative Market Analysis and forwarded this to them including details on seller contribution costs that are not obvious on a regular comparative market analysis. During our meeting this particular person said something that will stick in my mind that I’ll never forget:

You Have a Ton of Passion for What you Do.

This particular person is in a real estate related industry who over the years has probably sat down with hundreds of real estate agents and that’s a great compliment.

Yes… we do have a ton of passion for what we do and the whole point of this blog post and the several that will follow is education and doing whatever it takes to keep our clients Las Vegas homes from becoming a foreclosure in the first place.

Because true Las Vegas real estate agents have passion…. and real estate agents with a soul are going to do everything they can to keep these homes from going into foreclosure in the first place…

If you are facing a hardship and the monthly mortgage is too much to continue handling and you’ve tried contacting your lender for a loan modification with no success, please contact us with the information below to see if we can help you with a short sale.

Paul Francis, CRS
Las Vegas Real Estate
702.592.3058

Las Vegas Real Estate Prices….

Ok… Let’s have some fun on this latest offer on a Summerlin Home we have for sale.

The Message: Tell the Bank we’ll offer $165,000 for the short sale you have listed for sale for $215,000.

This is on our property listed for sale in a prime area of Summerlin that you can view here –> Summerlin Home for Sale that is already listed for sale below market value.

My response…. If the bank would take $165,000 for this Summerlin Home I would buy it myself and you would have absolutely zero chance of buying it…..

I don’t mean to be rude but that request is a little hard to take seriously. Of course.. we will submit any offer requested to our sellers and the bank…. as long as you are able to come up with an earnest money deposit and can be qualified to buy in the first place.

Paul Francis, CRS
Las Vegas Real Estate
702.592.3058

Las Vegas Sun reports on 10%

Drop in Visitors to Las Vegas

Ok.. the news was not that good for visitor volume in Las Vegas for this past September in comparison to last September according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCA) but the big picture the Las Vegas Sun used (Click here for their story) sure did look good. Loads of cars packing the strip and swarms of people walking the strip.

When you take a closer look at the picture you’ll see Siegfried and Roy headlining at The Mirage and The Boardwalk Casino still open. Quite an old picture to say the least… Wishful thinking maybe?

While the numbers are certainly not as good as the previous record years of growth for Las Vegas.. I don’t think it would be very hard to show that they are better then the numbers that came out when the picture for that story was actually taken. In other words.. if you’ve lived in Las Vegas since 1992 like I have, you know what Las Vegas was and is really all about.

Here is a download from the LVCA where you can see the key Southern Nevada economic numbers for September by Clicking Here.

When you look over the gaming revenues for Las Vegas, they did not take as much of a hit in declines. For the majority of casinos, many departments are now relied on to be a profit center so it would be interesting to see what the actual declines were for Food and Beverage or the retail departments.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the national economy plays out as it continues it’s path to experience what Las Vegas has not so thoroughly enjoyed for the past year. What the massive City Center Las Vegas project will have on the numbers for this time next year can only be speculated on but if visitor volume numbers continue to decline, my prediction is that it means the older casinos in Las Vegas are going to suffer as the newer glam casinos start lowering prices. (Maybe we’ll see them ask for some bailout money too!)

Mesquite, NV visitor volume was down nearly 39%, gaming revenue down 27.9% and average daily room rates down 42.1%… OUCH!… Mesquite will certainly need some Federal Taxpayer Bailout money also…

Paul Francis, CRS
Las Vegas Real Estate
702.592.3058

Yikes! We all know the bad news concerning companies that took bad risks or are just plain out dinosaurs and are now paying the price. But today’s news of General Growth Properties facing the possibilities of Bankruptcy really hits home on just how bad it is out there.

The positive impact General Growth Properties has had on Las Vegas over the past decade is nothing short of remarkable and in my opinion is easily in the top 5 companies that have really moved Las Vegas into a more sophisticated era for Las Vegas residents.

In case you don’t know who General Growth Properties is, it’s the Chicago based REIT that is the Developer of Summerlin, Owns the Fashion Show mall and other significant real estate in Las Vegas. General Growth Properties is also the Developer of the Shops at Summerlin Centre retail/restaurant and entertainment venue that we’ve been waiting for since 2000. Unfortunately, this long awaited and highly anticipated development has been put on hold.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out and how it impacts a city that really does not need any more bad news. Unfortunately, even the quality companies are experiencing difficult times.

Paul Francis, CRS
Summerlin Real Estate
702.592.3058

Bad News for one of My

Favorite Condominium Projects

WaterView Tower in Chicago

I absolutely love Chicago except for the cold weather and the property taxes (and all of the taxes for that matter). Chicago is well known for communities.. something that could be improved on for Las Vegas when you ask anybody from Chicago. The most popular Master Planned Community in Las Vegas is developed by a REIT out of Chicago… go figure.

I was very dissapointed to see the latest casualty of the lending fallout hit my e-mail box for things taking place in Chicago that involved one of my favorite new condominium towers being built.. the Waterview Tower. Here is the news story that you can read by clicking here.

The Export-Import Bank has put the financing on hold until the U.S. economy improves and it sees “signs that there is a market for the condominiums,” says Zac Henson, CEO of the U.S. subsidiary of Beijing Construction Engineering Group Ltd., which was arranging the loan.

Ouch. If there is no demand seen for these beauties.. what is there a demand for?

I had the opportunity to visit this condominium sales center right when they broke ground and I’m going to tell you that the sales professionals (and office) was nothing less then top notch. The sales professionals there actually know what high rise condominium living is all about. This was not a sales office geared for tourists that might just be popping in off the street with brains easily saturated with get rich quick schemes… but actual people who have a desire to live there.

OK… I don’t want to say I have brains… but I certainly would have wanted to have a place there.

I went and sipped some freshly brewed Coffee with Dottie and spent a good hour or two going over the project. Incredible to say the least and I hope Dottie does well. She is an absolutely fantastic high rise condominium sales agent that Las Vegas high rise condominium sales agents could certainly learn a lot from.

You’ve got to get High rise condominium living to understand it in the first place… And when a project like this is having difficulty in an incredible city like Chicago.. things are not looking too good.

Paul Francis, CRS
Prudential Americana Group
Las Vegas Luxury Real Estate
702.592.3058

Is it too late?

I came across this report on CNBC news about Las Vegas real estate and the return of all the out of state investors looking to buy up cheap bank owned homes in Las Vegas since prices have gone down so much from all of the foreclosures. You can watch it by CLICKING HERE.

“Investors with Nerves of Steel” — too funny.

What was also funny about it is that I caught my car in the shot in front of the new homes being built at the beginning of the video being shot. These were in the guard gated golf course community of Rhodes Ranch (yes… I know my homes when I see them) and I was with an investor from Hawaii looking at a special being offered for a new Rhodes Ranch home that fell out of escrow. I even know the exact street when the camera was panning down down the row of built homes shortly afterwards.

(By the way… the $350,000 home that was once purchased for over $570,000 is in the Tournament Collection at Rhodes Ranch .)

Been there… done that… seen it… about a month before it made the news. And so has my investor from Hawaii… If you’ve ever read a Peter Lynch book on investing you know what I’m hinting about here and why my car was parked in front of some new homes being built in Las Vegas.

Paul Francis, CRS
Your Home for Las Vegas Real Estate
702.592.3058

Zillow Releases 3rd Quarter

Homeowners Survey

For the record… I can point out so many faults with online home evaluations that I can dedicate an entire blog to it. Once you’ve sold a 100+ Las Vegas homes then maybe the tech geeks will figure out why there should be a “For Entertainment Purposes Only” disclosure in big bold letters. Even Brilliant Geniuses out of MIT got it all wrong with their risk evaluation models for the big banks that created heavy duty credit default swapping in the tune of what will probably eventually end up being over a Trillion or two or three in losses. Human Emotions can’t be calculated silly rabbits. If they could, we’d all be dating super model billionaires with a simple how to book! 

Anyways… enough of the online valuation rant. Get a Real Las Vegas home evaluation with a Real Life experienced Las Vegas REALTOR at our Las Vegas Real Estate website. (Promotional consideration provided by Paul Francis of Prudential Americana Group )

Back to the Homeowners Survey and the whole point of this blog post which you can read by CLICKING HERE. Zillow has been doing these interesting surveys which are not based on numbers their computers scrape from bad information to put together more bad information.. but from actual respondents so it is certainly worth sharing with everybody.

From the Homeowners Survey

The results — kind of baffling. While the perception gap did narrow, still half of U.S. homeowners do not think their home’s value has declined over the past year. Specifically:

• 32% think their home’s value increased in the past 12 months
• 17% think their home’s value held steady
• 51% think their home’s value declined

Zillow further breaks it down by regions and that’s where it gets interesting in my opinion.

Kind of makes sense when you put it into relationship with what I did today. Back in March I did a Comparative Market Analysis for a Las Vegas Home owner who probably was not too happy when I came up with a $175,000 fair market value price for a home he paid $276,000 for. He decided to hold out and put it up for rent to wait for the prices to rebound. Yesterday he called for another evaluation to see if things have changed and it came up around $140,000. (When I say that.. it means I would not list it for more then $140,000 otherwise I’m wasting their time, our time and advertising dollars.)

I guess we’ll see what happens in six months. Any Predictions?

Paul Francis, CRS
Las Vegas Real Estate
702.592.3058

Southern Nevada Real Estate -

Where is it Going?

Ok.. I’m going to release one of my secret sources to get all of the great stats and trends when it comes to the economy of Southern Nevada… which like Nevada is heavily dependent on Las Vegas.

Where do Las Vegas Realtors® get those stats about people moving into Clark County, hotel occupancy rates, Airport visitor traffic, and new home permits? Either from the newspaper, sales managers, this Las Vegas Real Estate blog :) or for us long time Las Vegas residents and UNLV alumni, None other then the Center for Business and Economic Research Center at UNLV. Bob Potts is the Assistant Director of this very important department and releases great reports each and every month right to my e-mail. (Thanks Bob!)

Here is a shot of the latest report below and I’ll give you some commentary below. My Major at UNLV was in the world famous UNLV Hotel Management so economic indicators for Las Vegas have Always been extremely important to me. Please click on the picture for a full size image that is easier to read or simply contact me and I’ll e-mail you the PDF report.

Click to View Full Size

We don’t use the information and bend the truth to sell you something… we use the information to make important decisions regarding our clients Las Vegas real estate investments. 

So… let’s give some commentary on this and what it means to you.

New Residents in Southern Nevada - According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, 5,714 people turned in out of state drivers licenses in Clark County for a shiny new Nevada Drivers License. Many people erroneously use this number as a population increase for Las Vegas when in fact it is what I just stated. It does not account for people who have moved out of Southern Nevada aka Clark County and includes the cities of Mesquite, Boulder City, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Laughlin. In other words, it’s a gross collection of out of state drivers licenses turned in and NOT the net population increase. BUT… it’s still a very good positive increase, just not as good as some would like to make you think it is.

August Stats:

• A 1.7% increase over the last period.
• A 7% decline compared to this period last year.

While the percentage of new residents moving to Southern Nevada has decreased compared to last year, it’s still a rather impressive number. Real estate still has value when people want to move to a city and with all of the gloom and doom in the media, I would be very worried if I lived in a City that has not taken a hit in real estate prices (yet) where the population is decreasing and is heavily dependent on big government aka high property taxes. Luckily, Nevada government is small in comparison to other states/cities and while our state budget is having a hard time, that’s because we are far ahead in the correction process taking place. Hopefully I don’t have to explain to you that the prices for Las Vegas Homes have decreased dramatically from this time last year.

Total Employment for Southern Nevada:

• Increased .2% over last period.
• Unchanged from one year ago.

 Which leads us to:

Southern Nevada Unemployment Rate:

• 7.1%
• 4.4% Increase from the previous period
• A 42% increase from this period in comparison to last year.

Jobs have been cut and Jobs have been added in Clark County.

The decrease in revenues being felt have made their way to the unemployment rates as companies adjust to cut costs in order to survive. Looking at various other indicators for the year, I’d be more concerned if the higher unemployment numbers were not already here — because basically it would just mean they were coming.

However.. as the rest of the country begins to feel the effects of a Recession, there are indicators that will be very important to follow to help predict what is going to happen. Obviously, Las Vegas is heavily dependent on tourism and the following numbers eventually end up in the financials as number crunchers evaluate their quarterly performances and have to make decisions such as laying off employees or the recent announcement of MGM-Mirage executives not getting annual bonuses this year.

Some things to keep in mind concerning the ratio of the total employment rate and the unemployment rate is the opening of Palazzo this past January. In other words… total jobs were added and jobs have been taken away keeping the total employment rate flat. If it was not for the opening of Palazzo and some various other places such as Trump Las Vegas and Palms Place, it’s probably safe to say that the unemployment rate would be higher.

What are some of the other very important Indicators to the Las Vegas Economy?

• Visitor Volume - Down 4% in comparison to last year.
• Convention Attendance - Down 22%.
• Hotel/Motel Occupancy Rates - Down 3.2%
• Gaming Revenue - Down 9.4%

You obviously have to assume that with the decreases in visitor volume that revenues are going to be down also. Room rates, Food & Beverage Revenue and everything else that comes along when visitors visit Las Vegas. Think trickle down theory here because eventually some of that money ends up going to Joe the Plumber and when Joe the Plumber is not making money, he’s got to make tough decisions also.

For Las Vegas Real Estate Investors:

For the novice real estate investor, these numbers might seem confusing to comprehend. How can the vacancy rate go up that much while the rental rate has also increased? When you do a little due dilligence and check into various apartment complexes it’s pretty simple and this goes in the form of Free Rent specials. Move in today and get a free month’s rent. You’ll see the “Free Rent” banners in front of apartment complexes all across town so be careful when evaluating your rental indexes because we are even seeing specials for residential rentals which leads us to:

Existing Home Sales:

• A 48% Increase in relationship to this time last year.

If it was not for the pathetic number of sales that took place in August of 2007, this would be a very significant increase. But any experienced Las Vegas Real Estate agent could tell you all about August of 2007. August of 2008 did show a nice rebound after the price corrections took place and if you’ve followed this blog and read the August 2008 Report for Las Vegas Real Estate you’ll have a pretty good idea of what fueled this increase. Hint.. keep an eye on the number of rental homes in Las Vegas that are available for lease.

The Whole Point of This Post

I know it seems to be Gloom and Doom but the intention is not that. The intention is to show you important numbers from an unbiased source that you can see to make your own decisions in buying Las Vegas real estate. Buying Las Vegas real estate because of somebody else’s certainty that projects on the horizon such as City Center are going to change everything is dangerous when they don’t even know the important numbers such as visitor volume, unemployment rates, gaming revenues and how it all ties together for a healthy economy. (Or even distorting where the numbers for “new residents” is coming from.) 

Keep in mind the opening of Palazzo this past January and what has happened since. The unemployment rate has still gone up, real estate prices have still gone down and visitor volume has decreased even though we’ve added well over 4,000 hotel rooms to Las Vegas since August of 2007.

New projects such as City Center are certainly going to have an impact but that impact is probably in the form of keeping the Las Vegas economy from getting even worse — Not magically turning everything around to where Las Vegas real estate prices are going to return to their historical highs anytime soon. Making statements such as that is an obvious indicator of the failure to understand how real estate prices in Las Vegas got to where they did in the first place.

My point is to buy because it makes sense. Buy right to begin with and don’t let emotions take over thinking that Las Vegas is going to run out of Bank owned homes anytime soon. The latest number of Bank Owned Homes on the Las Vegas MLS for areas 101 - 606 (Las Vegas which includes Summerlin, North Las Vegas and Henderson) is now 6,585 bank owned homes currently available for sale. Obviously no decrease or slowdown with our historical tracking for the past year. Las Vegas Bank Owned Homes Report.

Thanks for reading and if you made it this far, you are probably far ahead of the game in making decisions that are not based on sales propaganda but buying or selling Las Vegas real estate because it’s right for you.

Paul Francis, CRS
Las Vegas Real Estate
702.592.3058

Red Rock Country Club Golf Course Homes For Sale

It’s such a simple little detail that goes into entering a Golf course Home for sale on the Las Vegas MLS that I’m surprised by how often it gets left out in the listing details.

I was reminded of this today after pulling up a search for Homes on the Golf Course for Red Rock Country Club homes for sale for one of our buyers.

A very important Requirement: On the Golf Course.

The beauty of the Las Vegas MLS is the sheer number of options we have to search for particular must haves in a particular community to help narrow down the number of homes available for sale.  Today, there are 99 homes currently available for sale in Red Rock Country Club. Obviously, this gets narrowed down as we add the simple criteria such as price, square footage, bedrooms, pool or no pool, etc..

And, for those of us that have actual experience in selling golf course homes in Las Vegas, we know about entering the “Golf Course Frontage” under lot description. We also know the impact that golf course frontage has on prices and premiums to expect — and also mistakes that are easy to make if you don’t understand this in helping to determine a fair market value for homes in golf course communities.

As stated, there are currently 99 homes for sale in Red Rock Country Club. Enter ”Golf Course Frontage” under Lot Description on our Las Vegas MLS search and it narrows it down to 47 Homes in Red Rock Country Club for Sale. Enter the rest of the criteria for our buyer and it narrows it down even further.

In our case and the price range our buyer is in along with other criteria… it narrows it down too much. Using “Golf Course Frontage” in the description came up with 5 results. As normal, I took the Golf Course Frontage description out to come up with more results and then went through each listing individually. This resulted in 10 that are actually on the golf course for sale that meet all of the other criteria.

I generally have to do this anytime I’m pinpointing a golf course community in Las Vegas and have been for years. We expect it but it really points out something else of concern when 50% of the properties available for sale on the golf course in Red Rock Country Club that meet all of the other criteria may not have been sent over for something that only takes a half second to enter.

We don’t want to waste a buyer’s time sending over properties that don’t meet their criteria so we have to go through individual listings to make sure we are not missing any potential deals. If you have a golf course home for sale in Las Vegas, just make sure that this important little detail is not overlooked because other agents might not be taking the time to go through each and every listing.

If I did not take the extra time for a problem that I know that exists to see if listings are indeed on the golf course - my buyer would only be looking at five of them right now instead of the 10 I sent over.

For sellers, this could be resulting in less showings and eventually a lower sales price.

(Maybe I should just have kept quiet about this for our buyers but something tells me that potential sellers reading this are going to pick the right agents to sell their Las Vegas golf course homes in the first place. ;))

Paul Francis, CRS
Red Rock Country Club Real Estate
702.592.3058

Banks Need to stop hitting

Snooze 

Plenty of news coming out concerning loan modifications by banks and this probably has more to do with real estate values tanking (and the attempts to keep them from falling further) then being nice. If you want to keep real estate values up, the best way is to keep people from being foreclosed on in the first place.

So.. modify the loans to make the payments affordable. The problem is… Las Vegas real estate values have already decreased significantly and it does not address the problem of people who paid too much to begin with due to the availability of these loans driving up the demand for real estate - resulting in inflated home prices. (In other words, if these loans were not made in the first place, home values would probably not have gone where they did in the first place.)

Countywide Settles $8.7 Billion Lawsuit - Mandatory Loan Modification Program to assist 400,000 homeowners.

“Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan today announced a ground-breaking $8.7 billion settlement in her predatory lending lawsuit against Countrywide, the nation’s largest mortgage lender and servicer. Madigan led the national settlement with California Attorney General Jerry Brown. Nine other states joined the settlement.”

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announces Settlement with Countrywide

Bank of America purchased Countrywide earlier this year and 11 states were involved in the lawsuit. Bank of Amierica has agreed to modify loans for nearly 400,000 customers in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Washington.

The mortgage aid includes revising customers’ payments so they don’t exceed 34 percent of income. Other options include reducing interest rates and adjusting principal so that borrowers don’t wind up actually losing equity under some payment plans.

Hope for Homeowners Launches

Hope for Homeowners Launches - The HOPE for Homeowners program will refinance mortgages for borrowers who are having difficulty making their payments, but can afford a new loan insured by HUD’s Federal Housing Administration (FHA). For more information on consumer facts and who is eligible, Click Here to Read More.

This is a volountary program for lenders to participate in and includes these key provisions:

• The holders of existing mortgage liens must waive all prepayment penalties and late payment fees.
• The existing first mortgage must accept the proceeds of the H4H loan as full settlement of all outstanding indebtedness.
• Existing subordinate lenders must release their outstanding mortgage liens.

You can Call 1 (800) 225-5342 for more information.

When all else fails and you need to do a Short Sale

If the above solution does not work for you and you have tried working with your lender for a loan modification due to a hardship and need to sell your Las Vegas real estate, you may have to do a short sale. Much like banks and the investment firms of Wall Street wanting somebody to come along (aka Taxpayers) to buy their non-performing assets so they can move on, you need somebody to come along and help you get out of your home. You owe more then it’s worth and you need the banks to agree to what we call a short sale to allow somebody else to buy the home at today’s market value.

So - with all of this money being supplied for all of this Hope, have the banks been helping themselves and Las Vegas Short Sellers who have found themselves in a current hardship and need out? As of right now, no.

For October, only 273 Las Vegas Short Sales closed escrow. There are currently 2,320 Las Vegas short sales in contract and 6,483 Las Vegas Homes (includes condominiums and townhomes) currently available for sale that are classified as a Las Vegas Short Sale.

There seems to be a lot of money being pumped into Hope and hopefully it helps people out for those that it applies to. However, banks need to do a little helping out of their own by streamlining the short sale process and being a little more receptive to people who have had a hardship in their lives and can’t afford any loan modification program.

In other words… let homeowners that have to sell their homes due to a harship or job transfer sell their homes before they go into foreclosure in the first place. There are plenty of people trying to do the right thing in the first place… Banks need to help them out too because it eventually ends up helping themselves.

Paul Francis, CRS
Las Vegas Real Estate
702.592.3058