Las Vegas, Nevada Real Estate Agent’s Las Vegas Homes, Condos, Land, Commercial Real Estate and Personal Blog

I will return to my series about the homes that are for sale in 89149 and the adverse effect that Las Vegas foreclosure homes and short sales have on the resale home pricing shortly.

 I have promised to analyze what happened at the big auction in Summerlin area which was advertised heavily and attended by hundreds of Las Vegas condo buyers.

 The only way to find out what the selling prices for these condos were is to do a manual search of Clark County records as these sales are not reflected in the Greater Las Vegas MLS. Needless to say a manual search of grant bargain deeds is tedious and time consuming, but due to a large number of foreclosure and short sale transactions, this is the only way to come up with correct comps for any property. Las Vegas MLS data is no longer sufficient because they don’t include real estate deals that don’t involve a Las Vegas Realtor.

The Adagio condo auction was held in Las Vegas in early February 2008 and I assumed that most of the condos that have closed escrow in March 2008 are those that were sold at the auction, since the deadline to close the deal was one month from acceptance of the offer by the sellers.

Before I talk about the auction prices, I would like to discuss the condos that were offered at the auction and how much they were selling for since May 2007.

The models that I discuss include the following:

A: 1344 square foot condominium conversion with 3 bedrooms two full baths, fireplace in the living room and a garage.

 B: 1204 square foot condominium conversion with 2 bedrooms, two full baths, fireplace in the living room and a garage.

C: 1074 square foot condominium conversion with 2 bedrooms two full baths, fireplace in the living room and a garage.

Adagio is a Las Vegas condo conversion community that was purchased for over $45 Million Dollars and was subsequently converted to condos and sold individually. Adagio has 42 buildings and 282 condominium units, the seller paid about $160,000 per condo unit and spent additional money for repairing the condos and painting them from top to bottom. Needless to say repainting the whole condominium made it impossible to an untrained person to find defects by just eyeballing the condos, and this didn’t help matters as these condominiums were sold as is. I have talked about this and other issues that concern buying a condominium from an auction as these condos are sold as is. Please note that when a property is sold as is, it doesn’t mean that you have to buy it as is, ask us how. The seller also had equipped these auction condos with brand new appliances.

More on the prices for these Summerlin area Las Vegas condos that were auctioned, in the in my next blog.

Related web-site links: getting the best deal for a Las Vegas condo, Buying Las Vegas condos for sale, Las Vegas residential real estate market news

Las Vegas foreclosed homes, short sales and resales, priced $300,000-$350,000 in 89149

Greater Las Vegas MLS shows 9 houses that are under contract for $300,000-$350,000 price range since Jan 1, 2008. Please note that the Las Vegas MLS does not include homes that have not sold by a Realtor in their statistics and the true number is higher. Las Vegas real estate market statistics that I provide in our site are much more accurate as they include foreclosures homes or those that are sold in an auction.

Three of the nine are 2 story 3730 square foot houses that were built by Beazer Homes, one of the major new home builders in Las Vegas. These homes where purchased in mid 2005 for about $525,000, were listed for sale in 2006 for about $600,000 and one actually sold for that amount. One seller got to flip his/her home and made a few thousand in profit, the other two got foreclosed on, along with our 2006 buyer. A few of these houses were listed in the $600,000 range as late as April 2007. Unrealistic pricing killed the Las Vegas real estate market last year, but this is not true at the moment. This is the underlying reason for the rebound in the real estate market and commercial properties will soon follow. A 4 bedroom, three and half bath, 3700 square foot home that is only three years old for less than $94 per square foot is a great deal, period.

Of the 16 homes that have closed escrow in 2008, 10 are foreclosures and short sales, 1 was corporate owned and the rest have been sold by private sellers. 7 of 16 have been on the market for less than a month; this is a significant percentage that attests to the rebounding residential real estate market in Las Vegas. Henderson, North Las Vegas, Summerlin and Green Valley and unincorporated Clark County which are witnessing a rise in the number of homes and condos transactions also.

Currently 37 homes are listed for sale in the Las Vegas MLS in 89149. 16 of these are bank owned homes or short sales, two are corporate owned and the rest are offered by private sellers. These homes were priced $88-$330 per square foot. The discrepancy in the pricing per square foot could be due to two factors. One is unreasonable pricing and the other is due to the lot size. Some of them that are sold or listed in 89149 are horse properties and have a big lot. Some of these North Las Vegas homes that sold for $165 and up have a .5 acre lot or larger, some even can be subdivided into two lots and the buyer can turn around and sell half or part of his/her lot to get cash back on the purchase.

What happens to the Las Vegas residential real estate market is anyone’s guess and depends on the number of foreclosures and short sales that are in the pipeline. But in three to 5 years whoever bought a 3700 square foot Las Vegas foreclosure home that is only three years old for under $350,000 will brag about his/her great deal.

Unfortunately the market snapshot is currently down, but I will add it tomorrow.

   There are currently over 25,000 homes and condos for sale in Las Vegas, but this number is misleading as many of these homes have no chance of selling at this time due to incorrect pricing for the current real estate market conditions. One can sell a bottle of water for 3 dollars but the greatest Las Vegas Realtor couldn’t sell a home when another house which is just like it and on the same street is priced for $20,000 less.

The other issue I would like to discuss is why the Las Vegas real estate market was dead last year and is starting to pick up now. The answer is that a significant percentage of owners have to sell their property now, and they happen to be banks. The other is that with every sale of a foreclosed home in Las Vegas, the prices for the neighborhood kept dropping over a two year period.

Talk about unreasonable pricing, one home that sold for $310,000 was listed for as high for $675,000 two years ago and sold for more than the asking price of $299,000. Another house that was purchased for $415,000 three years ago sold for $289,000. Prices on a few homes have dropped $80,000-$120,000 from their purchase price in 2004-2005. 4 out of 6 homes that closed escrow in 2008 were bank owned, 1 was sold at a Las Vegas foreclosure auction, 1 was corporate owned and the others were by private sellers.

A home does not have to be a foreclosure or short sale to sell in Las Vegas, regular houses can be sold if the price is right. Actually regular sales and short sales have many advantages over foreclosed homes and this is due to the fact that an owner should logically do his /her best in order to get the top price for their home, so at the minimum they keep the house presentable and if any minor repairs to the house are required, the owner will take care of them. But an owner who has lost his down payment and is being evicted from the house couldn’t care less about the house’s condition when they leave it. I have seen houses that were badly vandalized by their evicted owners. The other issue is the all important disclosures which private sellers have to provide to the buyer and banks don’t.

Las Vegas MLS shows 7 contingent sales. Two of these are in a golf community and all are short sales or foreclosures. Perspective Las Vegas home buyers should accept the fact that if they don’t buy a new home, the chances are that they will purchase a foreclosed or short sale home. Thus extra time should be allowed to conclude these types of real estate deals. The history of one home is particularly noteworthy. This a Christopher built home which fronts a golf course in Painted Desert Golf community. It was purchased for $282,000 in 1998 and was listed for sale on October 2006 for $495,000. The asking price for this home dropped to $470,000 shortly after and remained there until Dec 2007. After another 4 price drops this home went under contract for $299,000.

Now imagine what has happened in the last 6 months to justify the price drop of $170,000 in the last 6 months. Las Vegas real estate prices have dropped in the last 6 months, but I guarantee you that the price for a $470,000 have not dropped 36%. This N.W. Las Vegas golf home was hopelessly overpriced for the current market conditions as are probably over 75% of the properties that are listed for sale.

33 homes in 89149 are currently listed for sale in the Las Vegas MLS and three of these are foreclosed, 13 short sale homes and 2 brand new homes which are listed by Astoria homes which is a new homes builder in Las Vegas. These homes are priced competitively.

Click here for Las Vegas homes for sale $250,000-$350,000 in the zip code 89149 market snapshot . I have explained Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas homes market trends snapshot in the web-site.

Las Vegas homes priced between $200,000 and 250,000 in 89149 in Nort West

Greater Las Vegas MLS shows 70 sold homes in $200,000-$250,000 price range since Jan 1, 2008; the true number of sold houses are higher as some foreclosure are not sold by Las Vegas Realtors and are sold in foreclosure auctions. 15 out of the 70 have sold in less than 14 days on the market. Actually one of them sold twice in less than 4 months and they say the Las Vegas residential real estate market is dead.

The majority of these homes sold after a price drop of $25,000-$60,000 and a few houses sold quickly because they were priced right from the get go. 3 out of 15 homes actually sold for more than the asking price. Those who like to keep beating a dead horse, miss on great deals. A good deal is a good deal, no matter when or where. The price per square foot for many of these homes was in the $90 range, with the exception of a Painted Desert home and other similarly situated houses. The average price per square foot for these homes was in the $150 range.

Contingent or pending sales include a 2646 square foot two story home that was built in 2004 on the larger side and a one story, 3 bedrooms, 1700 square foot, 2005 house. Again, 16 out of 17 are bank owned homes or short sales. It is easy to see how Las Vegas foreclosures have affected the housing market as private sellers have a hard time to compete with (REOS) bank owned and short sale homes.

Of the 58 Las Vegas homes that are listed for sale in 89149, the vast majority are foreclosures and short sales. Short sales usually are priced less than foreclosures due to the fact that some Las Vegas Realtors set a low price for their listings, hoping that when they contact the bank with an offer, the ROE division will take them more seriously  to come back with a counter offer.

Doing this sends the buyer and his agent as well as the seller on a wild goose chase which normally ends in failure as the bank may not answer in a reasonable time. The perspective short sale buyer could miss on other opportunities. I have read stories about frustrated buyers who had not gotten an answer from the bank for two month or longer. That is why I advise my clients to make sure that the short sale is approved by the bank, these cut down on the bank response time.

I am adding a market snapshot to my posts since it gives you a great deal of information in one place. You can see how many homes have sold in the zip code in the last three months, how many homes are listed for sale, asking prices versus sold prices, how many days on the market and number homes that have sold for more than asking price, or less. Las Vegas MLS Market Snapshot also gives you satellite, map, hybrid and bird’s eye view of any home in Las Vegas coupled with school and community information. The only shortcoming of the market analysis is that it doesn’t take into account foreclosed or auctions homes that have not involved a realtor since it gets all its information from the Las Vegas MLS.

I have gone in to quite a bit of detail in this post in order to show that the Las Vegas real estate market is very local and market trends can vary wildly with price range, location, and amenities, and that the biggest factor in selling a house is correct pricing, no matter what market trends are. A house in 89149 sold twice in four months after all.

Related web-site links: Las Vegas homes and condos and commercial real estate for sale,  Getting the best deal for your Las Vegas home or condo, Buying Las Vegas resale homes for sale

89149 is located in North West Las Vegas, this area had one of the highest rate of commercial and residential real estate construction since 2002 which is still continuing. Residential properties are close to Centennial Shopping Center and other retail outlets.  I-95 and I-215 facilitate the residents commute to other parts of the Greater Las Vegas Valley.

89149 is one the hardest hit areas with foreclosures. Foreclosed homes and short sales abound. Currently, over 500 resale single family homes are listed for sale in Las Vegas MLS for the zip code 89149.

Homes under 150,000 in 89149, N.W. Las Vegas

A quick search of Las Vegas MLS yields about 12 homes that are priced under $150,000. Six out of 12 are already under contract. It should be noted that all these resales are either foreclosed houses or short sale homes.

Most of these homes have been built on or after 2005 and the original sale price for many of these homes was in $230,000 range. The current asking price shows a 36% price drop since 2005. Most of these homes are zero lot or have a small lot, have 3 bedrooms and 2-2.5 bath. I don’t see much more price drop for these homes; $145,000 price range is being met with resistance as 6 out of 12 homes are under contract.

Homes priced $150,000-$200,000 in 89149, N.W. Las Vegas

There are 67 homes that are listed for sale for $150,000-$200,000 and by far the best deals are offered by foreclosures and short sales. Having said this, all short sales and foreclosures are not equal. There are 4 listings for Twilight Walk Avenue; one is corporate owned at $124 per square foot, one is a regular resale at $123 per square foot and two short sale homes priced at $209 and $205 per square foot respectively. Other homes in the area are priced $90-$125 per square foot. The prices have dropped by about 38%-45% since 2005 and bargains abound.

I will start a series of blog posts which are dedicated to single Las Vegas homes and condos in different zip codes and areas in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson and unincorporated Clark County. Please note that Las Vegas real estate is dynamic and ever changing and keeping up with it requires constant research and vigilance.

    As I had written in my last post, I was even a little disappointed at the lack of sales for Loft 5 at the conclusion of my visit to Loft 5 on South Las Vegas Boulevard.Buyers would get a 1570 square foot well built luxury loft on the South Las Vegas Strip that is packed with amenities, easy access to I-15, The Strip, word class shopping and dining.  Two more casinos will be built on Las Vegas Boulevard and Saint Rose plus a number of other significant projects that is sure to benefit this area and help in future price appreciation.

Las Vegas Boulevard is recognized as one of the five best America’s streets along with Michigan Avenue in Chicago and it upsets me to see the price per square foot of luxury condos and lofts to be far less than an average flat or apartment in London or Paris. I am talking about location as I am discussing these projects as an investment because many buyers for these loft and condo projects are snow birds or investors.

The amenities and upgrades in these Las Vegas lofts include: Custom cabinets, sub zero refrigerator, Wolf appliances, 4 pools, 5 spas, fitness center, saunas, fire pits, limestone flooring in kitchen and baths and more.

Loft 5 has four basic models:

Loft A has two models. One is about 1638 square feet, 1 bed room, one loft and 2.5 baths and the other is a 1700 square foot 2 bed room, 2.5 bath loft. SalesTraq, which is like the MLS for new homes and condos for sale in Las Vegas shows the opening price for this model was $544,900 in June 2007 and a price increase to $571,900 and $578,000 as of February 2008, go figure! The builder is offering 10% off this price for buyer incentives which brings the price down to $514,000. The all important price per square foot is about $338/square foot.

Loft B has two models also: 1770 square foot, one bed room one loft with 2.5 baths for $553,000 and the 2 bed room 2.5 bath 1800 square foot models for $566,000. The price per square foot for these lofts after a 10% discount is about $312 and $314 respectively.

Penthouse C is the other model, this 1300 square foot 1 bed room 1.5 bath penthouse lofts is priced at about $515,000 after the 10% builder’s contribution to buyer’s closing costs, etc, price per square foot of $457.

Penthouse D lofts have two models. One is 1937 square foot and is priced at $733,000 after the builder discount. The price per square foot for these penthouse lofts are only $378. The other larger penthouse loft is 2409 square feet at $848,000 which brings the price per square foot to $352. Yes, Loft 5 offers a penthouse loft on the South Las Vegas for $352/square foot. This price was unimaginable a couple of years ago and will be gone in a few years.

So again, why is the builder not selling these Las Vegas luxury lofts briskly? The answer is resale condominiums, foreclosures and short sales condos and lofts in their own buildings or immediate area.

There are currently nine lofts, in Loft 5 listed for sale in the Greater Las Vegas MLS.

One 1638 square foot model A loft for $475,000 asking price or $275 per square foot.

Two 1340 square foot Penthouse lofts for the asking price of about $454,000 or $348 per square foot, this unit has a 500 square foot balcony.

Three 1823 square foot model B lofts which are listed for $479,000 or $263 per square foot, $499,000 or $274 per square foot and the last one is priced at $540,000 or $299 per square foot.

Two penthouse D lofts which are 1936 and 1963 square feet respectively are offered for sale for $669,000 and $709,000. The prices per square foot for these penthouse lofts in Loft 5 are $346 and $361.

It should be noted that none of these units are short sales or foreclosures as Loft 5 started selling in June 2007 and by that time the mortgage stuff had hit the fan. However it is easy to see how these units undercut the Loft 5 builder’s pricing.

For model A lofts the resale loft undercuts builder’s price by $39,000 and remember this an asking price with room for negations.

The resale 1340 square foot model C penthouse loft price is $60,000 below the builder’s price.

The cheapest 1823 resale model B loft undercuts the builder’s price by $87,000 and one of the 1936 square foot model D penthouse lofts is listed for $64,000 less than builder’s price.

Now, nine resale listings out of 270 units should not affect the builder that much, actually if I was the builder, I would buy back these lofts and keep my prices steady. The problem is that Loft 5 is not just competing with its own resale units; it has to compete with resale condominiums, REO (bank foreclosure) condos and short sales in other luxury condo communities in its immediate area such as Manhattan, Park Avenue and Boca Raton.

More on how Las Vegas foreclosures, short sales and resale condos affect new luxury condo projects in South Las Vegas Boulevard (Strip) particularly, and Greater Las Vegas area generally.

A note of caution for those who are waiting for an even worse real estate market in Las Vegas in order to find an even greater bargain than a penthouse loft in Las Vegas Loft 5 for a bargain price of less than $340 per square foot:

The last I checked Loft 5 has not moved to another location, it still is close to world class shopping and entertainment and their hotel like interior did not fall apart. The only reason these great lofts are not flying off the shelf is the current downward real estate pricing trend in Las Vegas.

 The only thing Loft 5’s builder did wrong is that his grand opening was in 2007 and not early 2004. Had the grand opening been in 2004 the seller could price their units at $500 plus per square foot, a buyer’s line would start forming by the gate 10 days prior to the grand opening and those who won a lottery to buy these lofts would come out of the sales office, beaming like a lottery winner. Like Mr. Greenspan said, the markets are greatly affected by faulty human nature.

I am not saying that any condo project in Las Vegas is in distress, but if one was, a mountain of money is sitting on the sidelines ready to snap up distressed projects or properties at fire sale prices and in bulk. Not that I have anything against those who have a mountain of money, actually, give me a call if you read this! If it comes to that, new money will come to own these properties and in turn, will want a chunk of profit for flipping them. The original builder’s or previous owner’s loss will be their gain and not yours. As a Chinese proverb states, be careful of what you wish for, you just might get it.

Related web-site links: getting the best deal for a Las Vegas condo, Las Vegas condos for sale, short sale condominiums, Las Vegas foreclosed condos, Buying Las Vegas condos for sale, Las Vegas residential real estate market news

  I have come to believe that Las Vegas real estate has entered an irrational depression period after celebrating with irrational exuberance for a few years. When Allen Greenspan speaks, I tape the interview or the speech and watch it over and over until my wife gets so tired of it that she erases it. Answering a reporter’s question about whether his job got easier with experience, his answer was a big NO, reasoning that economic conditions are dependent on human nature and that human nature is not only flawed, it had failed to improve during his tenure, so his job never got easier.The whole roller coaster ride in the Las Vegas real estate market can be attributed to flawed human nature as Mr. Greenspan has brilliantly observed. In the hot days of Las Vegas real estate, new home builders would raise prices on their new houses by 10 thousand dollars every other week and the buyer’s line would only get longer. When Beazer homes announced the grand opening for their community on Cliff Shadows in Northwest Las Vegas, lines of new home buyers formed 4 days prior to the grand opening and whoever won the lottery to purchase a new house would come out of the sales trailer, beaming like a lottery winner. Pulte, another Las Vegas new home builder raised the home price for one of their Summerlin communities by 25%-30%, or $200,000 overnight and still kept selling homes. Home buyers weren’t choosy at that time and would buy anything they could get their hands on.

Talk about irrational exuberance, these people were not buying a home, what they were really doing is more like buying Wall Street stock options, with all the risk and rewards involved in such transactions, except that they thought they were financing their purchase at historically low interest rates and with a much longer term than a stock trader can obtain.

What I am trying to say is that the reason for purchasing so many homes and condos in the Las Vegas area was that these buyers were blinded to all other factors in a home or condo transaction, except seeing an upward trend in Las Vegas home and condo pricing and hoped to make a quick buck by flipping a Las Vegas property and making a quick profit.

Well, it did not work out the way these buyers were hoping, and the foreclosure problem reared its ugly head and real estate pricings in Las Vegas, with the exception of a few areas, started a downward spiral trend. Low and behold the same faulty human nature has the public looking like a deer in the head lights and again all they can see is the downward trend in Las Vegas real estate pricing, forgetting the fundamentals, just like they did when Las Vegas real estate was on fire. Except that this time they suffer from irrational depression.

If a person exhibits great happiness for no reason and a short time later goes into depression, he/she would be diagnosed as bipolar and be given medication. Naturally the question to ask is, is the pubic bipolar?

My visit to Loft 5, re-enforced my belief that Las Vegas real estate pricing is no longer based on logic and fundamentals, just as it was in the run up phase. I was lucky enough to be guided on the tour of model lofts by the marketing director for Loft 5. She shared my frustration with the Las Vegas condo market trends as I believe that with their low pricing and an additional 10% contribution from the seller, these well built lofts with a great location to boot would be selling briskly. But then again, the public is hypnotized.

I will do the next blog post about the downward pricing pressure that foreclosed condos have been putting on the new condo builders pricing as the builders have to compete with other units in their buildings that have been foreclosed or are listed as short sales.

Related web-site links: Buying Las Vegas new condos for sale, getting the best deal for a Las Vegas condo, Las Vegas condos for sale, short sale condominiums, foreclosed condos, HUD homes and fixer-uppers

   The best place to get authoritative and correct answers about zoning, master plan, overlay zoning; setbacks and other land related questions in the State of Nevada are the Nevada government’s current planning departments, such as Clark County, City of Las Vegas, Henderson or North Las Vegas current planning departments. On every visit, the current planner has answered my question fully and graciously.

 These departments also serve as a barometer for how the Greater Las Vegas economy is performing. When the Las Vegas real estate was hot, I would have to wait for half an hour or much longer to get to the counter. Now, it takes a very short time to see the current planner, and I am their only customer at times.

This means that commercial real estate as well as residential real estate has slowed down in Las Vegas. This is how people who are in the trenches see what analyst will write about in a few months, the head line will be something like this “Commercial real estate construction has slowed down by whatever percent, this and that commercial real estate companies bit the dust and on and on”.

A side effect to this slow down is that a great number of entitled parcels of Las Vegas land are being offered for sale with big discounts.

What is significant besides the big discounts is the fact that these vacant land parcels are entitled. Entitling a parcel of land means that the seller has done everything that his/her current planner has ordered and has a site plan, elevation, setbacks, traffic studies and environmental impact reports, parking plan, etc. and then, has gotten his plan approved by the current planning department, and Clark County Commission if located in unincorporated Clark County or the City Council if in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas or Henderson.

Entitling a parcel of land is neither an easy process in Greater Las Vegas, nor is it cheap. Depending on the scope of the project, the seller has had to pay an architect, traffic engineer, a real estate attorney who specializes in zoning and master plans, permit fees, environmental impact study fees and much more. The buyer could be the beneficiary of special use permits  which where obtained by the seller that allow the new owner to exceed the allowable specs of the property, or to use the property for a higher zoning that is not allowed under the current zoning or master plan. Builders love entitled parcels of land as they know exactly what they can build on it and are able to start construction quickly, as I mentioned, getting a parcel of land, entitled is time consuming.

There is a down side to buying entitled land, the buyer is locked into the seller’s exterior architectural plan, but the interior can be changed. So you say, what if the buyer doesn’t like the seller’s architectural plan? Well, the buyer has to do everything from scratch.

 So what does the buyer gain? That depends on the seller having gained a special use permit to up-zone the parcel of land (for example from residential medium density R-3 to Urban Village U-V) or has gained a special use permit to exceed the allowable height of the building, etc.

Following is an example of a listing that is offered for sale in Las Vegas:

“Parcel can be used for almost any type of commercial use. Currently the parcel is zoned U-V (Urban Village) and has a special use permit in place which allows for a structure to be built up to 100′ tall. Conforming zone changes are M-D, M-1, and C-2. Seller is willing to help with zoning changes if required by Buyer. Seller is anxious …”. Source: Property Line.

As I have mentioned before, commercial real estate market trend lags residential real estate market by about one to one and half years, and commercial real estate market in now catching up with the residential sector.

We will have a large number of Las Vegas land for sale listings hit the market in coming months and the prices will go down further. Many sellers had to finance their purchase at a much higher interest rate, and shorter period than those who bought a home or condo in Vegas. In addition to the purchase price, these poor sellers have had to spend a great deal of money to get their parcel of land through the entitlement process. Most of these sellers fully intended to build their properties; however the credit crunch, coupled with lower land valuations in most locations in Greater Las Vegas Valley prevented them from financing their projects.

 Needless to say many, including multimillion dollar parcels of land will be foreclosed on in the future. This will provide investors with unprecedented opportunities to buy land at some of the most desirable locations in Las Vegas, Henderson, and North Las Vegas at bargain basement prices.  

I am not ashamed to admit my affection for the city I am happy to call home, the Great Las Vegas, but I try very hard to not let feelings affect my judgment. However this doesn’t mean that great deals are not in abundance, one has to know where to find them.

It is my sincere hope that commercial real estate in Las Vegas doesn’t over correct as residential real estate is, home and condo pricing in Las Vegas is starting to approach the levels before the run up in 2003.

 It’s my belief that Las Vegas price appreciation happened because Wall Street failed the investors, so they turned to speculating on real estate. The other factor was that Las Vegas real estate was undervalued at that time. Guess what, after 4 consecutive rate cuts by the FED, which is targeted to solely to benefit the Dow Jones and banks, Dow Jones is failing investors again and Las Vegas real estate is undervalued again.

So take a wild guess as to the future of Las Vegas real estate.

Oh, did I forget to mention that 30 billion dollars in investments will come to fruition in 2009-2012 and the whole investment is aimed at bringing super rich visitors (whales) to our town so they can spend their money here.

Related web-site pages: Las Vegas homes and condos market condition report, Las Vegas economic news, Las Vegas Commercial Real Estate News, Las Vegas Vacant land and commercial real estate for sale

   The first group to recognize Las Vegas as a good investment opportunity was the mob. For them, Las Vegas was not only a great money machine; it offered the added advantage of becoming the law rather than running from it. They were right and made a bundle, and then Wall Street bought out the mob, or at least our mayor say’s so, and made a lot of money. This caught the attention of another group, who are these new guys. Well, whenever Wall Street is in trouble, it goes to these guys to bail it out. An example would be Dubai Port World.

One such entity is Dubai Port World, which bailed out City Group. Last year, Dubai World invested $2.7 billion to gain a 50 percent interest in CityCenter and put $2.4 billion into MGM Mirage stock.

Australia-based Crown Ltd purchased Canary Casino for 1.8 Billion Dollar ($1,800,000,000) and a 20 percent stake in Fontainebleau on the Strip for $250 million, and a few tens of millions of dollars here and there.

Harcourt Developments of Ireland has committed $800 million in construction financing for Sullivan Square, a 16-acre mixed-use development near Durango Drive and the Las Vegas Beltway.

Tamares Group of Lichtenstein, is the largest private land holder downtown after acquiring a 40-acre mixed-use site along with the Plaza hotel and Las Vegas Club. Down town Las Vegas land values have quadrupled in the last 4 years and are currently selling for about 8 million dollars per acre.

Since Japan can never be left out, Kazuo Okada, founder of Japanese Aruze Corp., owns a 20 percent share of Wynn Resorts.

The above is only a small sample of 30 billion dollars in Las Vegas commercial real estate which are already finished or will be finished in 3-4 years.

The great expansion of Las Vegas was the result of 15 billion dollars in Las Vegas real estate investments from 1986-2001. Compare this with 30 billion dollars in 3-5 years and you will start to see the big picture.

Las Vegas real estate is being sold at fire sale prices due to the financing and mortgage crunch in the United States. So I’ll say again, if you have a few million dollars sitting in the bank and doing nothing for you, CALL ME ASAP, or you will wish you did. All I am trying to do is to save you a great deal of sadness and regret in the future.

Don’t forget, Google was offered to a now extinct search engine boss for one million dollars and he refused, think about how feels now. Call me. lol

Related web site pages: Buying condos for sale in Las Vegas, Nevada, investment commercial real estate for sale in Las Vegas, Nevada,  Las Vegas new homes for sale, Las Vegas Commercial Real Estate News, Las Vegas economic news

    My wife Karen and I decided to attend the Realtor preview grand opening of Woodbridge at Coronado Ranch. American West Sales had thrown a very nice party for Realtors and besides the model homes; the main attraction was Richard Lee, vice president of American Title in Las Vegas. He gave a great presentation which I will write about later.Woodbridge is a bit north of Blue Diamond Road and sits near Rainbow. American West has about 11 new homes projects in the Coronado Ranch and Highland Ranch Area. The new models are truly beautiful and very highly upgraded. The models consist of:

The Benjamin, 3536 square feet, 5 Bed rooms and a game room starting from $485,500

The Gabrielle, 3500 square feet, 6 Bed rooms optional den/study starting from $495,000

The Alexander, 3435 square feet, 4 Bed rooms, game room/library starting from $475,500

The Elizabeth, 4039 square feet, 4 bed room, study, Game room starting from $505,500

The Nathaniel, 4770 square feet, 5 bed room, Game room 3 story with elevator, starting from $565,500

In my opinion new home builders in Las Vegas went through a period of building what I call boxy houses. When Las Vegas real estate caught fire, builders couldn’t build homes fast enough to keep up with demand, so they built flat floors and surrounded it with flat walls, as the buyers couldn’t care less at the time. My home is a boxy house.

Presently the same doesn’t apply and builders are starting back to building houses with character, at least that is what I call them. Las Vegas new home builders are building homes with a sunken living room, split level floors, better upgrades, etc.

I was surprised at the fact that American West decided to build three out of five models in 3400-3550, although these models look completely different, having three models of about the same square footage surprised me.

I got a huge kick out of the elevator in the Nathaniel and thought it was a great selling point for those who don’t care about claiming two set of stairs to get from the first floor to the third.

However this is a testament that high density residential real estate has arrived in Las Vegas as it is much cheaper to build a tri level house and put an elevator in it than to build the same home on two floors. As the building foot print for a two story home will consume more of the lot and it is much cheaper to build vertically rather than horizontally.

Even though residential land prices have dropped in Las Vegas and will keep dropping for a while, the days of cheap land prices and large lots in Las Vegas are over.

Related Web-site links: Getting the best deal for your Las Vegas home or condo, Buying Las Vegas new homes for sale, Las Vegas homes and condos and investment properties for sale, ,  Getting the best deal for your Las Vegas home or condo

Foreclosure or bank repo auctions are becoming increasingly popular in Las Vegas and can offer a great opportunity to get a bargain if bidders do their research prior to attending the auction and know how to bid at an auction. A bit of luck is needed also.

More than 300 bank repo homes and condos where auctioned in REDC’s Foreclosure Auction in Las Vegas. How many sold is unknown and will not be announced by the auction company. The only way to find out how many of these homes and condos sold at the auction is to check on them individually at Clark County.  

We have added pages to our web-site, Las Vegas Homes, condos and commercial real estate about these real estate auctions, including a page about what happens at a real estate foreclosure auction,  why people buy from a Las Vegas real estate auction and what could defeat them and How we prepare our customers for a real estate auction. Since these pages cover a lot of the issues which can affect a buyer at a real estate foreclosure auction, I am only going to analyze a home that to my surprise didn’t sell at the auction, and discuss pricing at the foreclosure auction be it a home, condo or commercial properties. The trick is to come up with a correct price for the property.

The home I want to discuss is 2804 Kinknockie, which is located in the southern part of Anthem in Henderson. This 2066 square foot, 2 story building was originally listed for 444,000 in 11/06 and has had successive price drops since then. The last asking price was $329,000 in 3/08; this house is no longer listed in the Greater Las Vegas MLS.

The highest bid at the auction for this property was $240,000 and to my amazement it did not sell. This could be due to three factors:

1: There was no high bid. I believe that there was a good bid on this property.

2: The high bidder did not qualify for a loan as pre-qualifying was not required prior to this Las Vegas foreclosure auction, all that was required was a $5,000 cashier check.

3: The bank didn’t accept the high bid. This may look reasonable due to the asking price at the time of the foreclosure auction.

I will analyze the pricing and why the bank should have accepted the high bid in the next post.

Related Web-site pages: Las Vegas Foreclosure or Bank Repo Homes and Condos Auction Bus Tour,  Las Vegas Foreclosure Homes and Condos Real Estate Sniper Bus Tour Process, Las Vegas, Nevada Homes and Condos for Sale Short Sales, Foreclosures, HUD Homes and Fixer-uppers,

It is a fact of life that there are more than 15,000 Realtors and real estate agents in Greater Las Vegas and that unless one is at the top of this profession; doors are closed to him/her.

My plan for creating the Las Vegas homes, condos and commercial real estate web-site had two goals. One was to teach perspective Las Vegas real estate buyers the fundamentals of doing a real estate transaction and the other was to reach the top of search engine result pages so it can be viewed by many, as I chose this method for our marketing program.

The web-site, blog and forum are only a start and my plan is to expand it to include other information that I can’t legally provide, such as legal advice or information that only a CPA can provide. The problem is to get these people to work with me and to donate their advice to my clients.

Google’s business plan consists of selling advertisement based on the key word search, and I decided to use the same principals to find partners. Needless to say, there are many real estate attorneys and CPA’s in Las Vegas and each would like to have their name seen online but this is not easy.

The other problem is that the public doesn’t realize what it doesn’t know when it comes to real estate transactions, most are not willing to learn, and then they get foreclosed on.

Las Vegas Real Estate Sniper Bus Tour, our foreclosure and auction homes and condos bus tour

A bus is a tool and tools can be used to better something or be used to cause harm. A knife in the hand a surgeon could heal a patient that got there because he was stabbed by another knife.

So what to do with our Las Vegas Real Estate Sniper bus tour?

The idea of a foreclosure bus tour started in Stockton, California and has caught fire since. The guy that came up with the idea freely admits that it is a gimmick to get customers.

Any Las Vegas, Henderson, or North Las Vegas Realtor can take buyers on a tour of foreclosure homes in Las Vegas that match their criteria, you don’t need a foreclosure bus tour for this, actually this method could be better since it is tailored to the customer’s need.

So what can a buyer gain by going on a foreclosure bus tour? Why should I be even attempting a real estate bus tour in Las Vegas?

Following issues had to be considered:

1: We don’t want to charge for the bus tour and these tours are not cheap to conduct.

2: We don’t want to conduct blind tours, and by that I mean that the tour must be tailored to our customers needs. There is no point in showing bus tour attendees properties that they don’t want or can afford.

3: We want to offer more than a bus tour; our goal is to educate buyers and sellers.

Our Solution

A foreclosure bus tour can give an incentive to buyers and sellers in Las Vegas to attend a mortgage financing and real estate buying class. The class would cover issues concerning buying foreclosure homes or condos, such as waiving the required disclosures, Las Vegas real estate market trends, different mortgage packages, first time home buyer’s assistance and how to harness the full power of the Las Vegas Homes, Condos and Commercial Real estate. Las Vegas homes or condos sellers should attend this class to find out what the buyer’s are looking for and also gain an understanding about pricing and market trends in their area.

We will be offering these classes with no strings attached

Our goal is to prevent any more disastrous transactions for anyone who chooses to attend the class. Here is where the web-site and Real Estate Sniper Bus Tour come in handy. No real estate agent has the power to get a real estate lawyer, an escrow agent and a mortgage officer to teach every single one of his/her customers about the issues that will be discussed in our class, for free. The web-site and bus tour make this possible and we are currently in negotiations to arrange this class.

At the conclusion of the class, those who would like to attend our bus tour can register for our free foreclosure bus tour. Investors who are versed in real estate deals do not need to attend this class; however a proof of financial capability to purchase a home or condo is required.

Anyone who would like to attend the bus tour will have a period of time to prepare for the bus tour and we will be able to arrange the bus tour based on their needs. We will not be conducting a blind tour.

I have added the pages that discuss our foreclosure bus tour to the web-site and you can find them below.

Related Web-site pages: Las Vegas Foreclosure or Bank Repo Homes and Condos Auction Bus Tour,  Las Vegas Foreclosure Homes and Condos Real Estate Sniper Bus Tour Process, Las Vegas, Nevada Homes and Condos for Sale Short Sales, Foreclosures, HUD Homes and Fixer-uppers,  Las Vegas Foreclosure or Bank Repo Homes or Condos Auction , How we prepare our customers for a real estate auction.

   As you may have noticed I don’t blog often, I respect my reader’s time and don’t like to waste it with mundane stuff. At any rate, the web-site and the web log take a great deal of my time and effort, they don’t come cheap or easy.  For example: I spent over 16 hours of my time in the last Saturday and Monday’s Las Vegas foreclosure home and condo auctions, spent three days to prepare for the auction and have been analyzing the results for the last two days with one more day to go, so I can do a series of 2-4 blogs and a couple of pages for the web-site about the foreclosure auctions. As I have mentioned before, I have been hurt in an auto accident and have good days and bad days, but in the best of days, sitting on a portable chair at the auction for hours hurts me badly, but I tough it out since I have to compete with young and able bodied competition on even terms and I love to compete.

Unfortunately some of my young and able competitors don’t like to play on an even field and choose to advance the easy way, by cheating. One could gain search engine rankings in two ways, work for it, which I did, or find high ranking web-sites or blogs and copy their content to your site.

I was surprised to find out that another Las Vegas Realtor is stealing my blog posts and publishing them on his web-site. What he is doing is, he cuts the title to my blog and copies it to his and then copies the body of the articles, strips the links that point back to my blog site and then publishes them. On some posts he adds the following

“RSS auto Inserter used. We have no control over this content. The content belongs wholy to the owner!” This should be linked to my site except that he removes the link. There is no mention of whom the owner is or a link back to my blog. Our friend can’t spell wholly correctly either.

You can see the stolen blog post on his site here. offender-site ( I have removed the link here)  and my original post here Issues about buying Las Vegas, Nevada new high-rise and mid-rise condos.

He is showing my stolen blog posts as his on his home page, you can see it here ( I have removed the link) . He is even offering a subscriber feed to my blog posts that he is publishing on his site.

How this works is that as soon as I publish a blog post, it gets published on his site and will be e-mailed to his subscribers as his articles.

Not only is this plagiarism, as far as the all important search engines are concerned, the issue of duplicate content comes up. Search engine are not detective agencies and don’t investigate which post is original, so each post is given half the credit and ranking. He is not only stealing my words, thoughts and research, he is stealing my search engine ranking for which I have worked thousands of hours in the last 14 months. Additionally, it is not right that I would give up my weekend, attend auctions and work for a week to publish a good post while this gentleman does whatever rocking Realtors do and then steals my post in less than 2 minutes.

What I decided to do about this:

My first inclination was to destroy this guy and I could do it in one hour. I was going to put his name, web-site address and company in the title of this blog and post here and a few more places, so when someone wants to check him out prior to doing business for him, they see this post on top of the search result pages. He could do nothing about it because of the work I have done, I can get any phrase or keyword to rank on top of the search result pages and this guy can’t. But I have experienced so much pain due to my accident that I refuse to harm any living being and unfortunately this guy is one. So instead of punishing him, I decided to pray for him that the GOOD LORD give him a chance to pause and reflect about his life and guide him to use his talents to help his fellow human beings and not take advantage of them or hurt them.

I have not used his name, company or website name here on purpose. He is in control of the pages that I have published the links to, in this post; only he can break these links by deleting the pages, not me. If he deletes all posts that are stolen from me and others, he can remain anonymous and no one will know who he was. If he decides to keep mine or other’s posts, then I will do what my first inclination dictated and will come down on him like a ton of bricks.

I never considered stealing fun, but getting caught is a bitch for sure.

May the GOOD LORD bless us all

This weblog is a part of Las Vegas new homes, condos and commercial real estate for sale and has been copy righted since 2006, publishing any part of this web-log or the web-site without author’s permission is forbidden.

PS: Within minutes of publishing this blog I received a couple of e-mails from our friend’s web master that went on to tell me that the links on my posts that were published were striped automatically and I know for a fact that is not true and that they were removed manually. She then went on threatening me with legal action and destroying my search engine ranking through SEO tricks. Bad, bad mistake! Here is an excerpt:

“I do apologise about this but the rss bot makes mistakes and i will remove every blog post that belongs to you straight away.

You could of asked before making any deflamitory remarks as this is also illegal. Had the act been of Jonathan and had the act been not automated then maybe you had a legal stand point. But as the system was automated and you were broadcasting a feed and Jonathan had nothing to do with this your blog post becomes cause for liable and defamation of character. Please retract your statment from your blog and i will remove the automated content that was placed into Jonathans blog by accident I am very sorry about this this situation.

Also please understand I build websites for a living and Do SEO there are many ways to destroy the competition and stealing someone’s content is not the way. Many black hat SEO tricks can be used to totally get you banned from Google of course I would never do this but if you write such things about certain other people you may find your site under attack.”

My reply follows:

Back links to my site were removed manually and I can prove it, you got caught. Now that you have threatened me, deal with consequences. If anything whatever happens to my site or rankings I will deal with you and your customer through legal means. You are forbidden from accessing my web-site or blog or from e-mailing me.

She finally saw the light and decided to act properly and e-mailed me this:

“Look am very sorry and I did not threaten you really. I just want to apologies for the misunderstanding and i have removed the offending content from the site. If you wish to sue someone then you have to sue me as i am cupable not Jonathan.

If you require any information about me and my company for such a process then please contact me once again i am very sorry and there was in no way any threat intended i do not deal like that and you have worked very hard for what you have and what you have acheived.

The problem with all text based messages is there is no internation so it is hard to convey sincerity really i am truely sorry and  i have delt with it sorry Laurien”

As I have mentioned I am not here to harm anyone, I accept the apology and will remove the link to this guys home page, the other link is broken and will serve as a reminder to others who would think about stealing from me.

This guy is off the hook and shall remain anonymous.

  I provide a searchable Las Vegas new home, condos, high-rise condominiums and town homes listings database in my web-site for visitors. Doing so raises a few issues which I can’t fix. One issue is that a new home database is as good as the data in it and new home or condo builders in Las Vegas don’t update their prices or construction status frequently. For example the asking prices for Manhattan West condos in South Las Vegas are stated at over $432 per square foot; however their new asking prices are much less now.

Another issue is builders who have listings in the Las Vegas new homes and condos data base while the project is effectively shut down. An example of this is Il Pico luxury condominiums in Lake Las Vegas. Their office is closed and I didn’t see any construction activity on site.

Third: Incentives that are offered by the Las Vegas new homes and condo builders on their properties do not show in the listings that the buyers can search on my site. Only real estate agents can access that information, but as I mentioned that information can be old also. What I do is I call the sales office of the project and ask them for updated information. This is the only way to obtain accurate information for these new properties.

These problems make comparison shopping difficult for Las Vegas new houses or condominium buyers who conduct their search through my site. This is only one of many reasons that I have asked the visitors to my site to search the new homes and condos database to only get an idea about pricing vs. location and leave picking the right property to us.

Related web-site links: Las Vegas new homes, condos and commercial real estate for sale, ,  Getting the best deal for your Las Vegas home or condo, Buying Las Vegas new homes for sale

 I have posted the changes to the web-site, and decided to start the home page as follows:We educate our customers to be real estate snipers, not road kill collecting foreclosure bait. One shot, one winning deal. We are changing the way Las Vegas real estate deals are done. Follow our road map to insure you success in your Las Vegas real estate transaction and read about how we run our team to optimally serve our clients .

In old days all a real estate investor (owner occupied home or condos are investments too) had to do was to buy real estate and let it sit for a while and collect a handsome reward when the selling time came. That was true in the last millennium, not now. Those who haven’t learned this are only one millennium behind.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. People still attempt to buy real estate on their own and expect a good result. Are people insane then?

The main point that I have tried to get across to the real estate buyers or sellers, is that hundreds of thousands have failed at what you are trying to do, and paid for it in horrific ways, like homelessness. So why follow their bankrupt practices, isn’t that insane?

I believe that most real estate buyers and sellers are ignorant of the issues that can affect the outcome of their real estate deal. Thus I have tried to explain their choices and issues which they have to pause and reflect about.

I have also added the Las Vegas, Nevada Homes, Condos and Commercial Real Estate Auctions since bank repo or foreclosure real estate auctions are becoming increasingly popular in Las Vegas. As the foreclosed properties increase in Las Vegas, these auctions offer great opportunities to get bargains. The problem is that buying a home or condo is treated as a single act by buyers. They go and register at the auction company’s sales office. Get a pre-qualification from whomever the auction company or the seller is working with; see a few listings and go bid at the auction where they compare their bid amount to a meaningless number which is stated as previously valued and win or not.

This is the wrong way to attend or bid at Las Vegas real estate auctions. I explain the right way in how we prepare our customers for Las Vegas, homes, condos and commercial real estate auctions. It is a great waste to not take advantage of the current real estate market trends in Las Vegas. The trick is that one has to know what he/she is doing. I thought that the foreclosure problem could subside a bit by now, it doesn’t look that way. The problem is that this foreclosure thing is snowballing and is starting to do damage to other housing related segments. As I have stated in Why Las Vegas real estate’s future in three to five years is so bright, you need to wear shades at some point all these foreclosure properties will be absorbed by new money from investors and then watch out. I truly believe that investors will look at these days like a lost dream.

Related web-site links: Buying condos for sale in Las Vegas, Nevada,  homes, condos and commercial real estate for sale in Las Vegas, Nevada,  Las Vegas new homes for sale.