Las Vegas Homes, Condos, Land and Commercial Real Estate Blog

Open letter to Sue Naumann, the president of Greater Las Vegas Realtor Association about the rampant lawlessness in Las Vegas foreclosure deals

Given that this is the last blog post I am planning to do about problems involved in Las Vegas foreclosure deals in particular and US in general, I am going to explain a few important points and get done with it for a while, there are other issues that I want to discuss.

Sue Naumann referred me to Irene Vogel, Chief Executive Officer of Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, I called her and she graciously offered to meet with me and Karen to discuss the issues that I have brought up in the open letter and other blog posts.

We had a great meeting with her and other executives in charge of the Las Vegas Association of Realtors and discussed the issues. She brought up many good points that I will write about below:

1: I have not been accurate at all about writing that “This means the failure is system-wide and no one has lifted a finger to correct it, otherwise the same problems would not be repeated for a year and a half”. This is not accurate and they have done their best to deal with issues as they have come up. These are very caring people who have been slammed with a new reality and are doing their best to deal with it. However these steps have not shown their effect yet. I look at results.

2: The practice of the same sub-agent or agent selling their own listings is no longer called “dual agency” in Nevada now, my mistake. But I stand by my words that this practice is hurting the Las Vegas real estate market.

3: I should have separated US from Las Vegas in writing that no one has lifted a finger to correct the situation. As it comes to our leaders in US or the news organizations, no one is discussing the problems that I have stated nationally. Although any private entity has the right to dispose of or liquidate their property as they wish, the same should not apply to taxpayer assisted banks.

4: The following questions should have NOT been directed to the president of GLVAR, however these questions have to be directed at those who are entrusted to make policies that govern these types of transactions and those who are directly affected by the foreclosure problems, which includes everyone. You can exchange the Las Vegas with any other city in US and the questions apply.

     What motivates these Las Vegas REO agents to cooperate with the buyer’s agents when they can make more money by selling their own listings?

     Who makes sure that all offers made to these Las Vegas foreclosure agents are passed to the bank?

     What motivates asset management companies to try to lose money by giving 500-600 listings to a single agent who can’t possibly manage them instead of giving 20 listings to 30 Realtors or 10 listings to 60 Realtors who can manage them effortlessly?

Other than these I standby what I wrote.

Why I decided to get involved:

Let me make a few points clear here. I am not a trouble maker, nor am I out to get anyone. Due to injuries that I suffered in an auto accident, I am disabled and in a great deal of pain on a daily basis and under constant care of Dr. Licata who is an osteopath. Without his help I wouldn’t be able to function. Winters, even in Las Vegas, are hard on me and I have not been well (under statement) for the last couple of month; however I will get better rapidly with warmer temperatures. I have all the troubles that I can handle; I am not looking for any more. By the way my health doesn’t affect our customers as Karen usually shows properties and not me.

The reason that I have decided to get involved in this matter is directly related to above. Karen and I moved to Las Vegas in 2003 from Omaha, Nebraska, were I was pretty much bedridden due to advanced arthritis from injuries, high humidity in the summer and very cold temperatures in the winter. I came to Las Vegas after not been able to work for several years and had no idea what I was going to do here. As it turned out the Las Vegas real estate market was good and I decided to give it a try and it worked. Name another city on earth were a 46 year old disabled immigrant who hasn’t worked for years can move to and have any hope of making a good living other than Las Vegas?  My living comes from Las Vegas and if one is not loyal to the city that feeds and shelters him, what is he/she loyal to. I believe that Las Vegas is under political and economic attack at this time. We are all suffering and people are losing their jobs and property values. At least where residential properties are concerned, prices are becoming unrealistically low. If this process is not slowed or stopped, many more lives will be ruined. I see it as a moral duty to do all I can possibly do to help.

My background is in engineering and I was a thesis short of obtaining my Master in electrical engineering. My strength is solving hard to solve problems. Las Vegas homes, condos, land and commercial real estate is on the pace to have 175,000-200,000 visits from more than 125,000 unique IPs in 2009, and this blog is easily one of the one top 50-75 real estate blog in the US. I did not know much about designing a web-site or blogging before I decided to do it and self thought it. One of the main reasons that I decided to design the web-site is that I didn’t do one real estate deal in 2007 to the third quarter of 2008 because I knew that the prices will drop significantly and did not want to make money at other’s expense. Now I see dark clouds gathering over a town that I truly care about. I have identified one of the biggest causes of this threat and it is how foreclosed properties are disposed of, and I wrote several blog posts about the matter and don’t see anyone else writing about this.

I may not be eloquent, nor have any allies to help me, but as I wrote, I feel it a moral duty to the city that is feeding and sheltering me to do what I can even though it may not be much, but that is no reason to be silent. If one doesn’t defend what he/she loves, what is worth defending? I understand that I run the risk of making powerful people mad at me but this is the risk well worth taking as the goal is worthy.

At the conclusion I will state the obvious one more time:

(Losses due to foreclosure problem)= (Money loaned on a foreclosed property)-(the net price of the sold property to the bank)

The higher these foreclosed properties sell for, the lower the losses by banks that have to be financed by taxpayers, less job losses, and quicker recovery. In order to get the most money for these foreclosures, they have to be marketed correctly, at the moment, just the opposite is true and it doesn’t have to be.

My question is; should banks which failed miserably at banking, which is their profession be trusted to market REO (bank owned) properties which they know nothing about?

As you can see, how these REOs or bank owned properties are marketed affects the prices and by extension the lives of anyone who is affected by the foreclosure problems. However, have you heard anyone else discuss this but me?

That is all for now.

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