MGM CityCenter Views from Panorama Tower 2 condos

City Center -Aria Casino pool view from Panorama Tower 2

Vdara Condo Hotel, Aria Casino, Cosmopolitan and Bellagio from Panorama condos

Related web-site links: Buy Las Vegas high rise condos for sale

Some Las Vegas homes or condo buyers are NOT aware of the fact that a home or condominium seller only looks at the offers in terms of NET gain and pay no attention to the offer amount. To explain this I will discuss a hypothetical situation below:

A Las Vegas home for sale is priced at $200,000 and needs about $5,000 in repairs done, Las Vegas Realtors commissions are 6% and the buyer’s maximum amount allowed towards closing costs is 3.5%. Now the seller gets the following two offers:

Offer one: Is from a buyer who needs to finance his deal and offers $215,000, the buyer asks for the maximum $7,525 towards his closing costs and $5,000 seller contribution toward repairs. The net to the seller for this after deducting buyer closing costs and repairs and Realtors commission is $189,575. I am not including sellers closing costs as it remains constant for both offers.

Offer two: Is from a Las Vegas real estate cash investor at $202,000. Given that it doesn’t make sense to ask for closing costs or repair costs in a cash deal, the investor doesn’t ask for any. In this case the net to the seller is $189,880 and the seller will take the second cash offer in a heartbeat while the offer amount is $13,000 less than the first. The net for this offer is a bit more than the other but we have found that even if a cash offer nets less than the loan offer the banks will sometimes accept the cash offer over the loan because they can close a cash deal quicker and with less chance of falling out of escrow. If both offers needed financing the highest net would win.

Las Vegas homes or condominium buyers who have to finance their deal ask for seller contribution towards closing costs or repairs because they don’t have enough money to comfortably pay for them, this is not true for cash investors.

It doesn’t make sense for cash buyers to ask for closing costs or repairs because all that has to be done is to lower the offer amount by the desired number and submit a clean contract which has a much better chance of acceptance.

1: Las Vegas short sale home seller DOESN’T have to be behind in paying their mortgage.

2: No offer is needed to start the short sale process, listing a home or condo is enough. This will prevent ridiculously low asking prices so the listing agent would get an offer on the home before starting the short sale process.

3: The listing agent doesn’t have to waste a great deal of time trying to locate and open communication with an asset manager.

4: A short sale manager will contact the seller if necessary, the Realtor can be present when the short sale manger is interviewing the seller. This is awfully cool since the Realtor should be familiar with and bring up the issue of specific performance and try to get the seller out of hot water, if at all possible.

While I am on the specific performance issue, the asset manager said that he is not aware of anyone going after the short sale home seller for the first mortgage, but if a second mortgage is involved, it is sold to the type of people who have no conscience and would barbeque their own mother and eat her if there was any money in it. I am not kidding you.

5: If an offer is made on the property, the listing agent will e-mail the contract to the short sale manager which will review the contract and order and order an appraisal, NOT a BPO (broker price opinion). Unfortunately we run into low appraisals since if a home really appraises for $20,000 over the sale price the appraisal will come in at $1,000 over. Banks can obtain an appraisal from 150 mile radius of the property. Some appraisals in Las Vegas are done by appraisers in Bakersfield, California who are clueless. Wachovia will negotiate differences between their own appraisal and buyer’s appraisal that is mandated if the buyer has to obtain a loan.

6: It should take 6-10 days to obtain a bank approval for the short sale.

7: The Wachovia Short sale seller DOESN’T have to be an owner occupier. Las Vegas real estate investors are eligible to take advantage of the short sale process

8: If there is a second mortgage involved, Wachovia will try to settle the second mortgage with the lender. If a second mortgage can be settled they can close the deal in 45 days or less.

Related blog posts:

Foreclosure, Short Sale or Deed in Lieu? Which one will do less harm to your credit?

Foreclosure, Short Sale or Deed in Lieu? Which one will do less harm to your credit history? Part 2, Las Vegas short sales

Foreclosure, Short Sale or Deed in Lieu? Which one will do less harm to your credit?

Related Web-Site links:

Las Vegas short sale homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas foreclosed homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas homes or condos for sale

Why didn’t the mountains of foreclosure homes that real estate analysts kept foolishly predicting will hit Las Vegas housing market materialize?

1: Nevada mediation that is enforced by Nevada Supreme Court has slowed down foreclosure process

2: Federal Government pressure on the lenders and it is working (Attention Obama Bashers)

3: Bankruptcy: Takes time, ensures that lender can’t come after the owner for specific performance (lender suing owner for the difference between the sale price and mortgage owed on home)

4: Banks have finally realized that short selling Las Vegas homes saves them about 10% versus foreclosing on the home

5: Banks are finally starting to streamline the short sale process and make listing or making offers on short sales as painless as it can become

How do short sale homes affect Las Vegas housing market?

If selling a Las Vegas short sale can mimic a non-distressed traditional sale, then why should the bank severely undercut prices to attract buyers?

The only difference between a regular sale home and a short sale home is that one or more lenders are involved and should OK the deal.  If any seller contribution or repair demands are involved in the transaction, these should be allowed by the lender too, that is it.

The reason that we have avoided listing or making offers on Las Vegas short sale homes comes from the difficulty involved in dealing with the lenders.

If the bank has set policies to help conclude the short sale process and close escrow within 30-45 days and if I can find the asset manager with one phone call and have him deal with my seller in my presence then the short sale process is not much different from a regular sale.

Now the lender doesn’t have to market their homes at 10%-20% less than non-distressed regular homes in order to attract buyers and this will help stabilize our housing market.

Lastly: As I have repeatedly stated Las Vegas homes that can be financed with a FHA, VA or conventional mortgage will not see significant price cuts, especially homes that are priced below $100,000. If a Las Vegas home for sale needs financing through a Jumbo Loan, more troubles are ahead.

I will write about why we will list and show Wachovia bank short sales homes in Las Vegas next.

Related blog posts: Las Vegas homes for sale – Las Vegas real estate market 2010

Related Web-Site links:

Las Vegas short sale homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas foreclosed homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas homes or condos for sale

I have gone over the Las Vegas real estate market conditions for Las Vegas homes for sale for July-2010 and the reason that I picked July was that the tax credit had expired and would not significantly affect the results. If anything, July would be a bad month to report home sales in Greater Las Vegas, since home buyers who wanted to take advantage of the tax credit have already purchased their home.

While, most market reports about Las Vegas housing are based on the meaningless median price, I have tried to show that the home for sale market is not the same for all price ranges. See the market report for homes priced below $100,000 and luxury homes.  Sold prices for bank owned homes and short sales homes is at 105% of asking price for homes priced below $100,000 and if a buyer wants to buy a foreclosed homes in this price range, he/she has to compete with cash investors who can close the deal in less than 30 days. You can’t bring a plastic fork to a gun fight and expect to win; low balling offers in this price range will get you nowhere quickly.

The second issue that I have tried to show is that the market is not the same in every price range. Check out the sold price to asking price ratio for the more expensive homes, for example homes priced at $500,000-one million dollars. Foreclosed or bank owned homes that have sold in this price range have sold for more than 100% of asking price, while short sales have sold for about 92% of asking price and non-distressed homes for about 93% of asking price.

When a good Las Vegas Realtor makes an offer on a Las Vegas, Henderson or North Las Vegas home, he/she should take into account current market conditions by price range and type to have a good chance of success.

I do not see any significant price drops for homes that are priced below $200,000 based on today’s numbers with one caveat; at the moment investors are the driving force in the Las Vegas homes and condominiums market and these are a fickle bunch, one moment they are here and the next moment they are gone.

 Las Vegas real estate investors will not flee the Las Vegas housing market because it is a great investment opportunity as it provides good cash flow and excellent odds of good future appreciation as our housing market is about 17%-18% undervalued, but as long as our media is doing all it possibly can to scare the heck of them who know what will happen.

Where is the Las Vegas homes for sale market going?

I am happy to report that as far as I know 25,000-35,000 bank owned shadow inventory homes is DEAD, no one has brought it up since my blog series and subsequent declaration by Larry Murphy that put this number at 6,500 but fear mongering goes on unabated!

The next big wave is short sale homes; as lenders will try very hard to sell a home as a short sale before they foreclose on it and make the process palatable enough so that Realtors like me wouldn’t avoid them and it is starting to work.

The way that these banks are starting to deal with short sales will have a significant positive effect on the housing market and I will explain this next post.

I am reproducing the links for homes in all price ranges below so you can check yours.

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced 1 Million Dollars plus

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $500K-One Million

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $300,000-$400,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $200,000-$300,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $100,000-$200,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced below $100,000

Related Web-Site links

Las Vegas short sale homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas foreclosed or bank owned homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos for sale

This is the sixth article in the Las Vegas real estate market series that I am doing for August, 2010.

The inventory of multimillion dollar homes in Las Vegas is about 3.5 years and there is no need for the second table that I have had in previous blogs. Only one sold home was foreclosure or bank owned which is located in the exclusive Red Rock Country Club.  The foreclosing mortgage for this home was about three million dollars, asking price was 2.4 million and it sold for $100,000 less in 52 days. Red Rock Country Club is where the doctor who killed Michael Jackson used to live. His home was in the foreclosure process and it may show up in the MLS soon.

Now check out the difference with the one short sale home that sold in July. The short sale home was located in Seven Hills, which is adjacent to Henderson Executive Airport and Anthem. Asking price was 1.8 million and selling price was 1.3 million dollars which is 40% of the original price after being on the market for about two years.

Nine regular sale (non-distressed) homes sold in July for about 85% of asking price, two sold in less than 60 days and 4 in more than 120 days.

The inventory for million dollar plus homes is 8 months for foreclosed homes, 4.2 years for non-distressed traditional home sales and about 3 years for short sales.

This segment of the market will witness serious price cuts.

I will do a concluding blog in this series next.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City priced $1,000,000 plus.

Related Web-Site links

Las Vegas short sale homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas foreclosed or bank owned homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos for sale

This is the fifth article in the Las Vegas real estate market series that I am doing for August, 2010. Well, if you want bad news, it is easy to find it in this price range. The inventory of homes in this price range is about 14 months and yet again we have to break down these by type of home sale.

Foreclosure or bank owned inventory stands at 5.6 months. Only 5 foreclosed homes sold in July and 4 out of 5 closed escrow or sold in less than a month, three out of four were purchased for $16,000-57,000 higher than the asking price, one sold at the asking price and the last one sold for $28,000 below asking price. Short sale inventory for this price range is 12 months.

Non-distressed sales are selling for about 93% of asking prices and the inventory of these homes is 15 months.

Now this is the type of data that screams price reductions, not homes that are priced below $300,000. Foreclosed homes or short sales are NOT the main reason that this segment of market is in trouble, it is difficulty with getting a Jumbo loan to finance these.

Sold homes were obviously priced to sell and a significant number of these homes are not priced to sell. The average days on the market for homes priced $500K-1 Million is 245 days before it sells.

Future price reductions can be worked in the offer, that is 4 out 5 bank owned homes sold in less than 30 days because they were priced low enough that if prices in this range go down another 10%-15%, these buyers will be protected.

Lastly, even in this price range buyers can’t lowball the bank since 4 out of 5 sold for more than or equal to asking price.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City priced $500,000-1,000,000.

Check out the short sale homes, none were sold for more than asking price, the only one that sold in less than 60 days sold for $525,000 for about ten percent less than asking price. The biggest price reduction was for a home that was on the market for about 2.4 years, it sold about $200,000 less than asking price.

Double digit price drops in this range are not unreasonable, however bargains can be found.

Related Web-Site links and blog posts:

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $300,000-$400,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $200,000-$300,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $100,000-$200,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced below $100,000

Related Web-Site links

Las Vegas short sale homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas foreclosed or bank owned homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos for sale

This is the fourth article in the Las Vegas real estate market series that I am doing for August, 2010, and differences with lower priced homes is striking. While 55% of short sale homes sold within 30 days for homes priced below $100,000 and 33% closed escrow in 60 days plus, this is reversed for short sales in $300K-$400K price range since it took more than 60 days to close about 2/3 of these short sale homes.

Available inventory in this price range is 4.9 months, but let’s break down these numbers a bit. The bank owned home inventory for this price range is 1.7 months and about half sold within 30 days. Now let’s look at short sale inventory; it is 3.3 months and non-distressed sales inventory is 7.42 months.  Here  the ratio of foreclosed homes to total listings is 7.4% while 21% of sold homes are REPOS.

One needs to reflect a bit about the affect of foreclosures on the total market for this price range and 7% inventory will not greatly affect the total number. The reason that foreclosure home sales are 3 times the inventory is twofold. One is many of non-distressed sales inventory is overpriced and if one looked at the number that are really priced to sell is far below the numbers shown and the other is that about two thirds of short sale homes took more than 60 days to close escrow and many buyers don’t want to wait that long to get an answer from the bank.

Now, when news organization discuss price reductions, it will be for this price range and higher and this is due to the fact that getting a Jumbo loan is very difficult and requirements for down payment are as high as 40% and this doesn’t make sense since there is no sign that these homes are going to lose that much in value in the future.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City priced $300,000-400,000.

July sales for homes priced $300,000-$400,000 is shown in the table below. 417 homes have sold in this price range. 120 have been bank owned or Repo homes, 122 short sales and 175 were non-distressed traditional sales. As we go up in price the percentage of non-distressed sales increases.

 Future price cuts are more probable for this and higher range prices. Additionally, not too many buyers would make a decision to buy a home at this price range just because of the tax credit, so the impact of the tax credit in this price range and higher should not be statistically significant but the inability of the buyer to get a good loan with a low down payment is.

 Related Web-Site links and blog posts:

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $200,000-$300,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $100,000-$200,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced below $100,000

 Related Web-Site links

Buying short sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

Buying foreclosure or bank owned Las Vegas homes or condominiums

Buying non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

This is the third blog post in the Las Vegas real estate market series that I am doing for August, 2010 since the majority of homes that were bought due to the tax credit have been sold by June-30^th. There is a concern that July home sales are skewed since most home buyers have already purchased their home, so be it.

The table below shows the current inventory of homes that have sold for $200,000-$300,000 by type. The total inventory is 1577 and this represent 3.75 months of available inventory.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City.

July sales for homes priced $200,000-$300,000 is shown in the table below. 417 homes have sold in this price range. 120 have been bank owned or Repo homes, 122 short sales and 175 were non-distressed traditional sales. As we go up in price the percentage of non-distressed sales increases.

I f you look at the previous blog about Las Vegas homes sold for $100K-$200K you see that the ratio of sold prices to asking prices has gone down by 1%-2% and this is not significant. Only about 29% of sales are bank owned homes and this number will decrease as we go up in prices. Again these numbers are self explanatory. As I wrote before, the real estate market for Las Vegas homes for sale for up to $300,000 is lively and current numbers don’t support double digit drops in prices for the next 12 months. Now you see proof.

Related Web-Site links and blog posts:

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $100,000-$200,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced below $100,000

Related Web-Site links

Buying short sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

Buying foreclosure or bank owned Las Vegas homes or condominiums

Buying non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

Yesterday Karen and I were invited to a presentation by Richard Lee, Vice President of First American Title Company, that was conducted by Prospect Mortgage. Mr. Lee’s presentations are very interesting and well planned; he knows how to make a point. I don’t attend many presentations any longer due to the diminishing returns on my time but never fail to pick up really cool stuff from Mr. Lee.

Mr. Lee is very optimistic about the future of Las Vegas, as I am, and the new phrase he used is VEGASIZATION, and definitely NOT Manhattanization. He said that the best places to introduce a new product are Hong Kong and Las Vegas, not New York or Chicago and Las Vegas can highly profit from this as the economy recovers, and that recovery is certain due to historical precedence.

I personally think that Las Vegas became a tourist attraction because it offered the best bang for the buck for an average family to spend their vacation and things went wrong when those in power strayed from this. I believe that the future of Las Vegas should be general commercial and not tourist commercial and the way to go is types of Bazaars with small stores just like those in down town Los Angeles where a family can go and buy merchandise at significant discounts.

He discussed how Las Vegas has become a Hub of National Security. Exceptionally low start up cost due to low real estate prices which is augmented by the quality high tech employee’s willingness to move to Las Vegas is attracting high tech companies to Las Vegas.

I am closely familiar with this problem as my best friend who has an ultra high tech factory in Las Vegas couldn’t get quality employees to move to Las Vegas. He was so frustrated by this problem that he was considering moving back to California. He has added 12 highly paid specialists to his company since the beginning of the year.

Mr. Lee also discussed a graph like the Case Schiller housing graph that shows Las Vegas residential real estate is about 18% undervalued, however this graph predicts a spike in housing prices in 2012 and not the average appreciation on 5%-8% for housing that doesn’t need a jumbo loan to be purchased.

While the Las Vegas housing market is alive and well for homes that are priced below $300,000 I haven’t discussed the luxury housing market in Las Vegas as of yet and it is not good. Predicted price drops are for these homes and not cheaper homes.

Mr. Lee gave an example; a buyer with 700 Fico Score and two million dollars in the bank wants to buy a million dollar home and finance it, how much down payment does he need? He asked mortgage officers in the room and there were a few good ones there. The answer was 40% or $400,000. Then he asked how many buyers are willing to put down 40% to buy a million dollar home? Silence!

The other issue that I want to discuss which made me very angry is that it was brought to my attention that someone has complained that my web-site may not be conforming to the Nevada Real Estate Division regulations, since the interior pages of my web site don’t have the necessary logos in them.

A series of arguments ensued which I don’t care to discuss here, however I knew for a FACT that I was right in the matter, and I don’t back off when I am right, ever and at any cost. Without discussing details, I have verified that my site fully conforms with the law, so whoever complained can sleep easy tonight as all is well with Las Vegas real estate now.

To understand the reason for my anger read the previous blog. A gentleman flew from Colorado to Las Vegas and stayed here for two days to see 8 condos at Panorama. We tried to make appointments to pick up keys two days in advance and failed in 6 out 8 cases. Imagine how pitiful and hateful someone has to be to bring up a silly issue like this in the current environment.

I have never tried to hide the fact that I am an Iranian- American, since I am proud of being both and have done my best to set a good example. My first cousins call me Las Vegas when I visit.  Living as an Iranian-American in US I have been subject to many acts of kindness which vastly out number the hostile acts or I wouldn’t be here.

 The flip side is that I have many enemies that I didn’t make and haven’t met. Thankfully these people are ignorant by default. When I argue with a redneck, and there have been many, I bring up the following example; one of the recent presidents of Harvard University’s brother was a reputed Mafia criminal whom law enforcement was looking for and couldn’t find. When two full brothers can be so different, how can any sane person judge someone based on where they were born or the color of their skin or how they decide to worship our (NOT their) Creator, as it is one.

The following is only for the person that complained about me:

Whoever you are, as the GOOD LORD is my witness I am not angry at you. I pray that our Good Creator bless you with love and life since you are so immersed in hate and jealousy that all you are doing is dying a bit every day, instead of living it. The biggest waste in the universe is a wasted life.

General Franco, who was the Spanish dictator before the current King Carlos, was involved in a skirmish and while he was walking, an enemy shot the coffee cup in his hand. He didn’t flinch, looked towards the enemy line and famously said better luck next time. Buddy, you missed by ten miles, however better luck next time.

Different high rise condo towers have different procedures that have to be followed in order for a Realtor to show a listing there. Panorama Towers does not allow lock boxes on the property nor do they have a service at the property so Realtors can pick up the key.

 If done properly; the listing Realtor has to meet the buyer’s agent and the buyer at Panorama Towers and show the condominium and one did just that, his name is David Grant of Realty Executives of Las Vegas.  That left seven condos.

 Properly has nothing to do with how Las Vegas foreclosure deals are conducted; the other seven Realtors won’t show their listings and required us to pick up the keys at their offices. Given that this is not the first time that we have shown condos at Panorama Towers, Karen started making appointments to pick up the keys from the listing agent’s offices on Thursday morning two days in advance to make sure we would have access to the units.

The rest of this post is written by Karen and she is NOT happy.

 I was told when to pick up the keys on Saturday morning for 7 listings by the listing agents.  The other listing agent had checked out a key to another Realtor (prior to our call Thursday morning) that would not have the key back until Monday! Just think how many showings you would have if you met the agents and showed the unit versus giving one agent the key for over 4 days!  Or did you ever think to make more than 1 key? So we thought we had the battle won by Thursday afternoon. We had successfully found 8 listings to show our client.

But nothing is easy in real estate and this was no exception. Saturday morning we left home at 10:15 to pick up the keys per instructions from the listing agents.

 First stop: The agent had not left the key. When the receptionist called the agent she told me he would be in the office in 30 minutes and would call me then.  No phone call every came!

Second stop: The key that had been checked out previously by another Realtor had not been turned back in yet. Again, wouldn’t a second key be practical?

Third stop: Both their keys (at least they had 2) had been checked out prior to my phone call on Thursday and had never been returned. Shame on the Realtors that can’t return the keys in a timely manner so other agents can show the property. Are you hoping to get your offer accepted before it can be shown again or just “too busy” to return the key in a timely manner.

Fourth stop: Yeah, they had the key ready. However, when we tried to use it we found that there was something wrong with the lock and after 5 minutes of trying to open the door, gave up. When I returned the key, later that same afternoon that I had checked it out, I told the receptionist that the key didn’t work and she asked if I’d like her to tell someone about it. Well yes, I told her, so that the next agent doesn’t have the same problem. DUH!

Fifth stop: Great, got 1 key to fit both listings and it worked.

The day was successful and our client likes one of the units and we’re working up comps and information for him. He might have liked your units too had he been able to see them by Panorama listing agents. So even after putting 120 miles on our car running to get keys to go to one address it could result in a happy client.

We did all we could possibly do and failed in 6 out of 8 attempts to show condos at Panorama Towers. If I was the customer, I would say these are the crappiest Realtors on earth, they couldn’t show me 3 condos. Well, we aren’t but these Panorama foreclosure listing agents are and it looks like our customer knows we did our very best.

This is the second blog post in Las Vegas real estate market series that I am doing for August, 2010 as the tax credit doesn’t significantly impact July Sales.

Let’s look at the market report for homes that have sold for $100,000-$200,000. I have to admit that it surprised me as there is a shift in how quickly short sale homes are closing escrow. We will start to show short sale homes in this price range.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City

1673 homes that are priced $100,000-$200,000 have sold in Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas and Boulder City in July-2010 and this puts our current inventory of homes for this price range at 3.5 months.

Just like homes that have sold for less than $100,000, 2/3 of the homes sold in Las Vegas for $100K-$200K price range are foreclosures or bank repo homes, while the number of REPO listings is only 23% of total inventory.

These numbers are self explanatory but I want to add a couple of points:

1: About half of the short sale homes have closed escrow in the 60 days plus range; actually it took more than 120 days to close the deal on about 29% of these homes.

2: Las Vegas short sale homes and foreclosures are selling for the full asking price.

3: It is foolish to predict a 14% price drop for homes when they get full price offers.

Related Web-Site links and blog posts:

• Buying short sale homes or condos in Las Vegas
• Buying foreclosure or bank owned Las Vegas homes or condominiums
• Buying non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos in Las Vegas
• Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced below $100,000

This is a good time to take a look at the Las Vegas real estate market report since most Las Vegas home buyers who wanted to take advantage of the tax credit have closed their deals by June, 30 2010. Even though the tax credit was extended for 90 days, the effect of leftovers on the market report for July 2010 is not going to be significant.

Despite all the unfounded doom and gloom conspiracy that is propagated through Las Vegas and national media in order to prop up their pathetic sales, the market for homes that are priced up to $300,000 is lively and I will cover these by price range.

Let’s take a look at the market report for homes sold for up to $100,000 and I have to admit that it surprised me as there is a shift in how quickly short sale homes are closing escrow. We will start to show short sale homes in this price range.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City

762 homes that are priced up to $100,000 have sold in Las Vegas in July-2010 and this puts our current inventory of homes for this price range at 2.5 months. 2.5 month inventories don’t lead to price cuts. Take a look at the sold numbers for July.

Even though the number of short sales and non-distressed traditional sale listings are 3 times the number of bank owned homes, more than half of the homes sold are foreclosures. Bank owned homes in this price range get multiple offers as soon as they are listed and about two third of these close escrow in 30 days as most of these are cash offers by Las Vegas real estate investors.

The other important number is the ratio of sold price to asking price; this ratio is at least 100% for most of these homes. Many investors who contact us expect to lowball bank owned homes as they think that the Las Vegas real estate market is flooded with foreclosures, NOT HAPPENING.

The story is a bit different for non-distressed homes; most of these don’t get full price offers as they are priced at 10%-25% higher than foreclosures so there is room for negotiation.

I leave it to the reader to decide if this data supports the ridiculous predictions of 14% price depreciation in Las Vegas residential market in the next 12 months  by a Wisconsin loan company!!!

Related Web-Site links:

• Buying short sale homes or condos in Las Vegas
• Buying foreclosure or bank owned Las Vegas homes or condominiums
• Buying non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

MGM Grand has depreciated the value of CityCenter or City Center Las Vegas further to 2.69 Billion dollars. The last time MGM Grand depreciated the value of City Center was in October-2009 and the value was $4.88 Billion; the original price was $8.5 Billion. Darn thing is going down like a rock.

A valid question is this: MGM Grand announced 30% across the board price cuts in October and devalued the property, some of these price cuts were reversed in November, what is up now?

City Center is owned by two entities, MGM Grand and Dubai Government (Dubai Prince) and both are broke. When the Dubai Prince was visiting Las Vegas he was headline news here and I was sure MGM was going to show him a good time and at a huge cost. The Las Vegas trip cost the prince 2.7 billion dollars in MGM stocks at $88 per share that has lost more than 87% of its value ($11) now, and $2.7 for half MGM City Center that is worth $1.3 Billion. Our Dubai Prince is only out $3.5 Billion. Chump change? No the guy is hurting, his own high rise condos in Dubai are sitting empty too.

CityCenter Earned 56 million dollars from forfeited deposits from remorseful buyers who fled the coop, and another$401 million reported net revenues in the second quarter, which included $218 million related to sales of condominium units at Vdara, Residence at Mandarin Oriental condos and Veer Towers luxury condos.

Aria Casino the centerpiece for City Center has 90% plus occupancy.

I changed the pages from what I can do for customers to information about different ways homes and condos and commercial real estate are purchased or sold in Las Vegas.

Buying and selling non-distressed homes or condos requires different processes and preparations than buying a foreclosed or bank owned home or condo which in turn is different from buying or selling a short sale or buying from the Las Vegas real estate auctions. The following pages are brand new:

Buying short sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

Buying foreclosure or bank owned Las Vegas homes or condominiums

Buying non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

Buying HUD homes or condos in Las Vegas through online auction

Selling Las Vegas homes or condos

I have updated Las Vegas real estate auction pages and added a page for Trustee Sale Auction that is the real foreclosure home and condo auction in Las Vegas and Nevada fist time home buyer assistance and grants.

Las Vegas high rise condos for sale have been revamped and I added pages for CityCenter condos at Veer Towers, Vdara and Residence at Mandarin Oriental at City Center.

Karen and I spent the whole day today fixing broken links and there were tens of them and it should be OK now. This is how I am doing an all out attack on search engine rankings and can’t wait to see what happens when search engines get a hold of the new version.

Anyways, check out the site, I strongly believe that it is one of the best and most comprehensive real estate web-sites anywhere. Only in Las Vegas baby. By the way Las Vegas real estate market reports and residential and commercial real estate pages have been updated too.

The 25,000-35,000 unsold foreclosure or Bank Owned homes in Las Vegas that banks are holding back from the Las Vegas real estate market for fear of price reductions, have been the talk of town until I CRUSHED it through 4 blog posts.

I put forth the mathematical formula for calculating the number of shadow inventory homes in Las Vegas and explained how it should be calculated. I can because I have aced many PHD level mathematics courses while in Graduate School.

In the concluding blog post in the series I stated that this number has to be less than 10,000 and the only reason that I don’t have an exact number is that I don’t pretend to be a Las Vegas real estate analyst and don’t tabulate for example, the number of homes sold in real estate auctions or in bulk sales of land to the Las Vegas new homes builders which I have explained in posts, but true real estate analysts should.

 When Las Vegas real estate analyst Dennis Smith kept repeating there are 25,000-35,000 shadow inventory homes in Las Vegas, I did a blog post titled

Real estate analyst Mr. Smith GUESSES the wrong number of Las Vegas unsold foreclosed homes

In this blog I wrote “The best analyst is Larry Murphy, the real estate analyst that I pay no attention to is Dennis Smith and unfortunately others do”. And the reason is that I know for a fact that Larry Murphy tabulates sales transactions in Las Vegas by type and would have access to all of the data that is necessary to calculate the number of shadow home inventory in Vegas.  BEHOLD – The conformation for my assertions came from Larry Murphy.

This is from The Las Vegas Review Journal article today.

“Murphy estimated a “shadow inventory” of 6,500 homes owned by the bank that have yet to be released on the market, plus 18,500 pre-foreclosure filings that may or may not go to foreclosure.”

He also said “Even a shadow inventory of 25,000 homes is not that many, he said. Las Vegas had 24,067 foreclosures in 2008 and 20,426 in 2009”.

See my blog post about the effect of foreclosures on Las Vegas real estate market.

Las Vegas real estate, the effect of foreclosures (bank owned homes) on the Las Vegas homes market

I also used Mr. Dennis Smith’s name in the blog title, I have never used a name in a negative blog, because I have power and have to use it judicially. My blog post will show up in the Goggle first page when searching for the name of the person that I wrote about and if it is negative, it will negatively affect that person’s life and he would have no recourse. Google, (Dennis Smith Las Vegas) and you will understand, and keep in mind that he is very popular. The reason is that all he had to do is to Google (shadow inventory homes in Las Vegas) and would have found my blog posts that disprove the numbers that he kept using after I published my series of blog posts. I am not here to hurt anyone, but his bull that is published by broke newspapers which need sensational stories to sell papers is seriously effecting the lives of my fellow Realtors and real estate agents by falsely scaring away home and condo buyers in Las Vegas, I know more than a few starving Realtors.

In case you think that I am over reacting, see national so called “real estate analysts” predicting 20% drop in Las Vegas residential real estate prices in the coming year that can be easily explained if we have 35,000 shadow inventory homes in Las Vegas and impossible to prove if unsold bank owned homes inventory is 6,500. I will explain this in the next blog post.

Our buddies at Neighborhood Housing Services of Southern Nevada have located other sources of funding for Wish Funds that is administered by the Nevada, HUD. Wish Fund is the 3 to 1 matching down payment program for Nevada first time home buyers.  I will reproduce Michelle Villero’s e-mail below, she is Homeownership Director.

Good Morning Partnering Agents,

GREAT NEWS!  We just received additional WISH Funds.  The catch with these funds is that it is Lender Specific.  If you have clients who are interested in going through the program for WISH please let us know and we will give you the specifics on who to contact. 

Please keep in mind that funds are first come, first serve basis.  Remind your clients that the only way to reserve these funds is to have a fully executed contract.  Clients will still have to attend an (8) hour Homebuyer Class with a HUD certified housing counseling agency and also meet with one of our housing counselors to determine eligibility.

Well, Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas, Nevada first time home buyers call us before it before it runs out.

I received an e-mail from the charismatic Michelle Villero, home ownership director for Neighborhood Housing Services of Southern Nevada that states they are out of money for the Wish Funds program until they receive additional funding, and believe me these people would look as hard as any.

So, if you are a first time home buyer and were planning on using the Wish Funds for you down payment, you have to wait.

I have explained Nevada first time home buyer down payment and mortgage assistance in the web-site so you can look for other resources to help you with your home deal.

By the way, in order to get the assistance, you have to be represented by a Las Vegas Realtor and mortgage loan officer who has been approved to do these deals and we are.

The majority of Las Vegas high rise condominium buyers who want to buy a new luxury condo, go straight to the builder’s sales staff and try to buy the condo themselves. It is not the job of the builder’s sales staff to advise the buyer that they can make a lower offer on their desired condo. Thus, either the buyer will pass on the new condominium or pay full asking price.

City Center or CityCenter has listed three luxury condos at Mandarin Oriental in Las Vegas MLS

Let us take a look at the three high rise luxury condos at the Residence at Mandarin Oriental that are currently listed in the Las Vegas MLS. All three are one bedroom, two bath condos and the square footage is 1062sf and 1097sf. The condos that are listed in the MLS are located on the 34^th floor and asking price is $1062/SF, 26^th floor, asking price is $974/SF and the last condo is on the 25^th floor and priced at $902/SF.

Even though the cheapest price per square foot for Mandarin Oriental that is listed in Salestraq, which is the Las Vegas new home and condominiums MLS, is $924 per square foot, the least expensive asking price for these three condominiums that are listed in the MLS is $902 and a good Las Vegas Realtor would not make a full price offer on an MLS listing for a high rise condo since Las Vegas high rise condo market is a buyer’s market.

Allure and Panorama tower three have listed their new condos on the MLS also.

Now, how many of City Center or other Las Vegas high rise condo buyers are aware of the fact that it is possible to make lower offers on the new high rise condos in Las Vegas? Not many.

Related blog posts about Residence at Mandarin Oriental CityCenter:

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Residence condos for sale at Las Vegas City Center, Las Vegas

Residence at Mandarin Oriental Hotel condominiums for sale at Las Vegas City Center

History of price cuts at Residences at Mandarin Oriental, City Center Las Vegas

City Center or CityCenter, Mandarin Oriental condos price cuts

 Now you see why I call these prices bewildering and while news organizations report 30% price cuts across the board at City Center or CityCenter Las Vegas, price cuts are not uniform at all. The other point is why a 1529 square foot luxury condominium should be priced the same as a 1105 square foot condo in the same building, unless Salestraq which is the new homes and condos MLS in Las Vegas  has the wrong original price.

I will discuss Residence at Mandarin Oriental at City Center luxury condos for sale that are listed in Las Vegas MLS by the builder next