Need a link to Las Vegas housing crash sites or blogs!!

[hipmatt]

any finds on sites like this for LV, thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!..needed 10 words??

[vegasrenter]

No crash in LV. Volume is down, but asking prices have hardly budged at all. The locals are saying that we renters had better buy quick during this lull, because the California investors are about to re-enter the LV market in force this Summer. (Note – lots of CA investors in 2003-2005 took out 100% LTV adjustable loans, but quite a few paid 100% cash)

It’s easy to ridicule this kind of statement on a bearish forum like Piggington, but resisting this “buy now” sentiment in 2003 was a disaster for bitter renters like myself who read the bubble talk and acted on it too early at 50% of current prices.

Anyway, there aren’t any LV-specific housing crash sites that I’m aware of.

[kev374]

Las Vegas is one of the top speculative markets set to crash and burn. Why would California investors go to Vegas which is widely known to be currently saturated with speculators trying to unload their inventories, that theory is just pure nonsense and hogwash. People are desperately trying to flee Vegas not get back in!!! I have a mortgage buddy in Vegas and he tells me that the market is DEAD!

[blahblahblah]

…resisting this “buy now” sentiment in 2003 was a disaster for bitter renters like myself who read the bubble talk and acted on it too early at 50% of current prices.

This was no more of a “disaster” than failing to buy overpriced Cisco stock in 1998 when there were still 2 more years to go in that speculative bubble. To capitalize on a speculative bubble, you have to time two events correctly, both the entry and the exit. Many people can get one right, it’s rare when someone gets both right, and even rarer still are those who are able to time it for maximum gain.

A real disaster is being underwater to the tune of $100K+, as I’m sure many of your Vegas “homeowner” neighbors will soon be.

[vegasrenter]

Concho, you are correct – also I was new in town, unemployed, “grad school, nudge nudge wink wink” in Fall 2003 and could only have bought with a liar loan using unemployment checks to pay the note. As it turned out, our market has doubled since then, so the liar loan approach would have worked out. 20/20 hindsight, I know. Now I have a great job, but I can’t stomach paying $450K for a place that sold for $180K in 2002.

The rented condo I live in is worth $50K less now than it was when I moved in two years ago, but still $130K more than when I was making the rent/buy decision (not on this property) in Fall 2003.

I think the odds are for LV to fall some more from here, but a return to late 2003 prices (another 40% down from March 2007) seems unlikely. It will be interesting to see if tightened lending crashes LV. Rents are way up, and sellers aren’t lowering their asking prices at all. Time will tell.

[ucodegen]

Rents are way up, and sellers aren’t lowering their asking prices at all. Time will tell.

This follows something I mentioned earlier, but some people thought I was full of it. Many of the apartment owners are also builders. CBRichard Ellis(BRE), KBhomes just to start. With vacancy rates under 5%, it is possible for the apartment complexes to push rates up. The whole idea is to alternately push house and then apartment rates up (one side then the other side of the bubble). In many cases you can rent a house for what an apartment would rent for. If a 300 unit apartment complex raises rent by 10%, and gets a 10% increase in vacancy (about 30 apartments vacant as a result).. they basically break even.. but they can now rent those 30 apartments to vacationers..

The apartment owners (who are builders) are trying to push people into buying the houses (pushing the rent-buy equation). One thing to watch is the fee for break-lease. The higher the fee, the more the apartment complex feels that better deals with renting may be around the corner or available within the lease period. If the apartment complex feels that they can get more within 6 months or less, the break lease will be less (almost want to encourage you to break-lease).. Break-lease fees in SD went up almost 50% on some apartment complexes in SD recently.

[asragov]

Over at HousingDoom.com they had a recent article on the bust in Las Vegas real estate:

http://housingdoom.com/2007/02/08/las-vegas-single-family-housing-january/

Maybe you would also like to note rising inventories and falling prices in the Las Vegas area:

http://www.housingtracker.net/askingprices/Nevada/LasVegas-Paradise/

[vegasrenter]

Thanks for the links. The Realtors here are cheerleading like crazy with all the same rationale the were using during the boom.

I’m not trying to be argumentive, but if I’m reading it right, your “housingtracker.net” link shows the LV median asking price stalled at $325K for months. Whatever declines we’ve seen so far have been tiny compared to the preceeding increases in 2003-2006.

[lindismith]

check out OC Renter’s blog. There’s Vegas data on the left nav.

http://bubbletracking.blogspot.com/index.html

[Author]

Posts