[vegasrenter]

carlislematthew, your “tribute” is so on-the-mark, it’s eerie.

[vegasrenter]

I neglected to sell my LEND puts when the stock BRIEFLY plunged to 3 and change a few weeks ago – I wasn’t even watching the market that week. Maybe there will be a nice drop before they expire!

[vegasrenter]

Thanks for the update. I hope everything goes well with the closing.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[vegasrenter]

jg,

The double inverse funds seem like a good idea at the time, but the downside can be quick, devastating, and demoralizing. It’s embarrassing to be in 4% money market funds when the market soars, but it destroys your life savings in a month when the same thing happens and you’re parked in double-inverse funds.

You may want to re-think your approach here.

[vegasrenter]

Vegas is an mostly an armpit with a couple really nice, large master-planned communities. I’m a civil engineer for a public agency and the pay rates here for that are extremely high – so much so that it’s hard to move away. Lots of money available for professionals with strong people skills. Restaurants and entertainment are excellent. Not much in the way of museums or culture. Very high drug/booze/divorce/suicide rates. Weather is great most of the year but is a furnace for 3 months. It NEVER rains, ever! Not much nature/fishing close to town but many beautiful places in Utah starting at 4-hours drive. Housing is bland and overpriced on tiny lots. Older custom homes on large lots are very expensive, starting at $450K in bad areas. RE Prices here are not dropping very fast at all. The drive to LA on weekends is very easy, but horrible for LA visitors going the opposite direction to LV for the weekend.

[vegasrenter]

I felt a lot better about this thread after reading Juice’s “tranlations.” – Exeunt was dangling a lot of bait in the water, and somebody needed to bite.

[vegasrenter]

Do you think the 3.5 bathrooms is accurate for a small 2-bedroom condo? Doesn’t sound quite right.

[vegasrenter]

Here in Henderson, NV, the tickets for speeding in a school zone come in 2 flavors: $800 and $1,200. Speed limit is 15MPH for all school zones. A crossing guard friend tipped me to this, so I have trained my kids to ask, Dad – do you want to pay eight hundred or twelve hundred for this one? It slows me down to a crawl every time!

[vegasrenter]

My mistake – thanks for pointing that out.

[vegasrenter]

What does this have to do with housing? Off-topic posts dilute the message of this blog/forum.

[vegasrenter]

I’m a displaced California native – I graduated HS in 1981 and moved to Texas in 1988 when the defense business tanked. My extended family all live in California, and I would like to move back.

It’s hard to forsee a crash in the California real estate market severe enough that I could afford to move back (and buy, not rent) on my Civil Engineering salary. In retrospect, I could have stretched and done it in the mid-90’s but California housing looked outrageously expensive to me at that time, as nice houses in beautiful Sugar Land, Texas zoned for exemplary public schools were selling for a third of (at the market bottom) California prices. Like a dummy, I bought a Texas house, because it seemed like a wiser financial decision.

[vegasrenter]

Henderson NV – I rent a very nice 2bed/2.5 bath condo in an upscale guard-gated neighborhood for $1,100. Market rate would be at least $1,400. Current value is about $320K so GRM at market rent would be 230 or so. Similar units last year sold at $370K. I rent not because I’m a genius market timer (just the opposite, unfortunately) but because I can’t afford the payments on a real mortgage, and I’m not willing to take out a voodoo loan.

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