New Las Vegas house sale record set

Let's qualify that statement a little bit. A luxury single-family home recently sold for almost $7.9 million which translates into over $1,000 per square foot, as the property measures 7,519 of those feet. That $1,000 a foot is supposedly the new high for the valley. In terms of price alone, plenty of homes have changed hands for more money than that, but then they've been much larger. Some luxury high-rise condominiums have also done better than that, like units in Trump Towers and Park Towers, but this is the first in the single-family category.

So what happened to the soft real estate market here? Please click here to read the entire article.

Elvis returns to Vegas?

He just might do that. Unfortunately for the fans of the great entertainer it's only his name that is thinking about a comeback. Nothing else. Elvis won't be in the building.

A real estate firm out of New York a short time ago acquired total control of 18 acres of land between MGM Grand and Planet Hollywood. It can be said that this is prime territory right on the Strip. The company has aims to develop a mixed-use project on the site that would include residential, in short condominiums, hotel, retail and casino components.

How Elvis fits in the picture is that the firm owns licensing rights to his estate. And since the rock and roll star was such an important fixture in the Vegas scene for so long, they feel that adding an Elvis-theme somewhere in the development would be appropriate. Thus far the company hasn't announced any timeline for the project.

There are also skeptics toward the plan. Mostly they are the tenants who presently operate businesses on the 18-acre parcel. For the past 10 years they've heard all sorts of proposals for it and emphasize that nothing has happened yet. The location is attractive, though, that much we have to agree on.

It's true, Vegas has seen over the years many a developer from out of town wanting to build the world's best casino here and after the initial hoopla dies down, they fade into the sunset. It was the casinos then. Now the new breed developer wants to put up a high-rise condo or a mixed-use project and only the ones with solid track records will manage to pull it off, the Trumps and Turnberry's Soffers, for instance. Could be this developer, too.

Las Vegas suburbs on the march

Las Vegas valley still has a good amount of land available for residential development and eventually it'll be graded for more houses and condos and townhouses. But real estate is getting so expensive here that the future homes will be priced out of reach for many buyers. Another housing solution has to be found. Home builders have their finger on the pulse, of course, and are gradually shifting some operations into the outlying towns like Mesquite, Pahrump and Coyote Springs, each about an hour's drive from the Strip.

Prices over in these communities can be 20 to 50% less than here, incentive enough for many to handle the extra commute time with a smile and a favorite tune. To read the entire article, please click here.

Pinnacle Las Vegas condominiums

A 12-acre site was cleared for construction at West Tropicana and Cameron, near the Orleans Hotel and Casino. It will be the home of Pinnacle Las Vegas, a $850 million condominium-hotel project that will have 1,100 units in two 36-story high-rise buildings. The unique feature is that the two towers are connected by Sky Bridge suites.

Groundbreaking is to occur later this year and completion is expected in 2010. When Pinnacle opens it provides permanent employment for about 500 workers. This will be the first high-rise building for any purpose in that area.

Condominium prices will range from the $400,000s to over $1.4 million. The amenities that the residents can enjoy include a health and fitness center, full-service spa, movie theater, three-acre wet deck, whatever that is, restaurants and business center. Property owners can also sign up for a managed resort program that allows them to rent out their unit when away.

Real estate investor tips

Buyer's market, like today's, is always enticing for real estate investors and those who want to become investors. There are opportunities everywhere and sometimes it's hard to focus on the fundamentals that are key to making profitable acquisitions. It's easy to get caught in the atmosphere of abundant supply and then make hasty decisions that turn out less than satisfactory. Let's look at three major areas that I value the most when selecting an investment property.

The house has to be in a basically sound condition. To read the entire article, please click here.

Mortgage foreclosure law variations

It pays to know what type of mortgage you have. What comes to mind first is the kind of home loan program you opted for. Whether it's a fixed rate product or an ARM of some sort, look up the details. If you happen to have an ARM, it's good to be aware of when it resets, like does it do it annually, every three years or when. Learn the index that's being used, and the margin.

Now that foreclosures are rising across the land, it's equally important to know what kind of a financial instrument secures the loan to your property. Is it a conventional mortgage or a deed of trust? They fulfill the same role in real estate purchases, but are quite different from the legal point of view.

Here's the difference between the two. A mortgage involves only two parties, namely the lender and the borrower, whereas a deed of trust has an extra party to it, a trustee, who holds title to the home until the debt is satisfied.

Let's say a loan goes delinquent and the legal instrument is a mortgage, typically in this case the lender would have to go to court to begin foreclosure proceedings. Doing that always takes time, a lot of it. Everybody knows that. But if the instrument is a deed of trust, the trustee does not need to go to court to get started. This is called a non-judicial foreclosure and now the process can be really fast.

34 states either for the most part or completely employ the deed of trust. Alabama they say is the quick draw champion of all, possibly foreclosing on a delinquent borrower in as little as 30 days. Mississippi and New Hampshire can do it under 60. At the opposite end of the field is New York where it can take over a year. In short, be aware of the legal instrument you are bound by.

Las Vegas home sales soft in June

The pattern is quite familiar. For several months in a row now the stats that the local analyst Home Builders Research puts out show that home sale numbers remain soft. The market is in a funk, that's clear. Besides product oversupply, there also is another factor in the mix at this time of the year. Namely, when the middle of the summer temperatures reach 111 degrees and higher, who wants to go out house shopping. It's called a seasonal trend.

Here's a quick rundown on some of the numbers that matter. To read the entire article, please click here.

Coyote Springs moves along

The master-planned community located about 60 miles north of Las Vegas and the Strip has begun construction on the clubhouse that will become its centerpiece. The developer has asked for customer input on its website, villagesofcoyotesprings, as to its design and features and has incorporated their findings into the facility's planning.

The clubhouse will have quite a few practical elements. The first phase will include a fitness center, an indoor basketball court, meeting rooms, a business center and a cafe. And then on the outside it'll present for the residents' enjoyment a 25-meter lap pool, a lagoon pool and a water slide. The second phase will add a 3,000-seat amphitheater and a 17-acre lake to the complex.

Coyote Springs is still in the very early stages of development, but when buildout occurs in about 40 years or so, it's estimated to have somewhere between 160,000 to 200,000 residents.

Plans for the tract also include several golf courses and a major golf training facility, in addition to the usual commercial and retail components.

Henderson leads $1 million club

Henderson is quietly living and thriving in the shadow of its much more famous neighbor, the entertainment capital of the world, Las Vegas. Sometimes it's easier on you when you can go about your business just off the spotlight. Everything you do is not scrutinized by somebody.

Henderson has been for years one of the fastest growing cities in the country. That's one feather on its cap. Now it can slip another one on it. It can claim the title for having the most over $1 million homes in Southern Nevada. To read the entire article, please click here.

Las Vegas land sales slow down

Looks like the good old days are gone, at least for now. It wasn't too long ago when the media headlines blared about the BLM, or Bureau of Land Management, land sale auctions in Southern Nevada that brought ever-increasing prices for an acre. Tracts of Nevada desert, small, medium and large, were gobbled up in a matter of minutes by eager residential developers in those gavel events. Soon thereafter you'd hear additional noise of construction all around town, single-family houses, townhomes, condos.

But as of today, the next major auction of federal land is far away, scheduled for November 2008. Almost a year and a half from now. The reason to that is quite clear, the real estate market is saturated with unsold houses and prices are weakening. What more do you need? BLM will hold an auction in November, but it's for smaller parcels spread all over the valley, ranging from 2.5 to 20 acres.

And the dominant word is demand. If there is no demand for land, BLM won't hold a sales event.

This is in general terms how it works with the agency. Developers, carrying rolled-up blueprints under their arms, will first approach local municipalities with the aim to build new homes. From there the cities and county will go to work and put together their plans for what is needed for the project, like infrastructure and roads. Once all that is accomplished to BLM's satisfaction, it'll then decide on how to proceed, which usually means that they'll schedule an auction. These are the three typical steps.

So, the building community has adopted the wait and see attitude for the foreseeable future due to the sluggish market conditions. The initiative has to come from them. Once they make a move, the wheels start turning.

Mortgage leads are us

The traditional lead sources for mortgage lenders have been satisfied customers, real estate agents, family and friends, newspaper ads, Yellow Pages and so forth. As long as you stay active, they'll work well. And then comes along the Internet and more and more people get into computers and, among other things, start seeking loan information on the web. With that, the lead business gradually transformed into a new game.

See, when a loan provider does his own lead generation, he knows which segment of the market to target and at the same time assumes responsibility for the message that is displayed. He has to operate within the law, whether federal or state, or his license is pulled.

Enter the Internet lead firms. To read the entire article, please click here.

40-year mortgage a good deal?

Home buying can often be a highly emotional experience. It gives you a shelter that you can call your own, you can run it your way and decide what to do with it and when. Nobody can evict you from it, as long as you keep making mortgage payments. You are a proud property owner.

But you frequently forget that it's also perhaps the largest debt obligation you'll ever sign for. Therefore, it would be prudent to treat it as an investment as well. To read the entire article, please click here.

Las Vegas home inventory grows

In some circles this was cautiously anticipated. Now it's a cold reality. The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, or GLVAR, released its monthly report yesterday and it shows single-family house inventory climbing to 23,642, a new record. It topped the prior peak of 23,474 that was reached in October of last year. This information was put together from data in the Multiple Listing Service, or MLS.

That's the bad news. On the good news side is the value of property, stubbornly holding on. The median price inched up 1.2% from May, to $305,000. It's not much but under the current circumstances you take anything that's coming your way. Compared with last year in May, however, there is a 3.2% decline, amounting to about $10,000.

All in all, the Southern Nevada real estate market continues under the banner "soft". No escaping that. What you can tell from the above numbers is that sellers can still get pretty much what they are asking for, if they are patient. Prepared to wait a few months to get the right offer. For buyers, it's your market, no matter which way you look at it. There are bargains out there by the truck load, so go ahead and take advantage of it.

Allure luxury condos on home stretch

The Sahara Avenue condominium tower is so close to completion that the developer expects first escrow closings to take place in September. That's good news for those who have bought units there. Moreover, he believes that they can finish up everything by the end of the year, effectively eliminating the dust and noise of construction for those who have already moved in.

Allure consists of 428 condominiums in a 41-story tower at its Sahara Avenue location. Units range in size from 671 to 4,400 square feet, with about 30 left for sale priced from the mid-$500,000s. As a side note, a penthouse unit sold for a cool $4.5 million last year.

Green housing research funding

It's encouraging to see that Washington is taking steps, still kind of small but steps anyway, to fund research on how to increase efficiency in our houses. The home building industry is already spending money on it and now the federal government is joining in. The two-prong approach will add more muscle to the effort and ultimately benefit everyone. The U.S. Department of Energy just announced that it'll have up to $40 million available to support research, development and deployment of technologies that will eventually cut new home energy consumption by 30-90%.

What exactly is the research zeroing in on? To read the complete article, please click here.

Subprime mortgage rules revised

The Feds, in other words the federal monetary system regulators, have been working hard on this for quite some time and at last they can present a final product for distribution. It took a while because they had to listen to all sides on the issue and then merge the more useful ideas into policy decisions. But the new rules how to write subprime mortgage loans are in. One thing to remember is that they only apply to federally regulated lenders.

Subprime mortgages are offered to borrowers who have had past credit problems or have thin credit files. To read the entire article, please click here.

Mortgage foreclosures create friction

It's all across the news that mortgage lenders are working hard to avoid as many defaults as possible, for the simple reason that it's in their best interest. Taking possession of a foreclosed home typically would come at a loss due to legal and other costs and in many cases because the property sold for less than the loan balance. They are encountering other pressure, too. It comes from the politicians everywhere who are all over them to minimize the suffering. Most delinquencies today take place in the subprime segment of the huge home loan market.

Now there is a fresh complication to the equation. To read the entire article, please click here.

Las Vegas builder joins green program

Southern Nevada Green Building Partnership has been able to attract its first member. The ambitious program was put together by the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association and the Green Building Initiative of Portland, OR, to assist local firms in the design and construction of more environmentally correct new houses. The builder with the vision that signed up from the valley is Signature Custom Homes.

To begin with, its plan is modest. It's only going to build two homes in the first phase. Despite that the features going into the homes are impressive and somewhat exotic, at least to me. They include radiant heat barriers, low-flow water fixtures, dual-flush toilets, tankless hot water heaters, dual-glazed and tinted windows filled with argon gas, solar systems to produce power, A/C units with SEER rating of 17 and Energy Star appliances. That is quite a collection of upgrades that will make a difference.

According to the builder the cost will be 3 to 5% higher than in a conventional version of the same, however the savings in electricity, gas and water will even that out in 5 to 7 years, he calculates. And there is the main point of going green. You don't only save money for yourself, but you help the environment at the same time.