Las Vegas-- Flippers Flop As Housing Market Cools

[TexasLawyer]

Flippers Flop As Housing Market Cools

Apr 29, 9:09 AM (ET)

By RYAN NAKASHIMA

LAS VEGAS (AP) - In the rampant real estate speculation of the Las Vegas valley three years ago, people lined up outside Pulte Homes sales offices overnight as if they were waiting for the release of the latest video game console or hot new movie.

Having seen his house in an upscale part of suburban Henderson, Nev. jump $200,000 in value in 18 months, Sam Schwartz felt he couldn't miss any part of the boom. He spent the night in the parking lot with TV, snacks and drinks, along with about a hundred other people. Schwartz intended to buy a new home and then quickly sell it within the year - for a huge profit. Most people waiting were flippers just like him, he said.

<snip>

Foreclosure filings across the United States rose 47 percent last month from a year ago to 149,150 - one for every 775 households, according to statistics from Realty Trac Inc., a foreclosure listing service. And for the third straight month, Nevada's foreclosure rate led the nation when it rose 220 percent from a year earlier to 4,738 filings, or one in every 183 households. In Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, one of every 30 homes began the process toward foreclosure last year.

The day Schwartz reserved his home, the sales staff was raising prices $20,000 after every fifth buyer came inside. The $500,000 house he and his wife were eyeing had shot up to $540,000 by the time they sat down. Somehow, it still seemed like a good deal.

<snip>

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070429/D8OQ9IMG0.html

[Warpy]

1. The "For Sale" signs on two rehabs that were sold

at bargain prices to realtors came down last week. There has been no sign of anyone moving in to either and there were no "SOLD" signs before the signs were pulled.

My guess is that either they were foreclosed (one was on the market for a year) or that they'll be turned into rentals.

[Radio_Lady]

7. Are you in the Albuquerque suburbs?

[Warpy]

9. Nope

SE heights, but it's the same all over town. The burbs have it even worse, I keep seeing "3 years young! Never lived in!" in some of the adverts.

All the speculators are taking a well deserved bath. It's just too bad that families whose breadwinner has been transferred are taking it with them.

[PassingFair]

2. I WONDERED why Las Vegas had the HIGHEST forclosure rate.

I thought it was just a high number of sub-prime mortgages.

But.... GO FIGURE, people were GAMBLING on FLIPPING!

WAAAAAAAAA!

I don't feel too sorry for any of them.

:cry:

[Radio_Lady]

6. We had to salvage our daughter-in-law's finances -- she got caught in flipping a Victorian home in

Jamaica Plain in the Boston area. We gave her a loan -- and when she paid it back, we gave her the interest.

She's divorced from my stepson but just a beautiful person and hardworking, too. She is the mother of the only boy who will carry the family name.

[Radio_Lady]

3. We're still thinking about buying a new property in Oregon and keeping our

home. The difference is that we would rent the property only until we are fully able to use the home ourselves.

We're waiting to see if we can get this deal going. Oregon hasn't suffered as much as other states, and eventually we will need a smaller home.

But we're still in the thinking stage. We bought a timeshare in Las Vegas this year. Our family still wants to take vacations even if they can't afford to fly to Hawaii.

[Joe Fields]

4. snake eyes!

[Radio_Lady]

5. I know that's a dot on each DIE -- for a total of 2.

But is that good or bad?

Radio Lady <-------- doesn't gamble.

[jmowreader]

12. That's bad

It's the lowest thing you can roll--a pair of ones.

[Radio_Lady]

21. My interest in games of chance are minimal.

That includes husbands, too. I'm on my third and he's a keeper (almost 35 years together).

We go to Las Vegas and he spends at least $20. The last time we went, I was truly a winner.

Actually, I didn't gamble at all. But I found a quarter in the swimming pool!

[Joe Fields]

36. You're how old, and never heard the expression "snake eyes" before?

It means "crapping out," which is terminology for losing your bet.

[Radio_Lady]

37. Thank you for asking. I will be 68 this month. Yes, I am vaguely acquainted with those terms,

I just didn't remember them at the moment I responded to your post. I don't use dice on a daily basis, and the last time I worked with them was with dominoes, while I was teaching my young grandson that game. You don't call them "snake eyes" because they are not really "dice" in the true sense of the work.

Please be compassionate and sensitive to us elderly folk as well as others who don't have all the knowledge you apparently do about many subjects, including dice. Remember that we have more memories in our "computer storage" called the brain just because we've lived longer.

Everyone loses 100,000 brain cells every day after the age of 18, and you will, too.

Incidentally, I vaguely remember the term "crapped out" -- but, trust me, it has a completely different meaning to this non-gambling wife, mother, stepmother, grandmother, and former dog owner and breeder.

In peace,

Radio Lady in Oregon

[Radio_Lady]

8. Texas Lawyer, how do people find out about foreclosures in their state?

I'm too busy to do it today, but it would be interesting.

In Boston, the notices were published in the paper. I think it was 1987 when the stock market crashed and the Boston Globe legal section was about five pages of little notices.

Jeeze, Louise...

Thanks for posting. K & R.

[TexasLawyer]

13. There are websites around that give state by state info

But it looks like it can be a dangerous game, since there are many other buyers out there. Here's something that was in our local paper recently.

April 14, 2007, 3:12PM

Feasting on foreclosures
Buyers are seeking to cash in on homes lost by others

By PURVA PATEL
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

In the North Fry area near Katy, where new-home building was on a tear last year, foreclosures were not hard to find.

But those foreclosed properties generally didn't stay on the market long. With so many buyers, and quite a few investors, looking to profit from the foreclosures of others, this has been a market where such houses often sell for close to or at list price.

<snip>

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/homefront/4714744.html

[Radio_Lady]

18. We have a buyer's market here -- and the housing market seems to be coming back from

the low point.

Appreciate the link. Have a wonderful May Day!

[w4rma]

10. Whenever I drive into a neighborhood here in Virginia, I always see multiple "for sale" signs.

They are everywhere. It's obscene. I used to hardly see many at all. Now you see them right across from one another and up and down streets.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. Here in Arkansas, they are still buidling houses

mainly for people from California, who are coming here in droves--low prices, low taxes, pretty scenery and lots of things to do. Some are coming here to live, but others are buying up old houses to rent out. In my business, which indirectly deals with house sales, I've seen a drop in the number of new houses built and in sales of older houses. We started getting repos about two years ago, and the number of them has remained steady.

[TexasLawyer]

14. Florida's worrisome subprime numbers

Another sad article:

As 'subprime' rates shoot up, owners despair
Richard Burnett | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted April 29, 2007

Twanda Thompson doesn't want to lose her home. But unless she can solve her mortgage woes, she and her four children may have to start looking for an apartment.

Like many would-be homeowners with below-average or poor credit, the Orlando woman took out a "subprime" mortgage during the housing boom to buy a place she really couldn't afford.

Now her adjustable-rate mortgage is three months away from a boost in interest that will increase her monthly payment 30 percent. More increases lie ahead -- and she already is delinquent on her loan.

"I've been on an emotional roller coaster," said Thompson, a 34-year-old insurance agent. "It's just very stressful. I've worked so hard to get this far, to have a home and raise my children. To lose ground now is not acceptable to me."

<snip>

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-subprime2907apr29,0,2747639.story?coll=orl-home-headlines

[SoCalDem]

15. "...I've worked so hard to get this far,..." for someone to convince me

I could afford something I could not.. (that's what's happened here, folks)

People who should NEVER have been "able" to "buy" , ended up renting a nicer place than they could have afforded..for a few years, and now with ruined credit, they must move on..

if they put nothing (or very little down), they have only lost what the house MIGHT have increased in value, had they sold it before they got foreclosed on..

In most places in the US, home ownership is a thing of the past for all but the wealthy and unencumbered. The rest of the people are conned into "buying" houses they can never pay off, cannot afford NOW, and most likley will lose money on if they have to sell at an inopportune time.

[Radio_Lady]

19. The individual cases are truly sad... hearing about it in human terms breaks my heart.

I wish I could help her and her children. So far, all of our family members are doing OK. But we have two estranged daughters from my husband's first marriage. We've had no contact from them since 2000. I check up on them on the Internet a little bit...

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. My house in San Antonio Texas has gone up $5000 in the past thirty days.

Since I have owned this property, it has only increased in value,$80,000 in ten years. Not an outrageous profit margin there. Property taxes here in Bexar County are killer. I see a lot of houses in my neighborhood for sale and I am guessing the increases in taxes are the reason.

[judaspriestess]

29. There is an investor group here in Vegas

that is aggressively purchasing property in San Antonio right now. They go all over the country and SA is one of their target markets.

GO SPURS GO!!!! 3-1 in best of seven series.

[Little Wing]

17. Wanna make a fast buck and then you get burned?

No sympathy from me.

[Matsubara]

20. Amazing that the Vegas boom has bust.

Fine homes, a great climate, growth obviously built on a long-term plan, on a foundation of tradition with tight community ties. It's bound to bounce back in no time.

[Bluebear]

22. Hellish and hideous to you, perhaps.

[Matsubara]

23. Vegas, Glitz, Glamor and Showbiz

The casinos! The Strip! The Fun under the sun never ends!

[Bluebear]

24. Well, glad you got that off your chest.

Do people ever consider that people who live in Vegas might read things insulting things like your post?

[Matsubara]

25. There, ya happy?

I guess I won't go into the fact that so many employers flocked there because Nevada is a "right-to-work" state (IE they went there to avoid paying people decent pay and benefits)...


In other words, the people flocking to Vegas over the last decade or 2 have been actively supporting the race to the bottom...

[Bluebear]

26. There's a bit of mature conversation.

Mata, ne? :eyes:

[Matsubara]

27. Lessee, Japan has laws to protect its products and workers...

Accordingly it has yet to see the decimation of the middle class that has hit the US.

Of course, my employer is in the US, so it doesn't really matter where I live.

I rewrote my posts with a minimum of sarcasm. What else do you want?

Are you saying Nevada is NOT an anti-worker, "right-to work" (IE no right to organize) state?

What could be more "mature" than an eyeroll and a snotty brushoff?

[Bluebear]

30. Republicans Fear Nevada May Slip Away

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3345.html

I will leave you with that article. We are hoping Nevada goes blue along with laws to protect workers. Sorry about the snotty brushoff, but I took the rewriting of the posts as sarcastic. We all want good conditions for workers, best to you and belated welcome to DU.

[Matsubara]

31. I did say a "minimum" of sarcasm.

There is only so much praise one can heap on a place as artificial as Vegas without it sounding like sarcasm or deranged boosterism.

But I did tone down the posts because I don't want to hurt the feelings of anyone living there by no fault of their own.

But hey, I hear this ALL THE TIME.

" I passed through El Paso on I-10 (or through the airport) once. What a dump."

Like you can surmise ANYTHING about a town from passing through on the freeway, especially since the one in El Paso snakes right along the Juarez Mexico border slums and the Asarco smelter.

I have a thick skin about it. El Paso doesn't have billions upon billions invested in it like Vegas, so at least we have an excuse...


Good luck with those improvements in Nevada. El Paso is already one of the solid red pockets ot Texas. :-)

[Bridget Burke]

34. I was getting really mad until you mentioned El Paso.

Not that I've ever been to Las Vegas. But I thought you were one of those people from (insert name of elite area) who look down on everyone!

I-10 through El Paso doesn't give a lovely vista. But the place does look interesting. Maybe I'll stop & visit some day. (Well, I lived in El Paso before age two--my father was stationed there. According to my mother, we lived in a chicken coop.)

Not saying a word against the people who live in Las Vegas--but it's actually hotter than El Paso. No thanks.

(Greetings from the beautiful city of Houston. It gets hot here, too. But we have humidity!)

[Matsubara]

35. Umm, Don't know if I would brag about the humidity, or the mosquitoes...

But at least it has TREES, and East Texas is lovely in the fall...

[Tesha]

33. Perhaps moving to places where there really isn't assured drinking water...

Perhaps moving to places where there really isn't assured
drinking water isn't the brightest move in the book?

Tesha

[judaspriestess]

28. I was right in the thick of this madness

selling new homes. I saw it coming a mile away. I knew, fucking knew we were going to have this happen. Vegas cannot support these prices. This is a city with lots of casino workers. Making $13-15 dollars an hour. Everyone keeps blaming the subprime lenders, which is part of the blame but its the actual price of the home that is dictating the payment. Most people just don't have 5-20% down for a home nowadays. Not that 5% would make a difference. Its like car payments for every $1000 you put down it drops your payments $7-8 dollars.

So now prices for new homes are dropping like mad. I just helped a girlfriend of mine with a call a thon with another builder and they are giving an $80K reduction in prices.

The homes are re-adjusting back to what they should be realistically but are still very expensive and its hurting the market for now, it will straighten out but its gonna be awhile.

I'm still selling homes but all the wannabe sales people have fallen off the wayside. Its back to the old days of having stiff competition and really having good sales skills.

[bliss_eternal]

32. Were you or your business...

...adversely affected by this, judaspriestess? I sincerely hope not.
Pm me if you're more comfortable sharing in private. :hi: