Insane in the Desert: Building new houses in a city where nearly 10,000 brand new houses sit empty

[marmar]

Building Is Booming in a City of Empty Houses
By DAVID STREITFELD

Published: May 15, 2010


LAS VEGAS — In a plastic tent under a glorious desert sky, Richard Lee preached the gospel of the second chance.

The chance to make money on the next housing boom “is like it’s never been,” Mr. Lee, a real estate promoter, assured a crowd of agents, investors and bankers. “We’re going to come back like you’ve never seen us before.”

Home prices in Las Vegas are down by 60 percent from 2006 in one of the steepest descents in modern times. There are 9,517 spanking new houses sitting empty. An additional 5,600 homes were repossessed by lenders in the first three months of this year and could soon be for sale.

Yet builders here are putting up 1,100 homes, and they are frantically buying lots for even more.

Las Vegas is trying to recover by building what it does not need. It is an unlikely pattern being repeated in many of the areas where the housing crash was most severe. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/business/16builder.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me

[marylanddem]

1. Has he world gone crazy?

seems to have...

[hobbit709]

2. "Never underestimate the power of human greed and stupidity"

[KittyWampus]

3. It says there is a market because some people MUST have new.

[zeemike]

4. It is the fatal flaw in our system.

That once an industry becomes big it must continue to grow.

[patrice]

8. That is exactly! the problem.

[Arctic Dave]

5. It is often said to stop bleeding is to "Stab repeatedly until bleeding stops".

Of course this kills the person but at least they're not bleeding anymore.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. A true sheeple statement from the article:

We’re building them because we’re selling them,” Mr. Anderson said. “Our customers wouldn’t care if there were 50 homes in an established neighborhood of 1980 or 1990 vintage, all foreclosed, empty and for sale at $10,000 less.
They want new.
And what are we going to do, let someone else build it?”

:banghead: :banghead:

[DeSwiss]

7. K&R

- What a bunch of knuckleheads......

[hatrack]

9. When all else fails, build a bigger stone head

:eyes:

[MisterP]

10. and these are the same developers who say that all happiness rests upon them,

and that we ABSOLUTELY HAVE to remove protections from this lizard or that rodent about to die out because, well, you can't be against Progress, now can you?

[truedelphi]

11. Ah but at this rate, some lizards might survive

Us human lizards. As long as they are not close to the Gulf of Mexico.

We are contaminating our food supply in such a way that there is no going back. The lizards will do okay munching their insects and licking the salt off the rocks, while we die from the GMO's.