Las Vegas Real Estate Blog

The new master planned community of Franklin Park at Providence located in northwest Las Vegas has two new models available. There are currently four models in the Balboa Collection including the Miramar, Solano, Sonoma and Verano. Priced from the upper $400,000s, these homes offer from 2,494 to more than 3,000 square feet.

Now, Toll Brothers offers its Carriage Collection which features the Terracina and Savona floor plans which are priced from the low $500,000s and range from 2,812 to 3,300 square feet.

Also available in Providence is the gated community of Madison Grove. Here Toll Brothers offers three popular luxury floor plans — the Trapani, Botticelli and Bellini — priced from the mid-$500,000s.

For more information on these communities and the various floor plans, contact MillionSaverHomes at 702.212.3513.

Popularity: 10%

A recent ContraCostaTimes.com article suggests that while Bay Area investors didn’t buy as much property outside of the area in 2006 as they have in past years, they still bought a large amount. DataQuickInformation Systems reported that Bay Area investors bought more than 16,500 vacation or investment properties outside the region. The Top 3 places benefiting from their real estate investment dollars in 2006 were Las Vegas, Sacramento and Phoenix.

Early indicators and local experts believe that Las Vegas will continue to be a hot investment area for Bay Area investors. With a large selection of homes currently sitting on the market, many investors looking for a second-home, vacation get-a-way or retirement locale are ensured to have a broad selection and an opportunity to find exactly what they are seeking.

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John Burns, a Southern California-based real estate consultant, recently told an In Business Las Vegas reporter that he believes the new home market in the Las Vegas Valley could recover by the end of 2007. Furthermore, he predicts existing home prices will drop approximately 5% in 2007 and remain soft until 2009.

He credits the swift turn around in the new home market to builders who moved quickly to correct an oversupply in 2006 by scaling back housing starts, which were down a reported 30% in 2006. Some reports show Las Vegas now having a one-month to two-month supply of new homes.

Burns cautions that builders must remain diligent in trimming costs and keeping their prices down to maintain affordability. Competition from the large inventory of resale homes will keep builder prices down for some time.

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The Time article, “Will the Housing Bubble Burst in 2007?” puts an interesting spin on the bubble bursting in the housing market.    While prices have obviously dropped across much of the U.S., Time doesn’t believe its a true burst in the bubble mainly because of buyer and seller sentiment.

According to their research, we don’t seem to be buying the idea of the bubble bursting.  In fact, we do not seem to be paying much attention to the media’s “sky is falling” stories.  What do they base their research on?  Internet searches performed by consumers.  They theorize that as bad news continues to build around the housing market, you would expect that “housing bubble” searches would be nearing a crescendo, but the opposite is true.

For example, they found that as of the week ending February 17th 2007, searches for “housing bubble” have reached a two year low, only 4.4% of the searches on the same subject that occurred during the second week of June 2005. A media push around a pending correction occurred that very same week.  As the author points out, this either demonstrates just how suggestible we are or how short are attention spans really are.  You decide which.

They do however caution that search terms such as  “sell my house fast,” and “how to stop a foreclosure” have been rising in volume.  If the volume continues to climb that may signal an urgency to sell, and the housing bubble alarm may begin to sound in earnest.

NOTE: Chart of weekly search term share of traffic to ‘all categories.’ Breaks in graph represent insufficient data.  Source: Hitwise

Popularity: 11%

Belcerro Village, a Richmond American master-planned community located in the Southern Highlands  offers four single family floor plans.    The two-storyLagunais is a 2,000-square-foot,  four bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths model priced in the $320,000s. The Cambria measures 1,600 square feet and contains three bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths.  This model’s pricing starts in the$300,000s.  At 1,800 square feet, the Montecito features three bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths starting at the $310,000s.  Finally, the Newport measuring 2,050 square feet and containing four bedrooms, three baths is priced starting in the $320,000s.

For more information on any of these floor plans or on Belcerro Village, contact MillionSaverHomes at 702.212.3513.

Popularity: 10%

Richmond American’s Cumberland neighborhood, located in the southwestern Las Vegas Valley,  provides potential home buyers with several options.  Four floor plans are available with prices starting in the $350,000s.  The floor plans are:

• The Rome (2400 sq. ft.) - offering up to six bedrooms and three baths.
• The Barcelona (2450 sq. ft.) - starting at 360K, this floor plan features five bedrooms and three baths.
• The Cantabria (2570 sq. ft.) - starting at 370K, this design includes up to six bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths.
• The Sevilla (2650 sq. ft.)  - this spacious design starts at 380K and features six bedrooms and three baths.

For more information on any of these floor plans or on the Cumberland neighborhood, contact MillionSaverHomes at 702.212.3513.

Popularity: 10%

The Census Bureau reported on Friday that January housing starts were at their lowest level since 1997. In January 2007, new homes starts fell 14.3% to an annual rate of 1.41 million from the 1.64 million level noted in December.   A survey of economists by Briefing.com had forecasted a 1.6 million rate for January.

Except for the Northeast which actually posted a small rise in housing starts, the rest of the country saw decreases.  Housing starts by region:

• In the Midwest:  down 15.2%
• In the South:  down 11.2%
• In the West:  down 28.5%

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Will the scarcity of land around LV cause many homebuilders to closer their doors and move on? That’s the conclusion of Dennis Smith, President of HomeBuilders Research in a recent In Business Las Vegas article.

He predicts one, two or three big public homebuilders will leave the market or merge, and it’s not because of a lack of demand.  Five years ago, Smith began cautioning against the potential impact of a lack of land for development.  At that time, he had  suggested there was about a 10- to 12-year supply of land remaining within the Bureau of Land Management disposal boundary for a builder to develop a typical single-family subdivision.

Popularity: 16%

The National Association of Realtors released their report on which states experienced the biggest declines in home sales from October to December 2006. The comparison was made to sales during the same period in the year prior. Overall, 40 states showed declines, one state (Utah) showed no change in activity, not enough information was available for Idaho, New Hampshire and Vermont to make any conclusions.

The states with the biggest drops were:

• Nevada, down 36.1%
• Florida, down 30.8%
• Arizona, down 26.9%
• California, down 21.3%

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The 3,500 acre master-planned community of Mountain’s Edge is a major undertaking. Not many communities can boast having over 200 floor plans and 100 model homes available. And now, they are ready to debut new models from five home builders this month: Meritage Home, Lennar Everything’s Include Homes, Avante Homes, Kimball Hill Homes and Engle Homes.

Out of the gates first is Engle Homes with its single-story Rivendell neighborhood. Floor plans within the gated development measure from 2,581 to 3,046 square feet. Lennar Homes is next with the introduction of models for Escalante with four floor plans ranging from 1,660 to 2,161 square feet.

Later in February, Meritage Homes will open models for its Watermark and Summer Trail neighborhoods. Summer Trails will offer floor plans for three, two-story home designs, ranging from 2,318 to 2,641 square feet.

Avante Homes is scheduled to open models for its Denali neighborhood with five floor plans ranging from 2,320 to 2,654 square feet. Kimball Hill Homes in the San Gabriel neighborhood will also debut five floor plans from 1,564 to 2,265 square feet.For more information on any of these neighborhoods, contact MillionSaverHomes at 702.212.3513.

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