Las Vegas Real Estate Blog

Centex Homes’ Mesa Verde, a gated neighborhood of attached homes in North Las Vegas is offering potential home buyers a variety of incentive programs. Qualified buyers can take advantage of several options such as a flexible introductory incentive to assist with closing costs or an interest rate buy down. There are also incentive programs geared specifically to educators, healthcare providers, firefighters and law enforcement personnel as well as active, reserve, retired or veteran military members.

Mesa Verde offers 7 floor plans ranging from 1,490 to 2,392 square feet, priced from the $225,000s to the $305,000s.  The two-story layouts include up to three bedrooms and three full baths with as many as four living areas. 

Popularity: 10%

Las Vegas analyst Dennis Smith’s latest report showed that 6,772 home sold through April, which is 44% above the first four months of 2006. With the median price of resale homes standing at $285,000 (same as March), potential buyers can continue to enjoy finding a few good deals.

Homebuilders are also doing their part to reduce inventory levels by offering huge incentives.  In fact, Smith talks of how Lennar Homes recently sent a letter to companies they do business with offering a 30% discount on their standing inventory of homes if they closed escrow by the end of May.

That would mean that a buyer saved $150,000 on a $500,000 home or $250,000 on a  $750,000 home.  Definitely nothing to sneeze at if you were in the market for a new home. 

Smith says that prices have begun to level off, but have not drop even as some builder inventories have decreased.  Smith believes this is due in large part to a continued shortage of current land on which to build new developments. 

Popularity: 10%

In April 2007, the website Housefront.com launched.  So what, you say…what’s the big deal?  Well, if you’re big on gathering information on the fly, you may think it is. With Housefront.com, you can access home-value, property and sales-history information online or via cellphone through text messaging.

Let’s say, you are housing hunting and drive past a home for sale that really interests you and you want more information.  Just pick up your cell phone text the home’s address to 46873 (”HOUSE”)  and you’ll receive information on the property’s potential sales price, size and number of bedrooms and bathrooms, etc. Housefront.com also shows sale date(s) and price(s) paid. 

The best part is its free.  The site doesn’t charge fees for its text-message service; your mobile-phone carrier’s normal rates apply.   If you sign up for a free account with the Web site and give a cellphone number, any Housefront.com report received via text message will be saved to your online account — along with your previous queries — so they can be viewed later on a computer.

Popularity: 10%

Home sellers often hesitate to accept a contingent-sale offer.  Why?  Because if the buyer’s house doesn’t sell, the deal falls through and the seller is forced to spend more time and energy looking for another buyer. 

If you are a buyer wanting to include a contingent-sale clause, try and see things from the seller’s perspective and remain reasonable in your expectations and in presenting your offer.  Also, be prepared to address their concerns such as:

1. How salable is your property?
2. Will you price it right for the market?
3. Will you negotiate reasonably to sell your home as quickly as possible?

Bottom line is if you want a particular house and you still need to sell the one you have, then you need to work harder to prove to that seller that you yourself are a realistic seller and will do all you can to sell your current home quickly at a reasonable price.

Popularity: 9%

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight released the first quarter 2007 Home Price Index on Thursday.  The Index, which is based on data from sales and refinance transactions, was .5% higher in the first quarter than in the fourth quarter of 2006. This is moderately below the revised growth estimate of 1.3% from the third to the fourth quarter of 2006. Prices in the first quarter of 2007 were 4.3% higher than they were in the same quarter in 2006.

The states with the greatest rates of appreciation between the first quarter of 2006 and the first quarter of 2007 were: Utah (17.0%), Idaho (12.3%), Montana (11.7%), Wyoming (11.7%), and Washington (11.6%).

The states with the lowest rates of appreciation for the same period were: Michigan (-0.7%), Massachusetts (-0.6%), Nevada (0.6%), Ohio (0.8%), and New Hampshire (1.1%).

Popularity: 9%

A recent Businesweek article took a look at online real estate websites and which ones are garnering the most interest from consumers when they go online looking for real estate information.

According to April data from Hitwise, the National Association of Realtor’s website, Realtor.com has the most traffic with 8% of visitors.  With its broad selection of homes for sale located around the U.S. and its strong name recognition, this really isn’t too surprising.

Following on Realtor.com’s heels is RealtyTrac.com which is a bit of an eyebrow raiser.  After all, the site specializes in home foreclosures more than buying and selling a home.  Who knows, maybe people are looking for a bargain or they’re interested in which states are experiencing the most foreclosures.  Each vying for 2% of online visitors includes:  Yahoo, Zillow, Re/Max and Coldwell Banker.

Much has been written in the past about how the Internet is revolutionizing how buyers and sellers look for homes.  However, in this particular article, writer Chris Palmeri points out that the average amount of time a user is spending at one of these sites is only ten minutes.  This suggests that they are choosing to use the internet possibly more to just look up a particular property then they are to actually “shop” for prospective homes.

Popularity: 14%

GE recently announced the start of its Ecomagination Homebuilder Program.  This program was started in the hopes of providing comfortable, efficient homes that save homeowners’ energy costs while easing the impact on the environment. 

Homes built according to this program’s specifications will provide at least a 20% saving in household energy, water consumption and emissions versus an industry-accepted average new home.  For example, a 2,500 square-foot home built under this program’s guidelines would save the homeowner $600 to upwards of $1500 on annual utility bills versus an industry-standard average new home due to significant energy and water savings.

Also, a 2,500 square-foot house built to program specifications is designed to lower CO2 emissions by approximately 5 tons annually, which is equivalent to the CO2 emissions of driving more than 10,000 miles in an average U.S. car, or to the CO2 absorbed by 4.5 acres of trees each year.

Popularity: 14%

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller National U.S. Home Price Index, which tracks the value of single-family housing, dropped .7% in the first quarter compared to fourth quarter of 2006.  It marks the first time in more than 15 years of positive annual growth that the index has dropped into negative territory.

While Detroit and San Diego had the largest annual declines at 8.4% and 6%, respectively, Las Vegas received the dubious honor of being one of two cities that had the sharpest drop from its peak.  Phoenix was the other.

Las Vegas, which was up 53.2% in September 2004, dropped to a year-over-year price decline of 1.6% in March.

Popularity: 14%

The Commerce Department reported this week that sales of new homes rose an astounding 16.2% in April.  This marked the largest increase in 14 years.  However, while sales were up, the average new home price had dropped 11.1% to $229,100, suggesting that home builders are attempting to move their large inventories. 

Officials also warn not to become too excited over the one month gains, particularly as many recent surveys have shown builder confidence has shrunk and subprime worries remain high.

Unit sales by region:

1. Northeast increased 43.1%
2. Midwest dropped 28.1%
3. West dropped 25.4% 
4. South dropped 3.4%

Popularity: 14%

Chances are that if you’ve looked around any new community development, you’ve probably thought the new houses looked a little large.  Well, your mind isn’t playing tricks on you.  It appears the average home is getting bigger while the family unit is growing smaller.

In 2005, one in five homes had at least four bedrooms. That’s up from one in six in 1990, despite shrinking families and increasing costs for construction and energy. According to the National Association of Home Builders, houses with five or more bedrooms were the fastest-growing type in that time.

Which states have the highest percentage of homes with at least four bedrooms?  Utah is the pack leader with over 40% of its homes fitting into that category.  It’s followed by Maryland, Virginia, Colorado and Minnesota.  Arkansas has the smallest number with only 12.6% of homes having four bedrooms or more.

Popularity: 13%