I wanted to do blog for $150,000-$200,000 price range but since we have only 38 properties available for sale and only 4 sold in August-2010 the sample size is too small to analyze, so I will cover all condos that are priced higher than $150,000. It should be noted that this series doesn’t include Las Vegas high rise condos and lofts. I will discuss them on an individual basis.

Las Vegas inventory of condos and lofts listed for more than $150,000 is 96 and 10 condos sold in August. This puts our inventory at 9.6 months. However, to have a meaningful discussion I will go back 2 months.

The table below shows inventory of Las Vegas condominiums and lofts for August 2010 by type

Only three luxury condominiums are priced higher than one million dollars, one in Mira Villa at Summerlin and two are at Lake Las Vegas. 84 out of 96 are priced below $500,000. Even though foreclosures and short sales still offer the best deals, asking prices for regular sales condos compete well with distressed sale pricing. However, some non-distressed condominiums in the same condo community are price at 200% or more of distressed or reasonably price condos.

The highest asking price per square foot is quite a bit more than $500, while the highest price per square foot paid in Las Vegas is $357. I f your asking price is 30% more than the highest price paid in the Valley in the last 6 months, chances are it will not sell.

Two short sale condominiums at Meridian sold for $115 dollars per square foot and you saw $140 per square foot paid for two bank owned condos there in the last blog post. Now you decide the following:

Is investing in Meridian condos a good idea or not?

Clearly it is in the first case and probably not a good idea in the second case, since they are already in the hole for $15-$20k when compared with comparable units.

The reason that I will not discuss sold numbers is that there is just not enough data to do it right. However, I will discuss the reason for lack of activity in this segment and it is simple. It is next to impossible to get financing for these condos and lofts except in two cases and one is builder financing, call me for the second.

In order to buy a home that needs a JUMBO loan, the buyer has to put up a significant down payment, say 40%. So for someone that wants to buys a $600,000 condo, he/she has to put up $240,000, which they could use to buy a $240,000 condo and not have any payments.  Check out my blog about Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $500K-One Million and you will see it is similar to the condos and lofts market report for this price range. Some of these below $250,000 condos or lofts are truly luxurious and can’t be built for the asking prices, ever. There are four bank owned lofts at L0ft 5 are listed in the Las Vegas MLS. Asking prices for these luxurious, highly upgraded condo lofts start at $75 per square foot which is a true bargain. Lack of financing has badly hurt this sector which makes for a great bargain for cash investors.

Related Web-Site links and blog links:

Las Vegas condos, lofts for sale $100,000-$150,000 market report

Las Vegas condos, lofts for sale $50,000-$100,000 market report

Las Vegas condos, lofts for sale priced below $50,000 market report

Las Vegas Condos – Lofts– Luxury Condominiums for Sale

Las Vegas real estate market report for bank owned (foreclosed) condos and lofts, short sales and (non-distressed) condominiums or lofts for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas priced at $100,000-$150,000. Our total inventory in this price range is 197 which are available in 63 different condo communities. 8 are clustered around Village Center and Summerlin Pkwy. Three are at Lake Las Vegas, 2 in N.W. Las Vegas and 8 in S. Las Vegas and 10 in the Henderson area.

38 condo and loft units have sold in August-2010. This puts condos, lofts inventory at 5.2 months.

Check out the significant drop in the number of inventories as our inventory in this price range is 20% of condos for sale inventory for the $50,000-$100,000 price range. This is the reason that I am doing Greater Las Vegas condo and loft market reports in $50,000 increments.

Midrise Luxury lofts at Loft 5 and condominiums at Park Avenue and Manhattan and The District show up in this price range. The table below shows sold numbers for August 2010 for bank owned, short sales and traditional sale condos and lofts.

Did bank-owned condos really sell for 106% of asking price? Are results accurate for this segment? Yes and no. If one takes a closer look, he/she will find that the condos sold at Meridian are skewing results since our sample size is not large enough. One Meridian condo, with an asking price of $107,000 sold for $150,000 and two others sold for $16,000 and $12,000 over asking price, these buyers paid about $140 per square foot and didn’t get a good deal, even though they purchased foreclosures. This goes to show you that buying a foreclosure in Las Vegas doesn’t mean that you automatically get a bargain.

Other than Meridian and Manhattan condominiums, the rest did not sell for the asking price. Sold condos have been priced well and this can’t be said about condos that are currently listed, as a significant percentage of the non-distressed condos are priced so unreasonably that their chance of selling is zero.

A few condos that are currently listed in one condo community that I will not name are listed at 300% of sold prices. I am discussing condos in $100K-$150K price range and we just had an offer accepted on a move in ready bank owned condo for $26,500. I am always perplexed at why a Realtor would list a condo that has no chance of selling. However, one short sale agent that only wants to be contacted through e-mails and (too busy to take phone calls!!!) has listed the condo as both a short sale and a foreclosure at the same time takes the top honor. This short sale condo will get foreclosed upon. I wonder if a Realtor is too busy to answer phone calls about his listing, why is he in this business?

The majority of condo communities in this price range have all the amenities, such as pool, clubhouse, exercise room, etc. HOA fees are from $125 per month to $700 range in The District.

Related Web-Site links and blog links:

Las Vegas condos, lofts for sale $50,000-$100,000 market report

Las Vegas condos, lofts for sale priced below $50,000 market report

Las Vegas Condos – Lofts– Luxury Condominiums for Sale

Las Vegas new condos, lofts for sale

Las Vegas real estate market report for bank owned (foreclosed) condos and lofts, short sales and (non-distressed) condominiums or lofts for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas priced at $50,000-$100,000. Our total inventory of condominiums for sale in this segment of the market is 995 and 264 condos and lofts have sold in August-2010. This puts our inventory of lofts and condominiums at 3.76 months, which is slightly more than the inventory in below $50,000 range.

995 available condos and lofts inventory are divided as follows, foreclosures= 22%, short sales=49% and non-distressed sales=29% while 61% of sold condos and lofts are bank owned or foreclosures.

The table below shows our current inventory of condos and lofts for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City for sale for $50,000-$100,000. The highest price per square foot is $132/SF that was paid for a condo at Meridian. Condominiums at Meridian used to sell for about $100 per square foot a couple of years ago. Two of the lowest price per square foot condos have been sold in Amber Hills (built in 2004) for $42/SF and one in Centennial Highland (2005) in North Las Vegas. Buyers don’t buy garbage, even at these lower price ranges.

The Meridian condo was the only mid-rise luxury condo in this price range, otherwise all condos are track condominium communities. Now don’t get me wrong, some of these are very nice condo communities that offer all or most amenities that come with luxury mid-rise condos and some actually have higher HOA fees than Mid-rise condos. A good example is Pinehurst Condos HOA fees are $235/month, Pacific Hills condos in Summerlin HOA fee is $ 205 while HOA fees for Manhattan is about $250/SF. All three condo communities offer clubhouse, exercise rooms, pool, spa and playground.

Sold data by type are shown in the table below.

Compare these numbers with condos that are priced below $50,000 and you see a big change. Regardless of the type of condo, the only condos that have been sold for near full asking price are bank owned condominiums that sold in less than a month. No other sector has sold for full asking price. Now, .2% here or .3% there can add up to 3%-5% price depreciation in this sector. Thus in order to protect buyers at this price range, offers should not exceed more than 95% of comparables.

The reason that I am blogging about condos and lofts for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas in $50,000 increments is that $50,000 jump in condominium prices equals a $75,000-$100,000 jump in home prices as far as Las Vegas real estate market is concerned.

Related Web-Site links and blog links:

Las Vegas condos, lofts for sale priced below $50,000 market report

Las Vegas Condos – Lofts– Luxury Condominiums for Sale

Las Vegas residential real estate

I will try to write this blog as simply as I possibly can as the subject at hand is extremely complicated, so here we go.

Zero=Zero unless something changes Zero to something else

Dr. Hawkins goal has been to understand the “mind of the Creator”, impossible since our brains are wired for four dimensions and not 11 dimensions that the M theory claims to compromise our Universe or Multi-verse as the case may be.

• 0=0, unless something changes this Zero to something else

Let’s use number 1 for our existing world and Zero for the infinitesimally short period of time before the Big Bang. Then we have

Zero (Zero Space, Zero Time) à Big Bang à 1= Our World

Ask any scientist that agrees with the Big Bang about what is Zero Space Time and what can happen in nothing (Zero Space Zero Time) and watch them get stuck in the mud like a tired donkey. Ask again, how a colossal explosion can happen in nothing, no-where and at no time (Zero Space, Zero Time) and they are stuck again.

Inflation theory says that before the BIG Bang there was no space or time and time-space was created in a singularity at the instant of the Big Bang. Zero Minus represents an extremely short period of time before the singularity. There is Zero Space Time, then at the singularity (Big Bang) Zero Space Time changes to Space Time in a magnificent explosion which created our world and all that is in it and all that is going to be in it.

The Power that caused Zero time space to become our world is The Creator, otherwise ZERO would remain ZERO. In order for Hawking to be right there must always be Space Time since Gravity needs Space Time to exist. This violates the Big Bang and the main question remains, where did Space Time come from since Time is a Vector and must have a starting point.

Inflation Theory and String Theory are widely accepted by scientists of our time, until someone proves them wrong, but at the moment we don’t know what 96% of our universe is made up of and call it dark matter (we have no idea what it is) and dark energy. How can any scientist claim that there is proof that there is no Creator when we are totally ignorant about 96% of our Universe, let alone eleven-dimensional Multi-verses.

What irritates the heck out of me is that Hawking or many others discuss our Creator as if the Most Holy is a shirt. Oh, gravity makes the Creator unnecessary!  Whenever man creates the Creator then they can decide if the Most Holy is necessary or not.

 One has to decide if there is a Creator or not based on evidence, and the best evidence is

1: Creation itself

3: order imposed after the creation that we are learning about in the form of various scientific formulas

2: the Creator programmed our brains to look for Creator for as long as we can go back people have

4: Steven Hawking himself, the best physician in the world had him expiring decades ago, it is only by Grace of our Creator that he is alive

5: infinite number of other reasons

In my view, the most important decision that anyone makes in life is deciding if a Creator has created our world or not, no one can force a person to believe one way or the other. If one is blessed enough to believe in the creator, then he/she worships the Creator that is One for all. This Creator can’t be used to propagate hate as many religion incorporated entities do, only LOVE since that is the reason that our world was created. Creators Love for us that is.

I personally think that we live in an 11 dimensional multi-verse and that our universe is alive and just like all information about a human baby is encoded in his DNA. All information about what happens ant any instant in our universe was imbedded in the singularity at the instant of the birth of universe, which is why no information is ever lost in our universe. But that is just me and I can’t prove this just as Hawking can’t prove what he says.

 The only sure way to find out for sure is to believe and pray to the Most Holy and understand the answer we it is received. Blessed are those do.

It pains me to write something negative about Professor Hawking as aside from prayers, he is the bright beacon that has gotten me through the car accident to 15 years later. As bad as my condition got, I thought that he has it far worse than me and and if he can go on excelling, I can do whatever I set my mind too. I love Hawking, but he is not perfect.

ONLY STEPHEN HAWKING’S CRATOR IS PERFECT

The reason that I have doing a market conditions report for lofts and condominiums and have excluded townhomes, is that as far as lenders are concerned, Las Vegas lofts are treated as condos and this makes financing them very difficult, however townhomes are treated as single family homes and are easy to finance. There aren’t any lofts for sale in this price range.

About 500 out of 1750 condos and lofts for sale are priced at $14,000-$50,000.

The table below shows the current inventory of condos by type (foreclosures, short sales and non distressed sales). The total inventory is 1577 while 476 condos and lofts sold in August-2010, so this represents 3.75 months of available inventory. Total inventory of condominiums and lofts, priced below $50,000 is 500 while 190 sold in August, so our inventory in this price range is 2.6 months.

The table below shows our current inventory of condos for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City that priced below $50,000.

The reason that I have put $14,000 as minimum price is that there aren’t any condos or lofts for sale that are priced below this amount.

Even though the number of condos sold for less than $50,000 is far less than Las Vegas homes for sale priced below $100,000 sold data closely mimics this sector.

Prices in condo communities that rent well, like Craig Roads Villas which is close to Nellis Air Force Base have actually appreciated by about 10% since February-2010; the reason is ease of renting and pretty decent cash flow. The last investor who we helped buy a condo there rented her condo the day after she closed escrow on it.

Let’s take a look at cash on cash returns on a ground floor two bedroom, 974 square foot condo which rents for $600-$650 per month. These can be purchased for about $35,000 and HOA fees and taxes for these condos add up to $205 per month. Excluding other costs like vacancy or repair costs, cash on cash return for this Craig Road Condo is 13.7%-15.4%. This is the reason that prices have appreciated by 10%. Condos like these make for good investment opportunity in Las Vegas real estate.

Check out the numbers in the table above. More than half of non short sale condos closed escrow in less than 30 days; this is due to the fact that the vast majority of condominiums in this price range are cash only deals.

I do not see any price drops for condominiums that are sold in this price range.

Related Web-Site links:

Buy short sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

Buy foreclosure or bank Repo Las Vegas homes or condominiums

Las Vegas Condos – Lofts– Luxury Condominiums for Sale

MGM CityCenter Views from Panorama Tower 2 condos

City Center -Aria Casino pool view from Panorama Tower 2

Vdara Condo Hotel, Aria Casino, Cosmopolitan and Bellagio from Panorama condos

Related web-site links: Buy Las Vegas high rise condos for sale

• Pesticide free high protein omega-3 diet
• Certified Organic Feed, + milled flax seed
• Selected Free Range
• Unfertilized large brown eggs

All eggs are not the same and Judie and Alan Lane’s eggs are great tasting and good for you,

Judie and Alan Lane were our favorite neighbors. They are very nice, however unfortunately we lost them as neighbors in the economic downturn and they now live in Pahrump in Nye County. They are now raising chickens to produce great, healthy organic eggs which they sell at the local farmers market. With the latest food scare we have experienced recalling eggs we thought it a good time to let people know about alternatives.

There is a farmers market on Saturday mornings in Pahrump, NV where you can find them selling their fresh eggs along with other produce they grow. They brought us a dozen of these eggs yesterday to try out and they are delicious, fresh and give you the needed Omega 3 that everyone should be adding to their diet. We thoroughly enjoyed the eggs.  If you’d like more information on these healthier eggs please contact Judie at judiegregg@yahoo.com. I sincerely hope that this blog will help them be found in search engines and increase their business.

You can call them at (775)-513-3330

Some Las Vegas homes or condo buyers are NOT aware of the fact that a home or condominium seller only looks at the offers in terms of NET gain and pay no attention to the offer amount. To explain this I will discuss a hypothetical situation below:

A Las Vegas home for sale is priced at $200,000 and needs about $5,000 in repairs done, Las Vegas Realtors commissions are 6% and the buyer’s maximum amount allowed towards closing costs is 3.5%. Now the seller gets the following two offers:

Offer one: Is from a buyer who needs to finance his deal and offers $215,000, the buyer asks for the maximum $7,525 towards his closing costs and $5,000 seller contribution toward repairs. The net to the seller for this after deducting buyer closing costs and repairs and Realtors commission is $189,575. I am not including sellers closing costs as it remains constant for both offers.

Offer two: Is from a Las Vegas real estate cash investor at $202,000. Given that it doesn’t make sense to ask for closing costs or repair costs in a cash deal, the investor doesn’t ask for any. In this case the net to the seller is $189,880 and the seller will take the second cash offer in a heartbeat while the offer amount is $13,000 less than the first. The net for this offer is a bit more than the other but we have found that even if a cash offer nets less than the loan offer the banks will sometimes accept the cash offer over the loan because they can close a cash deal quicker and with less chance of falling out of escrow. If both offers needed financing the highest net would win.

Las Vegas homes or condominium buyers who have to finance their deal ask for seller contribution towards closing costs or repairs because they don’t have enough money to comfortably pay for them, this is not true for cash investors.

It doesn’t make sense for cash buyers to ask for closing costs or repairs because all that has to be done is to lower the offer amount by the desired number and submit a clean contract which has a much better chance of acceptance.

1: Las Vegas short sale home seller DOESN’T have to be behind in paying their mortgage.

2: No offer is needed to start the short sale process, listing a home or condo is enough. This will prevent ridiculously low asking prices so the listing agent would get an offer on the home before starting the short sale process.

3: The listing agent doesn’t have to waste a great deal of time trying to locate and open communication with an asset manager.

4: A short sale manager will contact the seller if necessary, the Realtor can be present when the short sale manger is interviewing the seller. This is awfully cool since the Realtor should be familiar with and bring up the issue of specific performance and try to get the seller out of hot water, if at all possible.

While I am on the specific performance issue, the asset manager said that he is not aware of anyone going after the short sale home seller for the first mortgage, but if a second mortgage is involved, it is sold to the type of people who have no conscience and would barbeque their own mother and eat her if there was any money in it. I am not kidding you.

5: If an offer is made on the property, the listing agent will e-mail the contract to the short sale manager which will review the contract and order and order an appraisal, NOT a BPO (broker price opinion). Unfortunately we run into low appraisals since if a home really appraises for $20,000 over the sale price the appraisal will come in at $1,000 over. Banks can obtain an appraisal from 150 mile radius of the property. Some appraisals in Las Vegas are done by appraisers in Bakersfield, California who are clueless. Wachovia will negotiate differences between their own appraisal and buyer’s appraisal that is mandated if the buyer has to obtain a loan.

6: It should take 6-10 days to obtain a bank approval for the short sale.

7: The Wachovia Short sale seller DOESN’T have to be an owner occupier. Las Vegas real estate investors are eligible to take advantage of the short sale process

8: If there is a second mortgage involved, Wachovia will try to settle the second mortgage with the lender. If a second mortgage can be settled they can close the deal in 45 days or less.

Related blog posts:

Foreclosure, Short Sale or Deed in Lieu? Which one will do less harm to your credit?

Foreclosure, Short Sale or Deed in Lieu? Which one will do less harm to your credit history? Part 2, Las Vegas short sales

Foreclosure, Short Sale or Deed in Lieu? Which one will do less harm to your credit?

Related Web-Site links:

Las Vegas short sale homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas foreclosed homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas homes or condos for sale

Why didn’t the mountains of foreclosure homes that real estate analysts kept foolishly predicting will hit Las Vegas housing market materialize?

1: Nevada mediation that is enforced by Nevada Supreme Court has slowed down foreclosure process

2: Federal Government pressure on the lenders and it is working (Attention Obama Bashers)

3: Bankruptcy: Takes time, ensures that lender can’t come after the owner for specific performance (lender suing owner for the difference between the sale price and mortgage owed on home)

4: Banks have finally realized that short selling Las Vegas homes saves them about 10% versus foreclosing on the home

5: Banks are finally starting to streamline the short sale process and make listing or making offers on short sales as painless as it can become

How do short sale homes affect Las Vegas housing market?

If selling a Las Vegas short sale can mimic a non-distressed traditional sale, then why should the bank severely undercut prices to attract buyers?

The only difference between a regular sale home and a short sale home is that one or more lenders are involved and should OK the deal.  If any seller contribution or repair demands are involved in the transaction, these should be allowed by the lender too, that is it.

The reason that we have avoided listing or making offers on Las Vegas short sale homes comes from the difficulty involved in dealing with the lenders.

If the bank has set policies to help conclude the short sale process and close escrow within 30-45 days and if I can find the asset manager with one phone call and have him deal with my seller in my presence then the short sale process is not much different from a regular sale.

Now the lender doesn’t have to market their homes at 10%-20% less than non-distressed regular homes in order to attract buyers and this will help stabilize our housing market.

Lastly: As I have repeatedly stated Las Vegas homes that can be financed with a FHA, VA or conventional mortgage will not see significant price cuts, especially homes that are priced below $100,000. If a Las Vegas home for sale needs financing through a Jumbo Loan, more troubles are ahead.

I will write about why we will list and show Wachovia bank short sales homes in Las Vegas next.

Related blog posts: Las Vegas homes for sale – Las Vegas real estate market 2010

Related Web-Site links:

Las Vegas short sale homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas foreclosed homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas homes or condos for sale

I have gone over the Las Vegas real estate market conditions for Las Vegas homes for sale for July-2010 and the reason that I picked July was that the tax credit had expired and would not significantly affect the results. If anything, July would be a bad month to report home sales in Greater Las Vegas, since home buyers who wanted to take advantage of the tax credit have already purchased their home.

While, most market reports about Las Vegas housing are based on the meaningless median price, I have tried to show that the home for sale market is not the same for all price ranges. See the market report for homes priced below $100,000 and luxury homes.  Sold prices for bank owned homes and short sales homes is at 105% of asking price for homes priced below $100,000 and if a buyer wants to buy a foreclosed homes in this price range, he/she has to compete with cash investors who can close the deal in less than 30 days. You can’t bring a plastic fork to a gun fight and expect to win; low balling offers in this price range will get you nowhere quickly.

The second issue that I have tried to show is that the market is not the same in every price range. Check out the sold price to asking price ratio for the more expensive homes, for example homes priced at $500,000-one million dollars. Foreclosed or bank owned homes that have sold in this price range have sold for more than 100% of asking price, while short sales have sold for about 92% of asking price and non-distressed homes for about 93% of asking price.

When a good Las Vegas Realtor makes an offer on a Las Vegas, Henderson or North Las Vegas home, he/she should take into account current market conditions by price range and type to have a good chance of success.

I do not see any significant price drops for homes that are priced below $200,000 based on today’s numbers with one caveat; at the moment investors are the driving force in the Las Vegas homes and condominiums market and these are a fickle bunch, one moment they are here and the next moment they are gone.

 Las Vegas real estate investors will not flee the Las Vegas housing market because it is a great investment opportunity as it provides good cash flow and excellent odds of good future appreciation as our housing market is about 17%-18% undervalued, but as long as our media is doing all it possibly can to scare the heck of them who know what will happen.

Where is the Las Vegas homes for sale market going?

I am happy to report that as far as I know 25,000-35,000 bank owned shadow inventory homes is DEAD, no one has brought it up since my blog series and subsequent declaration by Larry Murphy that put this number at 6,500 but fear mongering goes on unabated!

The next big wave is short sale homes; as lenders will try very hard to sell a home as a short sale before they foreclose on it and make the process palatable enough so that Realtors like me wouldn’t avoid them and it is starting to work.

The way that these banks are starting to deal with short sales will have a significant positive effect on the housing market and I will explain this next post.

I am reproducing the links for homes in all price ranges below so you can check yours.

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced 1 Million Dollars plus

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $500K-One Million

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $300,000-$400,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $200,000-$300,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $100,000-$200,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced below $100,000

Related Web-Site links

Las Vegas short sale homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas foreclosed or bank owned homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos for sale

This is the sixth article in the Las Vegas real estate market series that I am doing for August, 2010.

The inventory of multimillion dollar homes in Las Vegas is about 3.5 years and there is no need for the second table that I have had in previous blogs. Only one sold home was foreclosure or bank owned which is located in the exclusive Red Rock Country Club.  The foreclosing mortgage for this home was about three million dollars, asking price was 2.4 million and it sold for $100,000 less in 52 days. Red Rock Country Club is where the doctor who killed Michael Jackson used to live. His home was in the foreclosure process and it may show up in the MLS soon.

Now check out the difference with the one short sale home that sold in July. The short sale home was located in Seven Hills, which is adjacent to Henderson Executive Airport and Anthem. Asking price was 1.8 million and selling price was 1.3 million dollars which is 40% of the original price after being on the market for about two years.

Nine regular sale (non-distressed) homes sold in July for about 85% of asking price, two sold in less than 60 days and 4 in more than 120 days.

The inventory for million dollar plus homes is 8 months for foreclosed homes, 4.2 years for non-distressed traditional home sales and about 3 years for short sales.

This segment of the market will witness serious price cuts.

I will do a concluding blog in this series next.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City priced $1,000,000 plus.

Related Web-Site links

Las Vegas short sale homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas foreclosed or bank owned homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos for sale

Detailed instructions for manually upgrading WordPress can be found here. First one has to download the new version of WordPress and un-zip it to the computer’s hard drive, which I do.

A: Download the new version and unzip it. You will have an option on where to download the unzip folder for example C:\Users\….\Downloads\wordpress-3.0.1. However this gives you a nested folder. So make sure you delete the last part and unzip to C:\Users\….\Downloads\, this way you can upload the folder by itself.

Now the WordPress instructions tell you to delete all files and folders, except a few, before uploading the new version to the server. Here is where WordPress Codex and I part ways. I download files and folders that WordPress doesn’t want me to delete from the server to their appropriate folders in the new version of WordPress on my computer and choose (overwrite all option) while doing it.

Here is the detailed steps; I open the FTP program and can see the new version of WordPress on my computer and the old version on the server.

1: I back up the old WordPress to my computer with one click

2: Deactivate Plugins

3: Download wp-config.php file; to the WordPress folder on my computer

4: Download the wp-content folder from the server to the new one on my computer, open it and delete wp-content/cash and wp-content/plugins/widgets

5: Download wp-images from the server to my computer and overwrite all files

6: Download wp-includes languages to the new wordpress on my computer

7: Download robots. Text and .htaccess to the new version of WordPress  on my computer

8: If WordPress is at the root of your site, download robots.text file also

9: Upload the new version of WordPress from your computer to the server and use the option of overwrite all while doing it

10: You are done and now you can upgrade your plugins or permalinks and re-activate plugins

I have done this and have never been disconnected from the wordpress-admin page, this is seamless. Other than backing up the old version of WordPress from the server to my computer which takes time, the rest can be done in less than 5 minutes and with less than 10 clicks and it works.

I am not a specialist at this and would highly appreciate comments.

Now, can someone help me with why Sociable plugin doesn’t work on my blog site http://www.lasvegas4us.com/wordpress/

This is the fifth article in the Las Vegas real estate market series that I am doing for August, 2010. Well, if you want bad news, it is easy to find it in this price range. The inventory of homes in this price range is about 14 months and yet again we have to break down these by type of home sale.

Foreclosure or bank owned inventory stands at 5.6 months. Only 5 foreclosed homes sold in July and 4 out of 5 closed escrow or sold in less than a month, three out of four were purchased for $16,000-57,000 higher than the asking price, one sold at the asking price and the last one sold for $28,000 below asking price. Short sale inventory for this price range is 12 months.

Non-distressed sales are selling for about 93% of asking prices and the inventory of these homes is 15 months.

Now this is the type of data that screams price reductions, not homes that are priced below $300,000. Foreclosed homes or short sales are NOT the main reason that this segment of market is in trouble, it is difficulty with getting a Jumbo loan to finance these.

Sold homes were obviously priced to sell and a significant number of these homes are not priced to sell. The average days on the market for homes priced $500K-1 Million is 245 days before it sells.

Future price reductions can be worked in the offer, that is 4 out 5 bank owned homes sold in less than 30 days because they were priced low enough that if prices in this range go down another 10%-15%, these buyers will be protected.

Lastly, even in this price range buyers can’t lowball the bank since 4 out of 5 sold for more than or equal to asking price.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City priced $500,000-1,000,000.

Check out the short sale homes, none were sold for more than asking price, the only one that sold in less than 60 days sold for $525,000 for about ten percent less than asking price. The biggest price reduction was for a home that was on the market for about 2.4 years, it sold about $200,000 less than asking price.

Double digit price drops in this range are not unreasonable, however bargains can be found.

Related Web-Site links and blog posts:

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $300,000-$400,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $200,000-$300,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $100,000-$200,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced below $100,000

Related Web-Site links

Las Vegas short sale homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas foreclosed or bank owned homes or condos for sale

 Las Vegas non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos for sale

This is the fourth article in the Las Vegas real estate market series that I am doing for August, 2010, and differences with lower priced homes is striking. While 55% of short sale homes sold within 30 days for homes priced below $100,000 and 33% closed escrow in 60 days plus, this is reversed for short sales in $300K-$400K price range since it took more than 60 days to close about 2/3 of these short sale homes.

Available inventory in this price range is 4.9 months, but let’s break down these numbers a bit. The bank owned home inventory for this price range is 1.7 months and about half sold within 30 days. Now let’s look at short sale inventory; it is 3.3 months and non-distressed sales inventory is 7.42 months.  Here  the ratio of foreclosed homes to total listings is 7.4% while 21% of sold homes are REPOS.

One needs to reflect a bit about the affect of foreclosures on the total market for this price range and 7% inventory will not greatly affect the total number. The reason that foreclosure home sales are 3 times the inventory is twofold. One is many of non-distressed sales inventory is overpriced and if one looked at the number that are really priced to sell is far below the numbers shown and the other is that about two thirds of short sale homes took more than 60 days to close escrow and many buyers don’t want to wait that long to get an answer from the bank.

Now, when news organization discuss price reductions, it will be for this price range and higher and this is due to the fact that getting a Jumbo loan is very difficult and requirements for down payment are as high as 40% and this doesn’t make sense since there is no sign that these homes are going to lose that much in value in the future.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City priced $300,000-400,000.

July sales for homes priced $300,000-$400,000 is shown in the table below. 417 homes have sold in this price range. 120 have been bank owned or Repo homes, 122 short sales and 175 were non-distressed traditional sales. As we go up in price the percentage of non-distressed sales increases.

 Future price cuts are more probable for this and higher range prices. Additionally, not too many buyers would make a decision to buy a home at this price range just because of the tax credit, so the impact of the tax credit in this price range and higher should not be statistically significant but the inability of the buyer to get a good loan with a low down payment is.

 Related Web-Site links and blog posts:

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $200,000-$300,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $100,000-$200,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced below $100,000

 Related Web-Site links

Buying short sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

Buying foreclosure or bank owned Las Vegas homes or condominiums

Buying non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

This is the third blog post in the Las Vegas real estate market series that I am doing for August, 2010 since the majority of homes that were bought due to the tax credit have been sold by June-30^th. There is a concern that July home sales are skewed since most home buyers have already purchased their home, so be it.

The table below shows the current inventory of homes that have sold for $200,000-$300,000 by type. The total inventory is 1577 and this represent 3.75 months of available inventory.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City.

July sales for homes priced $200,000-$300,000 is shown in the table below. 417 homes have sold in this price range. 120 have been bank owned or Repo homes, 122 short sales and 175 were non-distressed traditional sales. As we go up in price the percentage of non-distressed sales increases.

I f you look at the previous blog about Las Vegas homes sold for $100K-$200K you see that the ratio of sold prices to asking prices has gone down by 1%-2% and this is not significant. Only about 29% of sales are bank owned homes and this number will decrease as we go up in prices. Again these numbers are self explanatory. As I wrote before, the real estate market for Las Vegas homes for sale for up to $300,000 is lively and current numbers don’t support double digit drops in prices for the next 12 months. Now you see proof.

Related Web-Site links and blog posts:

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced $100,000-$200,000

Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced below $100,000

Related Web-Site links

Buying short sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

Buying foreclosure or bank owned Las Vegas homes or condominiums

Buying non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos in Las Vegas

Yesterday Karen and I were invited to a presentation by Richard Lee, Vice President of First American Title Company, that was conducted by Prospect Mortgage. Mr. Lee’s presentations are very interesting and well planned; he knows how to make a point. I don’t attend many presentations any longer due to the diminishing returns on my time but never fail to pick up really cool stuff from Mr. Lee.

Mr. Lee is very optimistic about the future of Las Vegas, as I am, and the new phrase he used is VEGASIZATION, and definitely NOT Manhattanization. He said that the best places to introduce a new product are Hong Kong and Las Vegas, not New York or Chicago and Las Vegas can highly profit from this as the economy recovers, and that recovery is certain due to historical precedence.

I personally think that Las Vegas became a tourist attraction because it offered the best bang for the buck for an average family to spend their vacation and things went wrong when those in power strayed from this. I believe that the future of Las Vegas should be general commercial and not tourist commercial and the way to go is types of Bazaars with small stores just like those in down town Los Angeles where a family can go and buy merchandise at significant discounts.

He discussed how Las Vegas has become a Hub of National Security. Exceptionally low start up cost due to low real estate prices which is augmented by the quality high tech employee’s willingness to move to Las Vegas is attracting high tech companies to Las Vegas.

I am closely familiar with this problem as my best friend who has an ultra high tech factory in Las Vegas couldn’t get quality employees to move to Las Vegas. He was so frustrated by this problem that he was considering moving back to California. He has added 12 highly paid specialists to his company since the beginning of the year.

Mr. Lee also discussed a graph like the Case Schiller housing graph that shows Las Vegas residential real estate is about 18% undervalued, however this graph predicts a spike in housing prices in 2012 and not the average appreciation on 5%-8% for housing that doesn’t need a jumbo loan to be purchased.

While the Las Vegas housing market is alive and well for homes that are priced below $300,000 I haven’t discussed the luxury housing market in Las Vegas as of yet and it is not good. Predicted price drops are for these homes and not cheaper homes.

Mr. Lee gave an example; a buyer with 700 Fico Score and two million dollars in the bank wants to buy a million dollar home and finance it, how much down payment does he need? He asked mortgage officers in the room and there were a few good ones there. The answer was 40% or $400,000. Then he asked how many buyers are willing to put down 40% to buy a million dollar home? Silence!

The other issue that I want to discuss which made me very angry is that it was brought to my attention that someone has complained that my web-site may not be conforming to the Nevada Real Estate Division regulations, since the interior pages of my web site don’t have the necessary logos in them.

A series of arguments ensued which I don’t care to discuss here, however I knew for a FACT that I was right in the matter, and I don’t back off when I am right, ever and at any cost. Without discussing details, I have verified that my site fully conforms with the law, so whoever complained can sleep easy tonight as all is well with Las Vegas real estate now.

To understand the reason for my anger read the previous blog. A gentleman flew from Colorado to Las Vegas and stayed here for two days to see 8 condos at Panorama. We tried to make appointments to pick up keys two days in advance and failed in 6 out 8 cases. Imagine how pitiful and hateful someone has to be to bring up a silly issue like this in the current environment.

I have never tried to hide the fact that I am an Iranian- American, since I am proud of being both and have done my best to set a good example. My first cousins call me Las Vegas when I visit.  Living as an Iranian-American in US I have been subject to many acts of kindness which vastly out number the hostile acts or I wouldn’t be here.

 The flip side is that I have many enemies that I didn’t make and haven’t met. Thankfully these people are ignorant by default. When I argue with a redneck, and there have been many, I bring up the following example; one of the recent presidents of Harvard University’s brother was a reputed Mafia criminal whom law enforcement was looking for and couldn’t find. When two full brothers can be so different, how can any sane person judge someone based on where they were born or the color of their skin or how they decide to worship our (NOT their) Creator, as it is one.

The following is only for the person that complained about me:

Whoever you are, as the GOOD LORD is my witness I am not angry at you. I pray that our Good Creator bless you with love and life since you are so immersed in hate and jealousy that all you are doing is dying a bit every day, instead of living it. The biggest waste in the universe is a wasted life.

General Franco, who was the Spanish dictator before the current King Carlos, was involved in a skirmish and while he was walking, an enemy shot the coffee cup in his hand. He didn’t flinch, looked towards the enemy line and famously said better luck next time. Buddy, you missed by ten miles, however better luck next time.

Different high rise condo towers have different procedures that have to be followed in order for a Realtor to show a listing there. Panorama Towers does not allow lock boxes on the property nor do they have a service at the property so Realtors can pick up the key.

 If done properly; the listing Realtor has to meet the buyer’s agent and the buyer at Panorama Towers and show the condominium and one did just that, his name is David Grant of Realty Executives of Las Vegas.  That left seven condos.

 Properly has nothing to do with how Las Vegas foreclosure deals are conducted; the other seven Realtors won’t show their listings and required us to pick up the keys at their offices. Given that this is not the first time that we have shown condos at Panorama Towers, Karen started making appointments to pick up the keys from the listing agent’s offices on Thursday morning two days in advance to make sure we would have access to the units.

The rest of this post is written by Karen and she is NOT happy.

 I was told when to pick up the keys on Saturday morning for 7 listings by the listing agents.  The other listing agent had checked out a key to another Realtor (prior to our call Thursday morning) that would not have the key back until Monday! Just think how many showings you would have if you met the agents and showed the unit versus giving one agent the key for over 4 days!  Or did you ever think to make more than 1 key? So we thought we had the battle won by Thursday afternoon. We had successfully found 8 listings to show our client.

But nothing is easy in real estate and this was no exception. Saturday morning we left home at 10:15 to pick up the keys per instructions from the listing agents.

 First stop: The agent had not left the key. When the receptionist called the agent she told me he would be in the office in 30 minutes and would call me then.  No phone call every came!

Second stop: The key that had been checked out previously by another Realtor had not been turned back in yet. Again, wouldn’t a second key be practical?

Third stop: Both their keys (at least they had 2) had been checked out prior to my phone call on Thursday and had never been returned. Shame on the Realtors that can’t return the keys in a timely manner so other agents can show the property. Are you hoping to get your offer accepted before it can be shown again or just “too busy” to return the key in a timely manner.

Fourth stop: Yeah, they had the key ready. However, when we tried to use it we found that there was something wrong with the lock and after 5 minutes of trying to open the door, gave up. When I returned the key, later that same afternoon that I had checked it out, I told the receptionist that the key didn’t work and she asked if I’d like her to tell someone about it. Well yes, I told her, so that the next agent doesn’t have the same problem. DUH!

Fifth stop: Great, got 1 key to fit both listings and it worked.

The day was successful and our client likes one of the units and we’re working up comps and information for him. He might have liked your units too had he been able to see them by Panorama listing agents. So even after putting 120 miles on our car running to get keys to go to one address it could result in a happy client.

We did all we could possibly do and failed in 6 out of 8 attempts to show condos at Panorama Towers. If I was the customer, I would say these are the crappiest Realtors on earth, they couldn’t show me 3 condos. Well, we aren’t but these Panorama foreclosure listing agents are and it looks like our customer knows we did our very best.

This is the second blog post in Las Vegas real estate market series that I am doing for August, 2010 as the tax credit doesn’t significantly impact July Sales.

Let’s look at the market report for homes that have sold for $100,000-$200,000. I have to admit that it surprised me as there is a shift in how quickly short sale homes are closing escrow. We will start to show short sale homes in this price range.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City

1673 homes that are priced $100,000-$200,000 have sold in Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas and Boulder City in July-2010 and this puts our current inventory of homes for this price range at 3.5 months.

Just like homes that have sold for less than $100,000, 2/3 of the homes sold in Las Vegas for $100K-$200K price range are foreclosures or bank repo homes, while the number of REPO listings is only 23% of total inventory.

These numbers are self explanatory but I want to add a couple of points:

1: About half of the short sale homes have closed escrow in the 60 days plus range; actually it took more than 120 days to close the deal on about 29% of these homes.

2: Las Vegas short sale homes and foreclosures are selling for the full asking price.

3: It is foolish to predict a 14% price drop for homes when they get full price offers.

Related Web-Site links and blog posts:

• Buying short sale homes or condos in Las Vegas
• Buying foreclosure or bank owned Las Vegas homes or condominiums
• Buying non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos in Las Vegas
• Las Vegas real estate market – homes for sale priced below $100,000

This is a good time to take a look at the Las Vegas real estate market report since most Las Vegas home buyers who wanted to take advantage of the tax credit have closed their deals by June, 30 2010. Even though the tax credit was extended for 90 days, the effect of leftovers on the market report for July 2010 is not going to be significant.

Despite all the unfounded doom and gloom conspiracy that is propagated through Las Vegas and national media in order to prop up their pathetic sales, the market for homes that are priced up to $300,000 is lively and I will cover these by price range.

Let’s take a look at the market report for homes sold for up to $100,000 and I have to admit that it surprised me as there is a shift in how quickly short sale homes are closing escrow. We will start to show short sale homes in this price range.

The table below shows our current inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City

762 homes that are priced up to $100,000 have sold in Las Vegas in July-2010 and this puts our current inventory of homes for this price range at 2.5 months. 2.5 month inventories don’t lead to price cuts. Take a look at the sold numbers for July.

Even though the number of short sales and non-distressed traditional sale listings are 3 times the number of bank owned homes, more than half of the homes sold are foreclosures. Bank owned homes in this price range get multiple offers as soon as they are listed and about two third of these close escrow in 30 days as most of these are cash offers by Las Vegas real estate investors.

The other important number is the ratio of sold price to asking price; this ratio is at least 100% for most of these homes. Many investors who contact us expect to lowball bank owned homes as they think that the Las Vegas real estate market is flooded with foreclosures, NOT HAPPENING.

The story is a bit different for non-distressed homes; most of these don’t get full price offers as they are priced at 10%-25% higher than foreclosures so there is room for negotiation.

I leave it to the reader to decide if this data supports the ridiculous predictions of 14% price depreciation in Las Vegas residential market in the next 12 months  by a Wisconsin loan company!!!

Related Web-Site links:

• Buying short sale homes or condos in Las Vegas
• Buying foreclosure or bank owned Las Vegas homes or condominiums
• Buying non-distressed or traditional sale homes or condos in Las Vegas