Ten thousand. Say it again so it sinks in; ten thousand empty houses. The San Diego UT reports that Vegas may not have been the boom town people thought.Vegas housing slump continues
ASSOCIATED PRESS August 5, 2007
LAS VEGAS – Analysts see no end in sight to a housing slump in Las Vegas, where home sales are off by 40 percent, prices continue to fall and home builders have sharply cut back on construction. ...
New homes sales through May were down 43.8 percent in Las Vegas from a year ago and resales were off by 34.7 percent, according to Home Builders Research.
...The inventory of homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service climbed to a record 23,642 in June, with about 40 percent of them sitting vacant.
...“Thus far, this market is performing at a much higher level than the pundits suggest. What outside observers tend to miss – and sometimes even local analysts – is that this market is in the middle of a major transition. Things are changing and we think for the better,” he added.
44 comments:
first
murst!
One of my concerns, which has been discussed on here in the past, is what are all these unemployed realtors and employees in related businesses going to do for a living?
Casinos are always hiring.
I said this three years ago and I'll say it again. They'll be giving houses away before this is over. To anyone who will agree to pay the property taxes, insurance, and maintenance for a certain time period, will go the house.
Geesh.. I was waxing philosophical in the previous thread.. and a new one popped up!
Topical comment... TIMBER!!
Las Vegas, almost 100% dependent upon gambling. Very few manufacturing, tech and biomed jobs. I wonder how many people will go gamble when there is not enough money to pay the mortgage after a reset (excluding the Casey Serin's of the world)
Will they complete the high rise condos going up there, or leave them unfinished like in Bangkok?
Option one stopped funding condos in Florida. LV will be next. What happens then? LOL.
And what happens when other lenders join them? Still LOL.
This just in: Trump Towers Tijuana. Next high rise beach front Condo building spurt, 2 blocks away from the USA in Baja, Mexifornia.
According to NBC news.
90% of Americans are the new owners cuz the are 30% less money than a USA beach front high rise condo costs.
I do NOT know what to say, except laugh in disgust at the dumbness of it all.
Oh yea and there was another shooting in a Vegas casino yesterday, in the Caesars Palace.
http://tinyurl.com/yrl4mr
I wonder how many people will go gamble when there is not enough money to pay the mortgage after a reset
Are you kidding me? When times are tough, these industries are gold:
- Vice
- Booze
- Cigarettes
Oh, and ammo.
Seriously, like Cramer said, the morons will just walk. They keep their credit cards and plasma TVs and save a shitload by renting. Same as before they leaped into the money pit.
Poor people love to gamble. There will be many nouveau poor who will piss away their dollars on slots and alcohol, rather than pissing their money away on a stupid overpriced depreciating house.
I was just "running numbers" on Vegas. As strange as it may seem I can't find a number. Taxes are only 8/10ths +/- percent and utilities are low but so are rents. And the multiplier for vaccancy is out of this world. Say it a third time; ten thousand. That's why I can't come up with a number. I don't have a model that lets me buy a house as rental and rent it out and not get screwed. I suspose somewhere in the low $100s I could say I'm covered but then I have to expect that I'm buying into a depression. That ain't gonna happen or if it does I don't wanna own property like a SFR average rental in LV. See? There is no number. even $0 that makes sense to own in Las Vegas right now.
Let's be clear. Las Vegas as a gambling destination site is dead. D_E_A_D. The Indian Casinos will cut off their ballz and stuff them down their throats. Closer, newer, better in tune with the customer, better odds, special tax treatment. LV has no chance in this contest.
If things get really bad the State of California will allow general gambling. That'll be interesting.
NZ is trading. Down 2.2% on open. THey are the first board to open. Aus, Shang, etc soon. Watch carefully.
Chicago trading futures:
Nikkei futures traded in Chicago (2NKc1: Quote, Profile, Research) finished Friday at 16,680.00, 330 points below the Osaka close (JNIc1: Quote, Profile, Research), pointing to a lower opening.
@ Dawg,
The Hard Rock Casino chain is open and doing business here on the FL reservations (Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale). Hard Rock wants to grow from 95 casinos now, to 250 casinos in the next 5 to 8 years.
And guess what, they are not all in Vegas. Florida is catching a case of the "Me too's" I reckon.
Nikkei225 down 300 in early trading.
arthur, i appreciate your concern for my welfare. but i'll go back under my covers for a few years and wait for some semblance of a marketplace i can work in. right now i'm concentrating on selling some investment properties while i've got some decent equity from the past few years.
this is the cyclical nature of real estate and if you want to work in it, you'd better understand it. so i'll find an 8-5 job and make a few bucks there, along with the 'benefits'. also do some investing for myself.
I wonder if that drop in the NIKKEI is a result of the market drops on Friday or a foreshadowing event of tomorrow's action.
I wonder if that drop in the NIKKEI is a result of the market drops on Friday or a foreshadowing event of tomorrow's action.
The BOJ was going to sell some PPT held stock this fall, they may have to wait. LMAO!
The dollar just retested 80 big time. Go ahead Bennie, make my millenium. Bwahaha!! Bububu Bennie and the jets!
Uh oh. Bear Stearns president resigns.
Holy shit!
Uh oh. Bear Stearns president resigns
Uh oh is right.
Anybody want to start a pool on how long it takes before Mozilo from CFC resigns?
Jimmy "Booyah" Cramer might have an aneurysm come Monday.
By the way, is there any chance that Ron Paul will run as an independent a la Ross Perot in the next election? He's the first candidate I have seen in years that I think can actually help this country.
Anybody see him put Bernake on the spot? That was entertaining.
USDX opened at 80.09. Is this the week that the USDX drops to the 70s?
I guess strippers and busboys are being foreclosed on now in vegas. las vegas as a gambling destination might die, but las vegas as a sex industry destination will live on. as someone who has gone to both indiana casinos (Foxwoods/Mohegan Sun) and vegas, there is no comparison. Vegas is better in some gaming respects, and that's before you bring in the strip clubs, escorts and nightclubs.
Go to the ABCNews site and look at the voting results from the debate. There's no hiding it now.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Decision2008/popup?id=3436820
the voting results from the debate
That's the last thing we need -- another republican conservative from Texas. Same old story with a new set of words.
When did we last have a conservative from Texas?
Spector, who worked his way up the ladder to run Bear's vaunted mortgage operations, has spent his entire career at the firm and earned almost $35.3 million last year.
The last straw for the firm's executive leadership was apparently Spector's working vacation at a bridge tournament on a day when the firm's stock price declined sharply.
An e-mail and call to Spector's residence were not returned.
Yeah, if I was Spector I wouldn't give up my bridge game either. He got his, good time to bail.
When did we last have a conservative from Texas?
Agreed. Ron Paul is a true conservative, not a neo-con. You can't equate the two.
I don't necessarily agree with every single one of his views, but what interests me the most is his notion surrounding the economy. He understands the problems with our fiscal policy and he recognizes the erosion of our purchasing power. That is something I have not heard from any other candidate.
George Bush is a Texas conservative. I realize now that you treat him like aging prostitute that he is, denying that you even know him.
I live in SoCal and vacation in Vegas every summer - fun, cheap if you dont gamble much.
Many of the people who work and live there, were tolerating the low wages and terrible work environment becuase housing was going up so much.
We went to Vegas this summer and talked to a few of the same folks we know and as a whole, the working atmostphere was depressed. Many of the energetic people were no more - mostly due to the home values going down.
I hate to see how much worse things are going to get when people there begin to see that the one and only thing keeping them there, the equity going up, is no more.
Who's buying all those condos being built? I flew into LV last week and saw high-rise after high-rise under construction. Nice condos, I guess, if you're willing to pay the price. Who is paying?
I'd guess the hi-rise condos were in the planning stages when things were still looking up. Due to the long lag time in construction, they'll still have the cranes up in the air when the market hits bottom. They can't just leave 'em half finished.
I've been to Vegas a few times and other than as a weekend getaway, I just don't see any appeal there and never understood why anyone would find it attractive as a place to actually live.
Outside of the much-ballyhooed Strip, it's as dull and hot and backwards as Phoenix. You go a few blocks away from that damn Strip (which extends into the downtown / Glitter Gulch region by my definition, a long neon line) and there's just nothing but strip malls and convenience stores and the same cookie-cutter architecture as any other big Western town. Though it does seem to have a higher than average number of pawn shops, no doubt to accomodate all those high-rollers who hit a bad streak.
I live in Vegas and like it. Housing prices suck. I don't work in the casino industry and have a pretty decent job.
Anyways, I've rented here (SFR, detached small house) for almost a year now. The neighbor on my east has been in town twice. Over New Year's for two weeks and over Mammarial Day for the weekend. I guess they bought a house instead of a condotel. The house next to them (two down from me) was for sale when I got here but several months ago was apparantly rented. No way rent covers the FB bleed rate.
My neighbor to the west just moved out. Apparantly a foreclosure. House never listed for sale. Last month they took a family trip to Disneyland.
Final hurrah?
The lawn is almost dead and we have had rain. The neighbor had 'lawn service' until about about three months ago and then stopped that.
Young guy and wife, late twenties or early thirties...one preteen daughter and two 8-9 year old boys.
What the fuck were they thinking?
The wife is a cocktail waitress (and a decent looking one) and the husband has a business cleaning carpets. Guess carpet cleaning wasn't going so well.
Plenty of pain in Vegas and prices aren't dropping much yet.
On the brighter side, the last few weeks have had some rain and cooler temps and my tomatos and peppers are loving it.
I am utterly convinced that this last boom in Las Vegas gambling was a direct by product of easy mortgage and HELOC money.
Now that the spigots are being turned off, the LV gambling handle will plummet.
Yes, people gamble when times are bad. But they can only gamble money they have access to.
As for the comment that Vegas casinos are always hiring, I am afraid that is an ignorant remark.
Casino jobs are very much coveted and it takes a very long time to work one's way up from a honky tonk to the Strip.
@ sac re agent
You seem to understand the system and the cyclical nature of it. My concern is what are all the people who got RE licenses in the last, say, 3 years going to be doing in the next 3 years? Add to that the construction workers and allied staff like planning and inspection who will start to find work hard to get. OK the skilled and degree qualified types will probably get by in the main, but the RE agents with 2 years experience, clerks and secretaries in RE offices and house building companies? I can't see anything other than a scramble for minimum wage jobs in their local area, and the losers on welfare (if they can get it).
The construction workers will be fine.
You will see a ramp up of delayed highway work from last week's disaster. The construction companies will be lobbying so as not to be forgotten. But they may need to move and when they do, they will dump many more houses into the mess, as there is not a whole lot of bridge repair in LV as some other cities.
The relators are screwed. Just like in the early 90s.
Service folks will hurt for a while but adapt.
Typical negative feedback cycle. This should help cut back the amount of money/water/resources being dumped into the desert until they have a plan, as the boom was getting out of control.
Ron Paul has stated that he will NOT consider running as an independent.
That was how we got the LAST Clinton in the White House, and I am sure he realizes that all he would be doing is assuring the Dem candidate would win.
To flip the scenario, I would LOVE to see Biden run as an independent! I would even vote for him if Paul is not the Republican candidate.
Regarding the hi-rise condos going up in Vegas.
When I was there last month, I asked how much the smallest condo was going for. $600,000 for a 500 square foot condo.
My jaw dropped to the ground. If anyone knows the contractor is a publicly trated company, please let me know what it is - I want to short it with everything I have.
@Rob: "Go to the ABCNews site and look at the voting results from the debate. There's no hiding it now."
Yes, there's definitely no hiding it--the Ron Paul crowd are definitely better at hacking surveys ;).
And I put my vote down under "Nobody. I'm waiting . . . ", and was pleased to see that at least 2759 other people agreed with me.
"If things get really bad the State of California will allow general gambling. That'll be interesting."
Everybody knows it, but no one wants to say it, so I will: the states have become increasingly jealous of the income generated by the indian casinos, and it is only a matter of time before general gambling is legalized. Right now they're contenting themselves with quietly extracting higher taxes from the indian casinos by making veiled threats of removing their monopoly, but as soon as one state cracks and gives in to general gambling, it will open the floodgates.
Look for slot machines at your local corner state-run casino some time in the next decade.
@PV
I have no disillusions that the poll at any website is skewed towards Ron Paul, but I doubt it has to do with "hacking". IMHO it is simply that the thinking, internet-savvy, hip, fire-in-the-belly people that actually accomplish things are the ones that hear of these polls, and actually vote in them. Your average believe the MSM, vote the party lines at all costs, I-know-how-to-use-EMail fogeys are likely very quite under-represented in polls like this.
If it makes you feel better, most of them would be voting "Nobody. I'm waiting for Fred Thompson or Newt Gingrich to enter the race." too! Although I suspect Rudy would be running a close second.
$600,000.00 bucks for a 500 sqare feet high rise condo is just not going to cut in Las Vegas in my opinion.
That is crazy!
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