Great news for Las Vegas!!! Two independent research and analysis think tanks have put Las Vegas back on the good side as far as its housing market goes. Month after month of experiencing bad housing sales data and media reports that the “sky is falling,” this is a breath of fresh air regarding the future of the Las Vegas real estate market.

Further proof of the good news is coming in the Las Vegas housing sales stats for May. We will be posting them in the next day or so. Included will be our take on the current Las Vegas housing market. Check back soon.

We have included Jennifer Robison’s article from the Las Vegas Review Journal, June 4, 2008.

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

“Homeowners, you can almost touch bottom”

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

That’s not just an endless series of queries from road-weary kids on summer vacation. It’s also become the plaintive cry of local homeowners desperately seeking the bottom of a housing market that has shed more than 20 percent of its value in the last year.

Las Vegas homeowners could have their answer soon.

A Monday report, plus a few springtime indicators thrown in for good measure, hints that the city’s housing market may be at or near its nadir.

The latest House Prices in America study from Massachusetts research firm Global Insight and Ohio bank-holding company National City Corp. showed Southern Nevada’s first move toward housing-market undervaluation since the companies launched their joint report in 2004.

At $232,600 in the first quarter, the median home price in Las Vegas fell 3.1 percent below the value that historical market trends establish as sensible or healthy, the House Prices in America analysis said.

That’s compared to the 22.9 percent overvaluation the market saw in the first quarter of 2007, when the median price came in at $286,100.

It’s also down from the fourth quarter’s $258,900 median price and 9.2 percent overvaluation.

At its highest point, in the third quarter of 2006, the Las Vegas market was overvalued by 30.4 percent.

Today’s valuation statistics mean housing prices in Las Vegas have returned to their 23-year “historic norms” based on household income, population density, interest rates and other factors, said Richard DeKaser, chief economist for National City.

Las Vegas also placed well below several regional markets in its valuation ranking. Los Angeles, for example, remains 15.4 percent overvalued at its median price of $432,200.

Phoenix, with a median price of $224,900, is 20.2 percent overvalued, the report said. Salt Lake City is 16.1 percent overvalued at a median of $265,700. Reno has reached equilibrium, with its median price of $251,500 coming in at 0.2 percent below its historic norm.

“I would describe Las Vegas as a fairly valued market,” DeKaser said. “It presents fair purchasing opportunities for home buyers. And if prices are fairly valued, I would think it’s a reasonable time to buy, if you’re making your decision based on whether you find an area attractive for family, friends, employment opportunities and climate. People should not be making these (buying) decisions based on the view that they’re going to gain 20 percent a year for the next 20 years.”

Despite the Las Vegas market’s foray into negative historical-pricing territory, DeKaser stopped short of calling Las Vegas homes undervalued.

National City classifies the range between 15 percent above the pricing baseline and 15 percent below it as fairly valued, so the city has a way to go before it’s positioned for significant appreciation jumps.

But Las Vegas no longer occupies a spot on National City’s “watch list,” a roster of markets risking price declines of 10 percent or more for two years or longer.

“One thing which is clear is that the majority of Las Vegas’ price correction is now behind it,” DeKaser said.

Local observers said the Global Insight/National City analysis makes sense.

Researchers at Sullivan Group Real Estate Advisors recently assessed where local new-home prices would be if the Las Vegas market had appreciated at normal rates of 5 percent to 7 percent a year since 2002. They found prices would be around $256,000, a difference of just a few thousand dollars compared with the $260,000 median new-home price industry researcher Hanley Wood shows now, said Ken Perlman, vice president of Sullivan Group.

That indicates a return to sustainable pricing trends.

“It’s a positive sign that the market is headed in a direction where we might see some stabilization,” Perlman said. “It suggests buying a home in Las Vegas is becoming more of a reasonable proposition. I do agree the biggest price declines are behind us.”

Add local home builder Tom McCormick to the list of believers.

He comes armed with statistics: Las Vegas posted a 68 percent increase in resale closings from December to April. Median asking prices on existing homes stabilized at $230,000 in March and April. Resale inventory fell from 14 months to 11 months in April.

Such figures likely mean the faltering housing market will even out soon, he said.

“I know what it costs to build a home, and these homes can’t be replaced at the prices they’re being sold for. We builders have been arguing for a long time that we can’t build homes at the prices they’re being sold for. By definition, (the decline) can’t go farther.”

But analysts aren’t so sure the price declines have ended.

Brian Gordon, a principal in local economic-research firm Applied Analysis, said he sees potential for additional value cuts. But future pricing declines probably would be “modest,” Gordon said, and buyers who plan to live in their homes for a year or more are “less likely to be harmed by any additional devaluation.”

“We’re certainly approaching the bottom at this point.”

Gordon’s firm predicts the market will reach its low point by year’s end. It’ll “drag along the bottom” for six months to a year, with flat asking prices, and return to single-digit appreciation by late 2009 or early 2010.

Perlman said he also foresees a leisurely recovery pace. Sales could stay sluggish for several more months as buyers, spooked at the prospect of potential price drops, sit on the sidelines a little longer. And tightened credit markets for consumers looking to borrow remain a “wild card,” he said.

DeKaser said his analysis can’t forecast how much more local prices might fall, or when the valuation slide might stop.

But he did offer this general prognosis: “We’re much closer to the bottom than the top.”

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.

LAS VEGAS HOME PRICES
House prices in Las Vegas have fallen into undervalued territory, according to new data from research firm Global Insight and bank National City Corp. It’s the first time in five years that statistics from the first quarter have shown undervalued housing prices here:

First quarter of each year:
2004 / 2005 / 2006 / 2007 / 2008
Local median price:
$296,000 / $259,800 / $290,200 / $286,100 / $232,600
Value change from historic norm:
+3.7% / +20.7% / +29.9% / +22.9% / -3.1%

Source: Global Insight/National City Corp.

As always, if you would like to research homes for sale, including multiple photos and virtual tours, we invite you to www.LasVegasMove.com.

And, if you have any questions or would like additional information about the Las Vegas real estate market or related items, please email me at David@LasVegasMove.com or call me on our toll free real estate helpline:
(800) 321-2065

Have a great day.

One of LasVegasMove.com’s preferred home loan consultants, Aaron Gordon, recently prepared this report regarding short sales vs. foreclosures. We are being asked many of these same questions by our clients all the time, so we have included it here for you. It covers some very timely material.

“The Credit Score Truths and Tax Myths of A
Short Sale Vs. Foreclosure”

Recently a group of loan officers at my bank were gleefully boasting about
developing a marketing strategy. They were going to be the “preferred lender” on
foreclosure tour buses.

The company had to remind them that, as a lender, to specialize in financing the
purchases of foreclosures and short sales is nothing to be joyous of. There are real
lives at stake here. Real families and the nation’s top, most respected, financial
institutions are being destroyed as a result of this mess.

These homes are the end-result of what will likely be more than a TRILLION
DOLLARS lost by banks and firms on Wall Street. To the point where, some say,
our nation’s standing as the world’s greatest economy could even be in jeopardy.

If you are a top REO salesperson or lender, yes, you should be proud of the success
you have earned in this challenging situation. However, it’s also important to
remember to keep in mind the tragedy that creates this opportunity.

When life gives you lemons you make lemonade. Much of our business today is
related to the listing, selling and financing of homes that are being sold “short” or
homes that are bank-owned as a result of foreclosure.

Foreclosures and short sales are the biggest part of many of our businesses today.
And this is what I am hearing:

“Your credit score won’t drop as much on a short sale.”

“You won’t have to pay taxes on the debt forgiveness of a short sale.”

“A short sale is nowhere near as bad as a foreclosure.”

How many of you have said any of these to you clients? Are you certain any of the
statements are true?

At this point I am sure I don’t need to tell you the difference. A short sale usually
occurs when you sell your home before it goes into foreclosure but for less than you
owe on the mortgage. A foreclosure usually occurs when the bank takes your home
for lack of payment.

Either way this is very difficult on the homeowner. A dream has been lost. They are
losing the home they live in, one they vacation in, or one they had dreams of making
money on as an investor.

This is why I am a bit troubled by the information that mortgage professionals and
real estate agents are giving their clients when discussing the decision to let the
homeowner’s property go.

First let me say this. To lose any property you have signed a personal note for, like
a mortgage, without meeting your obligation is bad….really bad.
The difference between short sale and foreclosure, like one expert put it, is like the
difference between getting hit by a bus or a train. You don’t win by doing either.
There are minimal differences on the homeowner.

#1) WILL MY CREDIT SCORE DROP LESS IF DO A SHORT SALE INSTEAD OF A
FORECLOSURE?

The short answer is “don’t count on it.” No one can answer this question for you
correctly and that is because every case is different.

The scoring model for all three of the credit bureaus is unique and the courts have
ruled time and again that they don’t have to share their methodology with the public.

How your credit will be affected all depends on how it is reported by the
homeowner’s lender. If they report it correctly, and most will, your credit is going to
be hurt badly because of it.

Let’s say I have a credit card with a major electronics store and I owe them
$5,000. Times get real tough for me and I can’t keep paying the $300 per month
interest payment, so I call them to negotiate to pay them a lump sum of $3,000 one
time to cancel my account.

If they report this correctly, it will show up as a “SETTLED” for less than owed, which
is horrible for my credit and will cause my score to plummet.

Now I call them and try to negotiate with them to report this to the credit bureaus as
“paid” and not as “settled” so it won’t hurt my credit at all. Do any of us honestly
believe the electronics store or the lender of a home will go for this?

It’s certainly worth a try. You may be saving the bank $100,000’s in a short sale
vs. a foreclosure so it’s worth asking. I know many agents are making the request
of banks on behalf of their short sale clients. However, I haven’t heard of any being
successful in this.

Keep in mind your credit score is a snapshot at the moment of your credit worthiness
and how risky you are to loan money to today. Credit score experts say a
settlement, of any kind, for less than the amount originally owned, is the same as a
collection, repossession, foreclosure, charge off, etc.

Now, this kind of settlement may be better from a lending perspective when you go
to buy your next home years from now but not from a credit score perspective.
However, that remains to be seen as well.

If you are thinking about calling your bank today to try and arrange a short sale, you
have to understand that, typically, they won’t even consider this if your payments
are current. Lenders will be more agreeable to negotiation if your payments are late
or in arrears because the risk of you failing to stay afloat is more obvious.

As soon as you are late on your first mortgage payment, your credit score is going to
nose-dive. And as each month passes, it will get worse and worse.

Now, keep this in mind as well. You have seen inquiries in the past from your credit
card companies and your insurance company for cars, house, etc. These companies
randomly check your credit from time-to-time to analyze how risky you are now vs.
how risky you were when you first became their customer.

So as soon as you start to miss those mortgage payments, your credit score will
plummet. One of your other accounts will likely run a procedural inquiry during this
period to check you out and they will now see you are a greater risk than you were
when they first gave you money. These companies have a right, based on this
change in your risk, to raise your interest rates, charge you more for your insurance
premiums, and limit your credit based on your current risk. Be prepared to have
your credit lines reduced substantially without notice.

That may make this time even more challenging for you financially.

It’s going to take a lot of positive credit activity, over a long period of time, to bring
your score back to average levels.

Even if the bank lets you enter into a short sale today although you aren’t late, which
is rare, the short sale will likely and eventually look as bad if reported correctly, even
if it reports slower.

Many short sale experts believe that it’s easier to rebuild your bad credit after a
short sale than a foreclosure, but all agree your credit will be very bad once the sale
is complete. Don’t listen to those who say your score will drop “between 80-100
points.” Plan on your score being in the 400’s to low 500’s as that’s where I see
most of them today. 670 or so is an average credit score today.

The bottom line here is the only real chance you have to save your credit is to try
and negotiate a short sale, without missing a house payment, and then trying to
negotiate with the lender to not report it as settled for less than owed.

It’s an extreme long shot, some say even impossible, but if you can pull this off, you
may have saved your credit from destruction.

#2) WILL I BE ABLE TO BUY ANOTHER HOME QUICKER IF I DO A SHORT
SALE INSTEAD OF A FORECLOSURE?

Once again, chances are no. Keep in mind; lenders make mortgage loans based on
your ability and willingness to repay the loan. We determine this based, primarily,
on your past credit history. Especially your past mortgage history.

It’s going to take some self-determination

If you couldn’t successfully live up to the terms of your last home loan, why would a
lender believe this new one will be different?

The next time you buy a house, your loan is going to have to be sold to another
investor. That investor will have guidelines for the loans they will buy. Most of
these guidelines today don’t allow home purchases unless you are at least two to
three years out of foreclosure. They look at short sales the same way.

When your next loan goes through underwriting as it always does, underwriters will
analyze your credit report. When they look at your previous mortgage trade line
and see “settled,” they are going to immediately recognize this as a short sale.

Plan on renting for two to four years before buying another home, based on today’s
guidelines, if you are thinking about a foreclosure or short sale and only if there are
very few other blemishes on your credit report over these years.

#3) IS IT TRUE I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DEBT FORGIVENESS IN A
SHORT SALE BECAUSE OF THE NEW MORTGAGE FOREGIVNESS DEBT RELIEF
ACT OF 2007?

First let say, IN BOLD, I am not a tax professional. It’s of the utmost
important that you seek the advice of a tax professional before proceeding
with a short sale or foreclosure.

The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 was primarily started so that
people, who were upside down in their homes, could refinance their home using an
FHA loan and then the second mortgage holder would write off some of their loan to
enable this. This kind of loan hasn’t caught on because most lenders didn’t go for it.

Now, today, some tax experts have interpreted this Act to help you get tax relief in a
short sale. So your ability to write off this debt depends on the interpretation of the
IRS and your accountant. Here is how it can work.

Let’s say you bought your home, as a primary residence, in 2005 for $300,000. You
secured 100% financing so you borrowed $300,000 and today you short-sold your
home for $240,000.

It used to be that, in a short sale, the amount of the lender’s loss could be reported
to the borrower as income, creating an income tax liability for the borrower. You
would be 1099’ed for the difference of $60,000 in this case.

This means you had to declare that $60,000 short-fall, as taxable income, to the IRS
and pay taxes on it at year’s end.

Then came this 2007 bill and now, many argue, and interpret, you don’t. This may
or may not be accurate.

HOWEVER, let’s say you bought the same home in 2005 for $300,000 and your
house went up in value to $500,000, so you took out a home equity line of $150,000
that you didn’t use to improve your home, so now you owe a total of $450,000.

Now today you short sold your home for $320,000. You will NOT likely get debt
forgiveness tax relief for the home equity line. This lender loss is now reported as
income to you, so get ready for a huge tax liability at year’s end.

For the debt to be forgiven, according to the Act, the house must have been used as
a primary. The debt must have been used to buy, build, or make substantial
improvements to the home.

Home-equity loans where the proceeds were not used to buy, build, or improve the
residence are not forgiven. Second mortgages and home equity lines used to
purchase the home can be forgiven. Also, mortgages for second homes and rental
properties do not qualify.

The bottom line here is before you do this, meet with your accountant to discuss the
ramifications. There are too many possibilities to go over here.

If you get a 1099-C form in the mail, after a short sale that looks like this,
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1099c.pdf, you need to head to your accountant
immediately.

Once again, I am not a tax professional. It’s of the utmost important that
you seek the advice of a tax professional before proceeding with a short
sale.

#4) BASED ON ALL OF THIS, WHY WOULDN’T I JUST LET MY HOME GO INTO
FORECLOSURE?

For one, because you are giving the lender a chance to recoup some of their money.
It is far cheaper for a lender to negotiate a short sale with you and your buyer than
it is to rack up attorney fees and other costs in a foreclosure.

Foreclosure can take eight months to a year and in a declining market, your decision
could cost them $100,000’s more than a short sale.

The next reason is because some believe, as we discussed earlier, it may be easier
to rebuild your credit after the process. Your credit likely be destroyed either way,
but the road back to a respectable credit score may be shorter in a short sale,
according to many experts.

Finally, and probably the top reason for a short sale, is depending on what kind of
loan you have, and in what state, the lender may be able to go after you personally
for a deficiency judgment at a later date. In Nevada, lenders have three months
after the sale to try and obtain a deficiency judgment.

This means if you owed $300,000 and he was only able to sell your home for
$150,000, he may be able to come after you for the $150,000 difference plus legal
fees and more, which could force you into bankruptcy.

There are only two ways out of a deficiency judgment; pay it or bankruptcy. Many
lenders and real estate agents are wrongfully advising their clients by saying that
“banks rarely come after you.”

It’s mostly true that banks don’t come after you but they can sell the obligation to
aggressive, debt collectors for pennies on the dollar.

For example, let’s say you were foreclosed on and the deficiency after sale was
$100,000 and the bank gets a deficiency judgment against you. You owe them
$100,000. They don’t have the manpower to collect on everyone today so they sell
this debt to the Law Firm of John Q. Collector for $5,000-$10,000. Whatever the
firm collects, they keep. I can assure you there are firms out there today trying to
get lenders to secure deficiency judgments so they can buy these notes.

Aggressive Law Firms that specialize in collections can go after you with everything
they have to collect this debt or force you into BK. Because this is a judgment,
enforceable in a court of law, they can possibly seize your assets and garnish your
wages.
In addition, second lien holders, like the ones who gave you the 20% on your 80/20,
who usually don’t get anything at all in a foreclosure, like a house to liquidate, can
still likely come after you for the Note you signed with them for years.

The bottom line is you should try and do anything possible to try and avoid a short
sale or foreclosure like a loan-workout program.

The banks are very negotiable today and mostly want to try and help you stay in the
home. In fact, I am hearing through the grapevine that many large banks, in the
very near future, are contemplating rejecting all short-sale offers on homes that are
not owner-occupied.

Loan workout programs should be your first option.

To receive your free copy of Aaron Gordon’s report
entitled, “Help Your Past Clients Save Their Home from Foreclosure”,
click here

Have a great weekend!

David