Where are all the houses for sale?

This is not unique to Las Vegas, but everyone looks here because we were and I believe still are considered ground zero.  Las Vegas took the biggest nose dive first. What a dubious honor to have.

However, with the government intervention to fix the problem, stopping lenders from robo-signing documents saying they had the paperwork that gave them the right to foreclose, whether they did or not, the foreclosure process came to a grinding halt.  We have lots of sellers, especially here, that have been living in their houses for one, two, or more years without making a payment.  What’s more remarkable is many of them also don’t have a notice of default filed against them. The result is buyers have been actively buying up what is coming on the market which is now about comprised of approximately 30% short sales, 13% bank owned and the rest are properties not in distress.  

What happens next is anyone’s guess.  But with the banks finally realizing they have less problems and make more money agreeing to short sales, chances are that short sales and flipped properties will be dominating our market for the next couple of years.  Banks will finally either offer deals to the current homeowner to either give their deed back and rent from the bank or get cash to move (deed-in-lieu), short sale now and possibly get cash to move, or they will do something that generates the correct paperwork and proceed on the foreclosure. 

So knowing that as of today, there are less than 4300 houses for sale all over Clark County, that includes properties priced from $15,000 to $18 million, if you see the one you want, you better write the best offer you can because if someone is willing to pay $1 more than you, how would you feel if you didn’t get it?