Refined Living – Your Southern Nevada Real Estate Professionals & Henderson Community Experts
Our latest Q & A video has just been posted and is getting regular views and shares on Facebook! It’s also on YouTube and you can watch the video below!
If you’re considering Buying or Selling, watching us answer these 5 common questions is a MUST! Be sure to contact us at (702) 501-8726 to help you with your real estate needs!
What happens when you start selling new home construction in your Seven Hills area? You fall in love with the design, features, and price enough that you decide to move there too! This was the case for us with Lennar’s new Aventine community in the Seven Hills area of Henderson Nevada.
The only hiccup is that we sold our current home a bit faster than anticipated so we’ll be living in a hotel over the next 60 days until the house is done. A cramped hotel room for our family of four and our dog….makes for some great moments! We’ll be doing a weekly series on the progress of the home and all of it’s features. Below is the promo to check out!
Being a REALTOR® that holds a Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) designation, I’ve helped many hard-shipped homeowners avoid foreclosure by representing them in a short sale. After all, Southern Nevada was arguably the hardest hit area in the Country when the housing bubble burst. Some property values decreased as much as 60% in less than a year! Combine that with record unemployment and it’s no wonder why many homeowners struggled through financial difficulty. While those successful short sales were bittersweet it did allow my Sellers to close a stress filled chapter in their lives.
Fast forward to 2015 and there are new loan programs available welcoming them back to homeownership! Traditional home loans are a reality in as little as 3 years from their short sale date! A recent MSN story is an example of this very situation (link below). While I’m sure it will meet with much criticism, the current guidelines, restrictions, and the thorough underwriting Lenders are practicing will determine who can actually qualify.
To get started, contact me so I can introduce you to my local preferred lender Brad Malkin with Noble Home Loans. He’s well versed and up-to-date with all things lending and has direct access to these loan programs.
Mike Rebarchick (702) 501-8726 or rebarchick@gmail.com
MSN – Boomerang homebuyers poised to return to market with a roar
Hello Everyone!
Having a REALTOR who is up-to-date with the market makes all the difference. Whether it’s to get the best deal when purchasing a home or to get top dollar when selling it! Kandis and I pride ourselves on our obsession to keep current with the trends to give our clients a valuable advantage.
With the 2014 year-end data in, we wanted to touch on a few topics of conversation to help inform everyone on the latest in the Southern Nevada Real Estate market.
1) Market Prices – The Median Price of a Single Family Home for 2014 ended at approximately $199,900. That’s an increase of nearly 11% in just one year! With many investors leaving the market because of the increases (cashing out), traditional Buyers are back in the mix. While the prices have somewhat stabilized we should see a much more “normal” pricing increase of 1%-3% in 2015 as inventory remains low.
2) Housing Inventory – As noted above, the housing inventory is still incredibly low. In a healthy housing market we should have somewhere around a six-month supply of homes. Currently we’re less than a three-month supply of inventory. With an average of 2,500 single family residences exchanging hands each month there are only 6,758 currently for sale in the Las Vegas Valley. So, in effect, there’s really not enough supply to keep up with the demand!
3) Interest Rates – Record low interest rates are still happening — but for how long?! Banks have loosened up on their underwriting guidelines and are lending money once again. As of today a 30-year Conventional Loan offers an interest rate as low as 4.15% and an FHA Loan at 3.35% for 30 years too…. with as little as 3.5% down! We don’t know how long these ultra-low rates will be around so now’s the time to take advantage.
4) New Home Construction – New home construction has slowed down dramatically as the housing inventory for the resale market increased in 2014. The other factor is that Builders are asking for more per square foot on their base models than the price of most resale homes. They’ve adjusted their prices slightly, but to counter that they’ve withdrawn a majority of Buyer incentives such as free appliance upgrades or closing cost help.
5) Short Sales and Bank Owned – Is there a bigger misconception in our market than these two types of sales? Probably not! Short Sales make up less than 15% of the homes currently available and, with banks offering loan modifications or other government assisted foreclosure alternatives, short sales are less and less common these days.
Bank Owned properties make up less than 5% of our market and their prices are typically higher than the average resale comparable homes sold. Why is that? How can that be? Well, there are government programs (Homesteps and Homepath) that have looser lending rules, and which allow Buyers to work around appraisal contingencies. This essentially allows them to borrow more money than these homes are worth, so the banks increase the prices to compensate for the programs.
As always, I hope this blog helps and if Kandis and I can help answer any questions just Call/Email/Text us anytime!
Mike Rebarchick
Las Vegas Strip photo by: nanpalmero
A new report from Zillow confirms what most local real estate experts already know: buying a Las Vegas home becomes significantly cheaper than renting in a relatively short amount of time. In fact, the metro area’s “break-even horizon” — the time it takes for home ownership to become less expensive than renting — currently stands at around just 18 months on average.
That’s much faster than many other large cities. Our neighbor to the south, Phoenix, has a break-even time of nearly 40 months. In San Diego, you’ll have to wait well over 4 years before owning becomes cheaper than renting a home. And in several other popular cities across the country it still makes more sense to rent than to buy.
Zillow factors in all of the major costs associated with buying and renting to come up with their data. Upfront payments, closing costs, mortgage payments, insurance costs, taxes, utilities, normal maintenance, and monthly rent are all used in their calculations.
In Las Vegas, Henderson, and most of the rest of Southern Nevada rental rates are steadily increasing. At the same time, interest rates are still at historically low levels, keeping borrowing costs very low.
The bottom line: it makes a lot of financial sense to buy a house in the Las Vegas area right now. There are still great deals to be had and buying the right home can easily be one of the best investments you’ll ever make. But who knows how much longer interest rates will remain so low…
Contact us to begin the search for your Las Vegas or Henderson dream home today!
You can learn more about the Zillow findings here… Buy or Rent: Insight for the Undecided
Photo credit: wildlasvegas
For the first time in several years, Las Vegas area home builders are constructing large numbers of new houses across the valley. That’s mainly due to higher homes prices (we saw a 23% price increase last year) and an improving local economy. It’s also due to the fact that Southern Nevada’s population is still increasing at a steady clip, and many new residents prefer new construction homes over resales.
Interestingly, the mini building spree is focused around higher-end homes priced above $200,000 — well above the valley’s current median home price of $185,000. The new homes are selling very well as people are looking to upgrade from the “starter homes” which were built in huge numbers in the early 2000’s. According to UNLV economist Stephen Brown, home builders who focus on higher-end construction projects are “not really competing against a big inventory of existing homes” because most of the current inventory consists of smaller entry-level homes.
According to the Greater Las Vegas Association, the areas with the biggest growth in buyer demand are Green Valley (Henderson) and Summerlin, on the western edge of the valley.
As long as the local recovery continues, many experts expect Vegas home builders to start and re-start even more construction projects around town. New buyers, “upgraders,” and people looking for second homes should continue to keep demand strong for newly built homes.
The good news for people wanting to buy a Las Vegas home is that they now have more options than ever!
Learn more here: Real estate rebound prompts home construction
Vegas bulldozer photo by Mel Stoutsenberger
A new report from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors showed that the median price of an existing single-family home in the Las Vegas valley was $185,000 last month, which is up over 23% from January 2013. Condominium and townhome prices are up by nearly exactly the same amount, increasing from $75,000 to $96,000 in the past year.
The report also highlighted a few significant changes in the local market, including a switch from “distress” sales to traditional sales in which no banks are involved. In 2013, traditional Las Vegas home sales increased by 25% compared to 2012.
This report reminds home owners that they now may have the option of the traditional sale. With home prices increasing at this magnitude, these folks went from being in a position where a possible short sale or loan modification may have been their only option to now actually being able to sell the property and walk away with money in their pocket.
They’re no longer a prisoner of being “upside down” in their home loan and forced to stick it out. The weight off of their shoulders should help them sleep a bit better at night!
Another plus is that interest rates are still hovering around record lows so there are buyers out there looking to buy their first home as opposed to renting. There are also situations where families that are in need of upgrading their current living conditions are able to do so now.
The report also shows that short sales have slowed down significantly in the valley, with the trend beginning even before the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act expired on December 31st. In 2013 short sales accounted for less than 10% of the overall monthly real estate transactions.
The bottom line is that home owners who have to short sell their home still can still do so. They just need to discuss tax options with a knowledgeable CPA who can assist them with taking advantage of other tax laws that are now available to off-set the loss of the Mortgage Debt Relief Act.
You can learn more about the new Vegas housing report here: GLVAR reports home prices started 2014 where they left off in 2013
LV Photo by Sarah Nichols