The issue of strategically defaulting on a residential mortgage is shaping up to be one of the central issues facing the national housing market in 2010, and Las Vegas real estate is no exception. The media has keyed into this issue and given it extensive coverage, including some very compelling articles in the New York Times over the past month. The discussion mostly centers around the difference between private individuals and their feelings of payment responsibility (regardless of the numbers), versus the way businesses make decisions about non-payment in purely financial terms. To choose “strategic” default simply means that payment is stopped even if the resources are there for payment to be made, simply because payment makes no sense on a purely numerical basis. Let’s face it, a purely numerical basis can become very compelling when the numbers represent real dollars in people’s lives.

The big question for 2010 is how many additional residential properties will fall into foreclosure for this specific reason, beyond the large number already expected due to recessionary factors and high unemployment numbers. It seems to me that “strategic default” at the private/individual level is very much a snowball issue. What do I mean? People always feel safer and more confident in numbers and all it’s going to take is enough people willing to step outside conventional behaviors and norms before the whole idea hits a tipping-point and becomes a more socially accepted decision. If strategic default does in fact become a significant contributor to overall foreclosure statistics in 2010 and beyond, it will be a classic “grass roots” movement. You can potentially see this trend developing neighbor by neighbor, street by street, community by community. Will this end up happening on a large scale? It’s just too soon to know, but the potential for this new economic decision making calculus (concerning individual mortgages) to snowball over time is very real.

As the rest of the Las Vegas real estate market continues to stabilize, the drama surrounding the high-rise luxury condo sector continues to shake itself out. It’s still hard to believe that so many developers and banks completely misjudged the demand for this product to such an extent. Las Vegas is drowning in luxury condominium buildings that just make no sense based on the original numbers. Prices for units continue to plunge and a floor has not yet been found. Supply and demand can be a brutal arbiter when you find yourself on the wrong side of the fence. 2010 looks to be a very tough year for this “urban style” luxury product.

Well … we just completed an incredibly destructive 10-year circle in the residential real estate market. How’s that for progress? Who could have ever imagined it would turn out this way? The beginning of the Bush (43) era saw the advent of the notion that home ownership was a self evident “good” for both individuals and the US economy as a whole. Pursuant to that idea, a tidal wave of policies and practices were put in place and/or developed (in both the public and private sector) to boost home ownership levels well above historic averages. I think they called it the “stakeholder economy”. Without question, this greatly enhanced enthusiasm for owning your own home (and the newly available financing options to make your “dreams” a reality) found expression in the Las Vegas real estate market as much as anywhere in the country, if not more so.

So … where are we today? Home ownership just clocked-in this week at a DECADE LOW. According to the data jockeys at the Department of Commerce, America’s home ownership level just hit 67.2%, which is the lowest number in a decade. After four million foreclosure notices from 2007-2009, and more being processed every day, it’s safe to say that the entire exercise has been nothing short of a catastrophe, for both individuals and the US economy as a whole. Buying a home is a great idea when it makes REAL sense from both a practical and most especially a financial standpoint. Otherwise, it’s just not a good idea … it’s as simple as that.

It’s entirely possible that a fundamental shift is occurring in the Las Vegas real estate market that could have important implications for the rest of the country. As we have been reporting in this blog for over a year now, it remains almost impossible to buy a foreclosure property in the number one foreclosure market in America. Unless you plan on paying cash and bidding over list price, your chances of success are shockingly slim. Why is this? The inventory of available foreclosures for sale in the Las Vegas MLS remains anorexic. There are more theories about why this is so than there are speculations about the Kennedy assassination, so there’s no point in even trying to parse that subject yet again.

In any event, the new development in our market that could be of national significance is the increasing prevalence of successful short sale closings. As a percentage of overall closing activity in the resale sector, short sales are steadily approaching 25% of the market, and are poised to climb higher by many estimations. On the upside of this issue is the simple fact that the banks score a better deal for themselves with a short sale as compared to a foreclosure. In addition, the feds have jumped into the process in an attempt to encourage the banks even further …

The Treasury Department is offering incentives on short sales by providing a $2,500 subsidy, $1,000 to the servicer and $1,500 to the seller for moving expenses. In addition, investors can get $1,000 by allowing subordinate lenders to get $3,000 in proceeds from the sale. The program is effective April 5, but servicers can implement it earlier.

On the downside, the logistical hurdles (and sheer span of time) in getting a short sale approval from the banks on a Las Vegas home have been a bureaucratic nightmare up until now. I can’t tell you how long and frustrating this process has been in the past. However, Bank of America is supposedly preparing to lead the way to a brighter future in the form of standardization and automation of the short sale approval process. Where is the “beta” test market for this newfangled short sale administrative and efficiency miracle? Many are saying that it’s right here in Las Vegas, Nevada. Stay tuned !!

Data recently released by the National Association of Home Builders correlates with the field experience of our Las Vegas real estate team as we address the preferences of our clients. For the first time since 1982, the average size of a newly completed home actually fell, as in smaller. This is clearly a response on the part of builders to imperatives for post-meltdown buyers to be more practical, rather than insisting on more and more of everything. We didn’t find this “smaller is better” trend surprising since so many Las Vegas clients over the past year have expressed the desire to down-size their living space. Let’s face it, almost everyone seems to be living in a new financial and psychological reality, and it’s only natural that this would find expression in the homes people choose to buy. Closely related to the issue of size, we are also seeing more concerns expressed and attention focused on the energy efficiency of various properties on a comparative basis. As much as the “green scene” would like to attribute this to enhanced environmental awareness, the anecdotal evidence suggests that the main concern is more basic and old-fashioned, the size of the monthly energy bill.

Las Vegas real estate presents the most undervalued residential real estate opportunity in the entire country according to CNNMoney.com. In today’s online article focusing primarily on the most overvalued markets in the country (hard to believe there are any of those), CNNMoney declared Las Vegas, Nevada 41.4% below fair market value, thereby leading the nation in this distinction. Here’s a curious coincidence speaking of 41%, it just so happens that 41% of all buyers in the Las Vegas market paid CASH for their homes in the month of December. In fact, between September and December of 2009, cash transactions accounted for a whopping 40-45% of overall buyer activity each month. Could there be a connection here? Could it possibly involve smart money seeking out a highly compelling long-term opportunity?

Hmm … most unique city in America … most undervalued market … massive amounts of cash buyers … go figure ??

When people talk about the biggest players in the Las Vegas real estate game on the Strip, you inevitably hear names like Steve Wynn and Kirk Kerkorian. Here’s a name you hardly ever hear about unless you read the financial press at a sophisticated level … Carl Icahn.

Let’s start with a little recent Vegas history about this self-made billionaire. Icahn used to own the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino at the north end of the Strip and bundled it together with the Arizona Charlie’s properties (which he also owned) that cater to locals from various locations around the valley. A few short years ago (at the height of the market) Icahn sold the whole gaming package to a real estate hedge fund run by the geniuses at Goldman Sachs. Needless to say, the Goldman guys ended up getting killed while Icahn walked away with a massive return on his initial investment in the properties.

Fast forward to today … and who is back on the Strip as a major player once more? Read this from DealBook in today’s New York Times …

The billionaire investor Carl C. Icahn has made the winning bid to buy the bankrupt and unfinished Fontainebleau Las Vegas resort. According to court papers filed in Miami, the bankruptcy examiner in charge of running a court-supervised auction of the Fontainebleau said the only qualified bid received for the Fontainebleau was from Icahn Nevada Gaming Acquisition L.L.C., Reuters reports

What was the winning bid for a mostly finished 3,800 room 63-story Strip resort that already has about $2 billion sunk into it?

Would you believe $156 million ?!?

You could describe this price as “fire sale” but even that would be an understatement. The truth is, no one had the nerve and the cash to step forward in this economic environment to make a serious competing auction bid against Icahn for Fontainebleau Las Vegas. How did this guy get to be a billionaire over the course of his amazing career? The question hardly needs asking …

As an Internet-based business, the Michelle Sterling Las Vegas real estate team takes a keen interest in all things Google. The Google search engine provides the marketing foundation for our daily business process and we have followed the growth of the company over the past decade with keen interest on many levels. It is along this line of thought that we would like to comment on the current situation concerning Google and the hacker-related espionage recently perpetrated against the company.

One would imagine that the Google motto of “do no evil” has been stood on its head in some very intense meetings lately, as the company seems quite determined to “have no evil done to you”. Google has already announced their intention to revisit the decision to censor results on its Chinese search engine, and today brings a new announcement postponing the release of new mobile phones (that use Google’s Android software) by a Chinese cellphone company. The situation seems destined to get much more complicated before it gets resolved, with Reuters reporting that Google employees in China are under investigation by the company. Was this at least partially an inside job? Anything seems possible at this point.

Particularly disturbing are reports that intensive efforts were made to compromise the security/privacy of Gmail in order to gain access to accounts belonging to Chinese human rights activists. As the US government deepens its involvement in the matter, this could potentially become a significant diplomatic issue between the two countries as well.

The residential real estate industry is one of the most competitive online sectors in terms of Internet commerce and the Las Vegas real estate market is one of the most competitive metropolitan areas for website visibility. It is for this very reason that all eyes are on Google as they prepare to roll-out the newest version of the search engine that changed the world. Unlike many previous “algo” updates that tended to make changes around the margins, every indication this time is that the forthcoming “caffeine update” represents fundamental change. As you might imagine, speculation among website developers is rampant about what this all means. Unfortunately, there is no way to be sure about anything until the new Google calculations go “live” for all to see. Stay tuned !!

If you spend every day of your professional life immersed in the Las Vegas real estate market as we do, you can’t help but watch with interest the latest goings on in Washington. If you happen to be a fan of theater of the absurd, it was hard to beat opening day testimony on Wednesday as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission got under way on Capital Hill. Four titans of Wall Street sat before Congress and the American public and acted as if they still didn’t understand fully what happened to the financial system, the housing market, and worst of all, how it all affected the American people. Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs actually compared the financial crisis to a hurricane nobody could have predicted, as if Goldman traders had never shorted their CDO positions in anticipation of a collapse in the residential real estate market. Too much for words …

The very next day, a visibly angry President Obama walked in front of the White House cameras (with his economic team standing stoically behind him) and announced his proposal for a new tax on the nation’s largest financial institutions. Clearly determined to get every penny of the TARP money back and more disgusted than ever with Wall Street greed, the President laid out the logic behind his new tax in some of the harshest language thus far employed in relation to this matter. Was it just me, or did Secretary Geitner look a little pained and uncomfortable over the announcement while OMB Director Orszag appeared almost delighted? Maybe Peter was just thinking to himself about his rather exciting personal life, who knows?

It seems inevitable that Las Vegas foreclosures will continue to be the dominant issue facing our market in 2010. Actually, it seems entirely possible that the foreclosure issue will loom even larger this year than it did last year, although that hardly seems possible. Approximately 3.5 million homes are expected to enter some phase of the foreclosure process nationwide this year, and you can expect Nevada, Arizona and Florida to lead the way. Although layoffs and slow economic conditions continue to be the main contributing factors to additional foreclosures, an increasing number of Las Vegas home owners are “strategically defaulting” on properties they could continue to pay for, but just won’t … and who can blame them ??

On a brighter note … this today from Bank of America …

Bank of America expects to release about 6,000 foreclosed properties into the Nevada housing market in 2010, or about 500 a month, an executive with the bank said Wednesday.

Why is this a brighter note? Because the supply vs demand imbalance in the Las Vegas real estate market continues to border on complete insanity. For every desirable foreclosure property for sale in Southern Nevada there are 25-50 hungry buyers trying to kill each other to score the deal. REO inventory in Las Vegas has shrunk to inexplicably paltry levels even though 200 homes a day are going into default. Buyer demand is absolutely HUGE for foreclosure inventory that MUST be stuck in the system somewhere, even though no one can say for sure where it is !?!

At least Bank of America finally said something …

Without question, the last 24 months have been very challenging for the Las Vegas economy and the Las Vegas real estate market. However, we are starting to see encouraging signs that the worst is behind us and the corner is being turned. For example, after 22 straight months of year-over-year declines, the Nevada Gaming Control Board reports that November 2009 casino winnings actually bested November 2008 totals, albeit by a small amount. Let’s hope this is the beginning of a trend in 2010 that sees the steady return of gaming customers to our ready and waiting city. About 30% of state revenues come directly from taxes on casino winnings, so this is a big deal for budgeting gaps and governmental services state-wide. As economic stability slowly returns globally, Las Vegas should begin to see the return of visitors that haven’t “stopped by” much over the past two years. As you might expect, steady recovery in the gaming industry is key to the resumption of job growth in Southern Nevada, and renewed job growth is the key to almost everything economic that matters.

The Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) records the ownership of residential mortgages for the mortgage banking industry, including a large portion of Las Vegas real estate loans. In fact, approximately fifty per cent of all securitized mortgages nationwide run through this ephemeral system that apparently lacks the legal standing necessary to conduct a proper foreclosure. Another by-product of the fraud otherwise labeled as “financial engineering” by sycophants of Wall Street, the MERS system seems to be in a bit of a legal pickle. U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson ruled thus … just yesterday …

“Since MERS can provide no evidence that it was the agent or nominee for the current owner of the beneficial interest in the note, it has failed to meet its burden of establishing that it is a real party in interest with standing,” Dawson said

Wow, it just so happens that MERS doesn’t actually lose any money when a borrower fails to pay their mortgage. The rocket scientists that designed the system were able to disengage it from the real world process of lives being ruined to such a degree that it has no standing in interest at all. That must have been hard to do !!

What does this mean back on planet real estate for real people ?? Foreclosures will take even longer to process and execute, short sales will gain further as an increasingly viable option and people in Las Vegas will be able to live even longer in their houses for free at the expense of genius bankers.

Wow, what a world we live in …

Judge upholds rule on foreclosure

At the heart of the US economic collapse – the residential real estate market nationwide. At the heart of the crisis in the housing market – the massive fraud committed by the Big Three rating agencies. The conflicts of interest were staggering even by Wall Street standards, and shockingly, remain largely in place to this day. Thus far at least, meaningful financial regulation remains elusive to put it mildly, and the long overdue revamping of the credit rating process is nowhere in sight. The Las Vegas real estate market is ground zero for the havoc caused by granting high risk mortgage-backed securities coveted “investment grade” ratings that had everything to do with fat fees and nothing to do with reality.

Rumors have been flying around the real estate industry nationwide (for months now) that major buying interest has recently developed for US property from Hugo’s neighborhood of all places. Why anyone would want to spend money outside the confines of that illustrious socialist utopia is beyond me, but the rumors have persisted nonetheless. Certainly the Las Vegas real estate market is a prime target for foreign national interest, and one can assume that some of Venezuela’s finest (read wealthiest) citizens have considered our market seriously, among others.

Now comes this news from the New York Times …

The government of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, facing a crisis at several banks acquired by his supporters, moved over the weekend to assert greater financial control by detaining one of the country’s most powerful financiers and forcing the resignation of the banker’s brother, who is a minister and a top Chávez aide.

The arrest on Saturday of the financier points to a broadening purge of a group of magnates known as Boligarchs, who built immense fortunes this decade on the back of close government ties. Their nickname is derived from the combination of Russian-style oligarchs and Simón Bolívar, the historical icon of Mr. Chávez’s political movement

Too funny !! Chavez is following Putin right over the cliff !! How predictable was that ??

Actually, it’s not at all funny for masses of impoverished citizens struggling at or below the poverty level in two countries with massive natural resources and NO good excuses for corrupt and pathetic governance.

The Michelle Sterling Team recently attended a class on blogging and social networking for the Las Vegas real estate industry taught by industry veterans Kathryn Bovard and Jan O’Brien. While blogging was something most of our agents were familiar with, the segments on Facebook and Twitter were very eye opening and educational. I think most people associate Facebook with the highly personal process of conducting a portion of your social and/or intimate life online. But Jan and Kathryn taught us about the ways in which Facebook can be utilized for business purposes by means of business oriented “pages” as opposed to personal “profiles”. In addition, Twitter was introduced to us as a business connection tool for sharing important ideas and information. Used properly, Twitter “tweets” can also be an effective conduit for driving traffic to other Internet business destinations, such as a blog or website. The class was more than worthwhile and the team is now even better prepared to be effective in our chosen sphere of influence in the Las Vegas market, the Internet domain.

The majority of the agents on the Michelle Sterling Team are women, and a large cross section of Realtors in Southern Nevada are women as well. For that reason, I would like to draw attention to an important announcement today from the US Preventive Services Task Force. The matter at hand is breast cancer screening.

These important new cancer screening guidelines serve as a microcosm for the larger issues surrounding the health care debate. In particular, they strike at the heart of the vital questions surrounding quantity of care vs quality of care.

From the New York Times …

Most women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, according to new guidelines released Monday by an influential group that provides guidance to doctors, insurance companies and policy makers.

Click this link to read the entire article

Our own Forrest Barbee was asked by the Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper recently about the impact of the federal tax credit (for first time homebuyers) on residential sales in Nevada. The statistics were even more dramatic than I expected…

The evidence comes from the Internal Revenue Service, which says that 20,222 Nevada first-time homebuyers have applied for the tax credit of up to $8,000 for the tax year 2008 as of Sept. 18.

“It certainly suggests to me that an awful lot of people are taking advantage of this tax credit,” Barbee said.

As you might imagine, the big question on everyone’s mind going forward is the potential extension of this highly effective housing stimulus program. The current tax credit is set to expire on November 30th and lawmakers are hard at work developing phase II of this highly popular tax break. In the meantime, buyers are struggling with the worst enemy of any market-based decision making process, uncertainty.

In truth, almost no one doubts that the tax credit will be extended in one format or another. Residential housing is at the epicenter of our current economic downturn and no expert that I know of thinks a sustainable recovery is possible without meaningful stabilization in US house prices. You can’t achieve stabilization without a steady supply of buyers, and without the tax credit it would appear that you forfeit quite a bit of residential enthusiasm. Is that something the US economy can afford right about now ??

Almost certainly not…

On a daily basis, the Michelle Sterling Las Vegas Real Estate Team attempts to explain current Las Vegas residential market conditions to our website visitors in a realistic way. More often than you might imagine, people think we couldn’t possibly be telling the truth. Well actually…we are…and Diana Olick from CNBC just did us a BIG favor and posted a story on her blog that paints the same picture. Here’s hoping that the CNBC logo adds “credibility weight” to the amazing but true story we continue to tell everyone about buying a foreclosure property in Las Vegas.

Lunacy in Las Vegas Housing

Curious as to how a situation like this could have possibly developed in the first place in the foreclosure capital of America ?? Read our previous blog post for the incredible explanation.

The Michelle Sterling Las Vegas Real Estate Team has been struggling for the past four months to solve a perplexing riddle that is destroying our resale market. What is our conundrum? In Las Vegas, Nevada (and nationwide as well) the VAST MAJORITY of bank foreclosed homes are NOT FOR SALE. That’s right, in the #1 city in America for foreclosures, it’s almost impossible to buy a bank-owned home. How can this be? Read on….the answer will blow you away.

Lets begin with a little background. Local and national business reporters and analysts have been wrestling for months now with the mysterious issue of “phantom bank-foreclosure inventory”. Real Estate Reporter Diana Olick writes the CNBC “Realty Check” Blog and posted a story on July 8th that asked the question everyone wants the answer to…

“I’m slightly obsessed with the inventory of existing homes floating around the nation’s local MLS’s and more importantly those not floating around the MLS’s. I’m talking about the inventory of foreclosed properties that banks are holding onto, refusing to unleash onto the sales market.”

CNBC’s Diana Olick goes on to ask….

“So why are the banks holding on to these properties?”

And goes on to conclude that….

“I think there are other forces at work that we need to watch closely.”

Here’s a link to that blog post – Bank Owned Inventory: Move it!

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31801754

Other forces at work ?? Believe me, you have NO idea, and the answer will disgust you, unless you happen to be a top executive at a bank that got flooded with TARP money that you can spend any way you want without proper rules, restrictions and oversight.

The story begins on Capitol Hill in a closed-door congressional hearing room. Political pressure was aggressively applied to the head of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to create a massive new loophole in bank balance-sheet regulations that essentially gave a “go pass” to ignore financial reality in the US mortgage/housing market, right on bank balance sheets, right where it matters most.

On Friday, July 17th, Charlie Rose (PBS) broadcast a piece of investigative discussion entitled “Update on Wall St.” The segment runs for 24 minutes, and between the times of 12:35 and 15:45, two distinguished financial journalists tell the inside story of how congressional pressure (at the behest of the banking lobby no doubt) led to the creation of a fraudulently deceptive accounting loophole that has (in turn) led directly to the blatant manipulation of supply and demand in the the market for Las Vegas foreclosures. You have to watch it to believe it. Here’s what you’re in store for….

“…they [the banks] got Congress to force the regulators to let them conceal how bad they [toxic mortgage assets] were…”

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10485

Now, go back to Diana Olick’s blog post and look again at the very important questions/issues she raises, and then ask yourself if the Charlie Rose discussion didn’t answer those issues directly and clearly.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31801754

As the Charlie Rose piece elucidated, there were two critical pieces to the puzzle, and the banks couldn’t get where they needed to be without both situations/issues firmly in hand. The unregulated use of the TARP money was a great thing, but without the new FASB balance-sheet loophole, a huge chunk of the TARP money would have had to be spent on loan-loss reserves and the bolstering of capital positions due to massive write-downs. Alternatively, the FASB loophole was a major score for the banks and their well-paid lobbyists, but without the TARP billions to live off of, how could the banks carry massive amounts of mortgages and mortgage-backed securities on their books at FANTASY prices (usually on a non-performing basis) and still stay in business ??

Here’s the biggest tragedy….and biggest joke of all. The TARP money was supposed to play a major role in facilitating the timely and reality-based “clean up” of toxic mortgage-based assets on bank balance sheets, as well as aiding in the introduction of new lending to help stimulate the desperately crippled economy. Ha !! So much for that !!

How is all of this effecting the market for Las Vegas homes specifically? RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif., company that tracks foreclosure activity nationwide reported on July 16th that Nevada led the nation in foreclosure filings for the first half of 2009. Clark County was actually #1 in the nation on that list, with 1 in 13 Southern Nevada households receiving a foreclosure filing. Believe me, this is nothing new. Greater Las Vegas has been leading the nation in foreclosures for the better part of a year. On that basis, wouldn’t you think that there would be an abundance of bank-owned homes available for your viewing and purchasing pleasure ?? Well….actually….NO….there isn’t.

The Las Vegas MLS (multiple listing service) database is essentially bone-dry when it comes to bank-owned homes for sale. Go back to the Charlie Rose discussion…and I’m quoting Floyd Norris directly here…

“They have given the banks enough money that they don’t have to sell….they have received so many billions that they can carry this stuff for awhile”

Las Vegas-based research firm SalesTraq documents that existing-home sales in Southern Nevada have exceeded the supply of newly available bank foreclosures for the last four months in a row. This is simply insane, and makes no sense on a supply and demand basis, but makes total sense if you are a bank with plenty of taxpayer supplied TARP money that allows you to sit on your massive residential inventory and sell almost nothing for the time being (no doubt hoping for greener selling pastures/prices down the road).

How strong is current demand for Las Vegas real estate at current prices?

NEW YORK, July 7 (Reuters) – Sales of residential homes in Las Vegas, one of the hardest hit regions in the three-year U.S. housing slump, soared to a record high in June, according to published reports. Sales of single-family homes and condominiums jumped nearly 87 percent to 4,702 in June from a year earlier, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported.

The Michelle Sterling Team is flooded with buyers that want to purchase bank-owned residential real estate in Las Vegas, Nevada but are all but unable to do so, due to an almost complete lack of available inventory. This is worse than ridiculous, in my opinion, with 14 years of experience as a Las Vegas Realtor….it’s downright fraudulent.

For the second year in a row, the City of Henderson (sister city to Las Vegas) has been nationally recognized as a great place for kids to play! The KaBOOM! organization, a national non-profit committed to building accessible play spaces for kids all across the country, has named Henderson, Nevada a “Playful City USA” again in 2009. This may not be what you expect to hear about a municipality located just 15-20 minutes from the MGM Grand, but Southern Nevada can be full of positive surprises! The City of Henderson will celebrate its play spaces on its official “Come Out and Play Day” on Sept. 24. The Michelle Sterling Las Vegas Real Estate Team would like to congratulate the Henderson Parks and Recreation Department for a job well done. If you would like more information on Henderson homes, give us a call toll free at 888-349-2595.

When this economic crisis is over, when a reasonable balance between supply and demand is restored to the residential real estate market, when the US economy begins to power forward again (as it always does over the long run), Las Vegas will still be Las Vegas. Even in the midst of a serious recession, Las Vegas continues Read the rest of this entry »

“Las Vegas is emerging as a national leader in the housing market recovery with 13 consecutive months of increasing home sales”…this according to a May 9th article in the Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper by reporter Hubble Smith. In fact, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reports that Read the rest of this entry »

After almost 15 years of planning and preparation, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Smith Center for The Performing Arts has been scheduled for May 26th. As the heart and soul of the Union Park downtown development project, the Smith Center represents the willpower of Las Vegas to move forward Read the rest of this entry »

The Michelle Sterling Las Vegas Real Estate Team has never been busier. Banks have priced their foreclosure properties down to levels that stimulated tremendous amounts of pent-up demand from investors and first-time buyers Read the rest of this entry »