HOUSING NEWS REPORT
ATTOM DATA SOLUTIONS
homeowners seriously underwater — 20.2 percent there compared to 8.6 percent in Reno. The high share of seriously underwater homeowners (LTV of 125 percent or higher) in Las Vegas is pushing the statewide numbers to 17.4 percent, the highest in the nation. In its 2017 Midyear Economic Outlook, the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, reports that the state’s housing market is improving although the state “still faces a substantial issue with underwater mortgages, leading the nation in the percentage of mortgages with negative equity as well as the percentage of mortgages with negative or near negative equity.” Underwater rates are decreasing statewide, down 20 percent from a year ago, but the stubbornly high rates in Las Vegas translate into an above-average share of distressed sales still lingering there even as the share of distressed sales in Reno has dropped to one of the lowest in the nation. In the third quarter of 2017, 14.7 percent of all home sales in Las Vegas were distressed sales — short sales, bank-owned sales or foreclosure auction sales — above the nationwide average of 12.5 percent. Meanwhile distressed sales accounted for 6.4 percent of all Reno home sales in the third quarter, 11th lowest among 146 metro areas analyzed by ATTOM in its Q3 2017 U.S. Home Sales Report.
metro area had the fourth highest flipping rate in the nation in the second quarter of 2017 at 8.9 percent of total home sales for the quarter, according to ATTOM. The median purchase price by home flippers was $155,400 and the average days to flip were 160 days for the quarter. “I think the opportunity exists but for a lot less margins, so you’re okay if you’re able to do a volume of properties,” said Investor Travis Schurr, owner of the WeBuyHouses.com office for all of Clark County. “There’s definitely opportunities to purchase property but the profit is not there.” Schurr, who said he has been flipping homes in Las Vegas since 2008, estimated his company is on track to do 70 flips in 2017. “Because we have a lot of investment money we’re one of the larger buyers in town so we do get a lot of property sold to us because the owner needs a quick
sell strategy,” he said. “They have equity in the property and they have a situation.”
THE “TRIC” UP RENO’S SLEEVE Although reverberations from the housing crash are still being felt in Las Vegas, its economy and housing market are benefitting from a statewide push to attract businesses to the state. The CBER report noted that the Governor’s Office of Economic Development has “pursued an aggressive policy of attracting high-tech and other firms to Nevada, giving tax abatements as an incentive to locate in Nevada.” That statewide policy has landed the Silver State a number of big fish when it comes to corporate migration — both in Reno and Vegas — but Reno has upped the ante with its new Tahoe Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) located just south of Reno and Sparks and
Reno Leads Nevada Housing ReboundWhile Las Vegas Lags
RENO LEADS NEVADA HOME PRICE REBOUND
Pre-Recession Peak
January 2012 Bottom August 2017
$340,000
$325,000
$294,000
SPOTLIGHT ON NEVADA BY ATTOM DATA SOLUTIONS
$235,000
by Joel Cone, Staff Writer, ATTOM Data Solutions
$125,000
T
he epicenter of a rebounding Nevada real estate market has
“It’s absolutely confounding,” said Michelle Foster, a sales agent with Sierra Nevada Properties covering the Reno region. “I’ve had to re-adjust how I do real estate and how we approach everything. The market is so tight right now.” Median home prices in Las Vegas have posted an impressive — although still inferior to Reno — 135 percent increase
since January 2012, but are still 20 percent below their pre-recession peak in June 2006.
$100,000
SILVER LINING FOR SPECULATORS The higher share of distress still
shifted Northwest. Median home prices in Reno have skyrocketed 160 percent since bottoming out in January 2012 and are now just 4 percent below their pre-recession peak in July 2005, according to data from ATTOM Data Solutions.
LINGERING DISTRESS IN LAS VEGAS
lingering in Las Vegas does come with a silver lining for real estate speculators looking for discount buying opportunities. The Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise
Las Vegas, NV
Reno, NV
The slower rebound in home prices in Las Vegas means a higher share of
88 | think realty magazine :: january 2018
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