Oct. 2, 2009 - Investors Vs Buyers In Las Vegas Real Estate

There is a new kind of housing market war going on in Las Vegas.  There are buyers that are qualified and ready to buy but they can’t.  Seems that it does not matter that the buyers are making good offers, the houses are going for less than the what they are offering.  Why?  

     There are several houses on the market right now, but potential buyers are finding out getting into one of these homes isn't as easy as seems. Even though foreclosed homes are getting multiple offers, hopeful buyers are learning that cash will usually win.

     According to a story I read in the Las Vegas Review Journal this last week end, buyers are putting in offers many times over only to find out a cash offer from an investor has been accepted.  One buyer had this to say,  “finding the perfect home for her growing family isn't a problem. She has tons of foreclosed homes to choose from in Las Vegas, but getting the banks to accept her offer is a different story. "I'm a teacher. My husband works for Metro and we cannot get into a house," she said.  In the last three months, she has put nine different offers on houses, offering to pay thousands of dollars more than the listing price only to be rejected. What's worse, the homes are selling for less than what she offered. "We offered $175,000 and we looked on Zillow and a couple of weeks before we got our rejection letter we saw that it sold for $164,000 "

    In this bloggers opinion investors and new home builders were part of the problem to begin with.  They helped cause perceived scarcity, new home builders were raising prices every few weeks $2,000-$5,000 at a time, then only releasing a few home lots at a time, holding lotteries, and investors were coming in buying them up.  After the homes were built a few months down the road the investors would put the homes on the market  and making thousands of dollars.  This of course then spilled over into the resale market.  As a buyers agent a lot of my clients were just plain priced out of the market.  Then came the creative loans.

    This of course was not the only reason for the bubble bursting, but it help move it along. So if you are a buyer and wonder why you can not get an accepted contract this could be the reason why.

    Just like with Short Sales in this real estate climate that has recently become an epidemic you will have to have a lot of patience and put in a lot of offers.  My most recent Market Update shocked even me when I saw the number of homes that are in Contingent and Pending status.