InvestorsA few quick updates for followers of the Las Vegas real estate scene and real estate in general:A recent Wall Street Journal article noted that investors who bought homes in the past couple of years have largely decided to hold their properties and enjoy cash flow (Housing Investors Settle into a Holding Pattern, May 20,2014). Instead of treating this as a big trade, buying distressed homes or relatively undervalued homes and selling them after the price increases many cities had experienced in the past co... read more

Inflection Points For those of you who have lived in or visited Las Vegas in the past few years, the impact of the recession has been quite obvious. For those who have been to Las Vegas recently, there are now some very bright spots in the regional economy that are also obvious. Just several years ago, one could drive down nearly any street in a residential neighborhood and see for-sale signs on at least one home. Things are far different today and while listing inventory is significantly higher than one year ag... read more

Investors played the largest role ever in the Southern Nevada housing market.  In the spring of 2013, cash sales were over fifty-percent of single family transactions.  Presumably, a majority of these cash sales were made by investors. Private investors, many of whom fall into the “mom & pop” category of investors, have always been a significant component of our market.  Recently, institutional investors, often from the private equity world, have taken a large position in the Las Veg... read more

A survey by our friends at John Burns Consulting indicates that Mountains Edge and Providence continue to be among the top selling masterplans in the U.S. Ultimately, Providence is expected to include nearly 7,500 homes. Mountains Edge will be nearly 12,500 homes. Both projects are Focus Property Group developments.  Summerlin, which has been a national leader in sales for years, also continues to be a good seller. Last year Howard Hughes did several deals with homebuilders to develop on some of the western b... read more

It is earnings season for a bunch of the homebuilders. Often there is a lot of fluff in the earnings calls but we still like to read the transcripts since there are some occasional interesting points not covered in the 10-Q. Sometimes they talk about local market factors. Obviously California is in there but what happens there can also influence perceptions of Las Vegas. If you are also interested, you can find Lennar's transcript here: http://seekingalpha.com/article/1905761-lennar-management-discusses-q4-20... read more