Everyone has been curious about the impact of the tax credit on sales. We are seeing a dip but no cliff diving. We have expected that some demand would be pulled forward from the latter months of 2010. Since about half of our market has been investor sales that are not qualified for the credit, the effect may be muted more in Las Vegas than in other areas. The ultimate effect on sales post tax credit may end up being a popular question but with an academic answer. It is going to be hard to disentangl... read more

It is very common in the United States and elsewhere to use markets to hedge risk. Farmers, who are long whatever they grow, often sell futures on those same products. That way if prices slide by the time they harvest and bring to market, they have already sold at the higher price if a price decline indeed occured. I have been surprised that in the United States that futures products like the S&P/Case-Shiller are still thinly traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Property derivatives are much more popu... read more

Recently the Case-Shiller numbers for March were released. The low-tier index (under $125,000) continues to be show an apparent improvement. The middle-tier ($125,000 to $192,000) and the high-tier (over $192,000) continues to be flat or slightly downward bias. The Radar Logic RPX demonstrates a similar pattern. Median indices, which we can calculate more currently, demonstrate continued flattening. Who knows how much of this was market held up by the tax credit that expired in April. In the Las Vegas market, w... read more

While most of us thought mortgage interest rates would head higher after the Fed completed its program of buying MBS, rates have actually gone in the opposite direction. Well, our expectation was logical but what we did not expect was the Sovereign problems in Europe. A flight of monies out of European bonds has found itself in U.S treasuries. The mortgage market, while subject to it's own considerations such as risk pricing and supply/demand, is linked to treasuries in a second hand way. The result is a decli... read more

Here are the latest happenings in the Las Vegas real estate market! Check out our April newsletter.

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