May Day! May Day!

Things are still a little crazy. The tax credit is over. All the first time buyers have gone home (They say. We shall see). If you are an investor, it is your time to shine. So what will you buy?

Short Sales? They ARE all the rage right now. The new HAFA program and the new Wahmu (yes, there is still Wahmu) program will make them so easy...or not. What can you really expect?

Of 13,095 short sales in the Las Vegas MLS either for sale or in escrow, a whopping 695 closed in April! Gee, that's a 5.3% closing ratio for short sales, just like it has always been.

Some Brokers tout the fact that 695 closings is 26% of the 2644 single family homes closed in April. They don't mention that represents 2013% of the man hours spent trying to close the non short sales, or that these short sale contracts were signed last JUNE, or that they fell out of escrow twice because the buyers grew old and died while they were waiting. OK, you want data.

When we take out the the short sales listed for sale but not in escrow, that leaves 9202 short sales in escrow (yes, 70% of short sales are in escrow at all times!) and they produced 695 closed transactions. That is 7% - 7 out of every 100 short sale escrows closed.
In the same period 4024 non short sale escrows produced 1949 closed transactions.
That is 48%. That is about 7 times better.

If not buying short sales, what about REO, bank owned, write multiple offers and never hear back from the bank-owned-agents who don't answer their phone or work weekends? What about those? Well, there are only 1079 REO's on the market today.

By contrast, there are 3049 single family homes for sale that are NOT REOs or short sales. Most of these are other investors who are flipping the property. If, as I believe, investors hate to buy from other investors, then the market reminds me of the old western sidekick of the 1960's named Slim Pickens.

Let's say you are looking for a non-short sale, 3 bed, 2 full bath, 2 car garage, under $150,000 anywhere in Las Vegas valley that Kevlar is NOT a requirement; there are 392 homes available.

Prices are low. Inventory is low. The banks want to make us all do short sales.
Believe it or not, NEW Homes are actually beginning to make sense again.
Call me. It's crazy, but I can guide you through it.