We’d had a trip to Vegas planned for some time and when we received an email from Prudential Americana Group, Las Vegas agent Nancy Storey. We met Nancy at the Summit Conference in San Francisco in September and decided that we should drive around and take a look at some areas. We also have local Portland friends who have recently bought a couple of houses as rental property in Las Vegas.
Her email included a condo that originally sold for $504,900 and then resold for $87,500! On our drive out to Red Rock Canyon we drove through Summerlin where a home sold for $340,000 and then resold for $170,000. Summerlin is on the west side of Las Vegas.
The Summerlin subdivision that we drove through had about ten for sale signs. Only two had flier boxes which were both empty and none of them had any sort of permanent/eco flier that we are seeing more and more of in Portland. We’ve been using permanent fliers for a few years now as we we constantly losing the battle to keep boxes full with readable fliers- every time it rains they turn into a solid mass. Different markets utilize different tool to market homes.
We didn’t enter any of the gated communities but what was most striking was how many gated communities there were- they don’t feature a lot in the Portland area until you hit much higher price points.
A few more of Nancy’s examples:
- 2 bedroom with 1 car garage 1,054 square feet in Henderson $69,900 originally sold for $223,500.
- 2 bedroom with 1 car attached garage 1,031 square feet in Henderson
$69,900 originally sold for $200,000 - 4 bedroom 2 ½ bath 2,067 square feet located in Summerlin $188,000
originally sold for $399,950 - 1 bedroom Palms Place Resort 25th floor 1220 square feet $274,900
originally sold for $746,900
For comparison purposes, Case Shiller’s August 2011 report show Las Vegas at 95.18 and Portland’s at 135.91. The Index was set to 100 January 1, 2000. Las Vegas peaked at 234.78 in August 2006. Portland was at 181.71 at the time and reached its peak in July 2007 at 186.51. By February 2008 Las Vegas had dipped below Portland, never to regain the lead.
