Thursday, April 5, 2007

Ironic Bears

This is too perfect. Yet another real estate post, but this is so delicious I can't pass it up.

In the world of housing bubble blogs, "bear" and "bull" are terms borrowed from the stock market. "Bear" refers to someone who believes the market is unsustainable or declining, and therefore, for whom, buying is a mistake and selling is in order.

In contrast, a "bull" is convinced the market's going up and buying is paramount.

These are shots of the efforts of a bullish builder who got caught in a bear market.



I think the rotted flag on top of the sign in front of the partially framed-out house says it all.




A link to the first result from the Clark County Assessor's record pages. I'll leave it to the more astute real estate folk to noodle out why the properties are all owned by what appears to be the builder but yet show a sale price???

A link to all the photos and a link to the satellite image of the spot. Apparently, Google's satellite is flying in a parallel universe in the past.

Oh yeah. The irony? The street names are Panda Bear and Grizzly

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice blog, glad I found it.

I hope housing prices go through the mother of all meltdowns here in Vegas.

I want to buy a house.

Inventory is at almost (and maybe is at) all time record levels. Subprime loans are taking a bath (Silver State for example).

Yet all I see on the 215 from a little past Trop to I-15 are subdivision after empty subdivision.

Foreclosures are soon going to outpace sales.

Anonymous said...

If you want to stay in LV, do you try to time the bottom of the market?

If you're serious - save your money, decide where you want to live, and be prepared to pay cash (!) for what might be your dream house.

It is possible. (Saving money, not timing the bottom...)

-dm

Lavi D. said...

I'd be cautious about wishing for too much of a meltdown. I agree that owning a house can be a good thing, but a serious drop in home prices could plunge us into recession or worse - hard to buy a house when you're out of work.

There's a lot of conjecture about timing the "bottom". Most people seem to agree that when the feeling of the general public is that housing is a bad investment will most likely signify the bottom.

Someone once said about the dot-com stock meltdown, "I knew the market was going to crash when I was getting stock tips from cab drivers".

Anonymous said...

Las Vegas is a tricky town when it comes to real estate. I believe Prices will drop considerably over the next two years, however they will likely recover and do very well for owners during the next decade.

Two Reasons:

1) As the shit hits the fan in California, more of them will migrate to Vegas.

2) Despite the common presumption of the vast desert, Las Vegas does have a lack of land to develop. The West and East are caped with mountains, the North is caped with an Indian reservation and the South is owned by the BLM. Doctor Shiller talks about this in his book, "Irrational Exuberance".

Joe said...

Scummy - foreclosures are already outpacing sales. Go check the bubble tracking blog for all the data.

I wouldn't expect a quick crash either, this thing is gonna die a slow death for at least 5 years. Look at the last crash from 1990-95, that thing took 5 years and it isn't nearly as bad as this current bubble. Check out this graph. I definitely wouldn't want to get stuck with a mortgage in the middle of a bad recession and high unemployment.

Anonymous said...

Hehe. When I bail out of California, I sure as hell ain't relocating to Las Vegas. Rather, I'll be done with the rat-race and looking for someplace quiet with good fishing. I suspect that I'm not alone...


Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.

-Hunter S. Thompson


Dedicated to the other side of Las Vegas, namely; the sprawling, mad, incoherent underpinnings of the world's favorite destination.

That, and the occasional ranting about nothing in particular.