patrick.net

I bought a 3br/2ba/pool home in the Summerlin area of Las Vegas in Feb of 2011 for $134k, as an investment/rental. The first tenant skipped out after 2 months, stiffing me for $800. Next tenant only wanted a six month lease, but did pay their rent on time. They vacated on Dec. 31, and since then the home has been on the market---over one month at this point---without even ONE rental applicant. I just received the following from my property manager:

"We know you are concerned about how long it is taking to rent your property. We are very concerned as well because we do not want our customers unhappy and just like you we do not make any money on a vacant property...the single family home market has drastically slowed down because of the influx of all the new properties put on by the investors. I have been tracking this for some time now. Listed below are the records showing this trend.

Currently there are 6,614 properties on the market for rent.

-30 days ago in January alone there were 2,799 added and in January only 414 rented.

-60 days ago in December 1,389 properties were added and 969 were rented.

-90 days ago in November 1,019 were added and 479 properties were rented.

-120 days ago in October 591 were added and 2,219 were rented.

-160 days ago in September 396 were added and there were 3,158 properties that rented.

In short, what this means is that we are having much more properties being added (due to investors) every month and fewer properties are being rented
(due to the holiday months)." (end quote)

With the glut of rental properties on the market competing for tenants, we are now seeing rent wars with prices aggressively being dropped. I've had to reduce my asking price by almost $200 with the hope of getting a tenant and am still waiting for one as I go out of pocket to cover my mortgage and other costs for the second month in a row. In less than one year, my property has been on the market three times.

Right now its looking like Vegas is a BUST.

#housing