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Vegas Rental Market Is In Trouble... Saturation Point?


               
2012 Feb 5, 2:24am   66,198 views  80 comments

by JonSilence   follow (0)  

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

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1   Â¥   @   2012 Feb 5, 2:33am  

http://www.-xwquYkf43o

Las Vegas is great. Everyone should overbuild like they did, 2002-2008.

We'd drive rents to zero and could use the savings for more useful stuffs, and leechfuck landlords would be forced to find more productive uses of their capital.

2   bob2356   @   2012 Feb 5, 2:46am  

Bellingham Bill says

We'd drive rents to zero and could use the savings for more useful stuffs, and leechfuck landlords would be forced to find more productive uses of their capital.

Would that be enough to get you out of living in your parents attic and actually into the real estate market that you are always so eager to advise other people on? Talk is cheap isn't it?

Sincerely,
Mr. Leachfuck.

3   clambo   @   2012 Feb 5, 2:51am  

Your first mistake is buying a rental can be a very shitty "investment". You'd have been much better off with Vanguard High Yield Corporate Bond fund and collected your 7%, which is electronically wired to your checking account if you choose each month.

4   SFace   @   2012 Feb 5, 3:00am  

Another reminder and reason why the rent to price ratio is overvalued. It gives off wrong signals. Combined that with the fact that average price for rent and average price for sales is not the same thing, the analysis is completely useless.

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5   toothfairy   @   2012 Feb 5, 3:03am  

Wasn't Vegas on Patrick's safe to buy list?

See this is the problem with looking purely at numbers.

6   MoneySheep   @   2012 Feb 5, 3:09am  

I went to LV in November with a friend from Oakland to survey whether LV was a good place to buy. After looking around I said, "Vegas is not a good place to invest. But it could be a good place to buy and live, if you dont need a job and plan to stay for 15 years."

Also, if you are ginormously fat, living could be cheap too....

7   bubblesitter   @   2012 Feb 5, 4:27am  

I guess you need to stick to BA. :)

8   TMAC54   @   2012 Feb 5, 4:50am  

So.
How much have you put in, include time, effort, commissions, travel etc. ?
How much do you get back ?
What is the risk ? Water ten years from now ?

Lotta people looking for negative cash flow or a right off. Don't be stingy .
Sell it !

9   elliemae   @   2012 Feb 5, 6:07am  

My family member was looking for a place to rent - the requirement was all tile, allow 1 dog. There were very few places that fit the bill because she went thru property manager, who only referred to those places with comission high enough.

Meanwhile, I drive all over Vegas and see "for rent" signs. There aren't enough jobs to support the purchases, much less rentals, in Vegas.

10   bubblesitter   @   2012 Feb 5, 7:50am  

To make the matters worse,isn't LV going to run of water soon?

11   TPB   @   2012 Feb 5, 10:02am  

The thought of $1500-$2000 rent or even more is one hell of a sexy idea for the stupid investors out there. But the Odds are enormously stacked against that ever being possible. Not with over 60% of the work force working minimum wage jobs, or pushing a name tag behind a Big box counter.

Rent goes over $800 a month, and a good 50% of the population will have to call Mom's couch home. Kids and all.

I just love watching the Fuck ups make an even bigger mess out of it. Yeah clear the inventory out for pennies on the dollar, we'll just end up with even cheaper rentals, and even cheaper home prices to buy. Stupid bastards, money is made by work and creativity, not following the latest scheme.

12   B.A.C.A.H.   @   2012 Feb 5, 2:02pm  

What would the demand for rental properties be if the utility bills for air conditioning became very expensive? Or if (subsidized) imported water was no longer available and instead the tenant had to pay market rates for electricity to pump water from a well?

13   swilliamscc   @   2012 Feb 5, 9:30pm  

LOL. I am a former realtor and have been trying to explain this to my friends that tell me home prices are too low and will have to increase based on rents. They have the belief (just like they had with home prices before) "rents will never go down, they only go up" rewind to 2005 "home prices never go down, they have always gone up". When Wall Street is taking all the money out of our financial system, people have less money and all prices will go down across the board.

14   Keith Jurow   @   2012 Feb 5, 9:49pm  

Thanks for the comment. I write Minyanville.com's Housing Market Report and have been warning readers for 18 months that there is no housing bottom in sight. Patrick has been supportive and has linked to numerous article of mine.

This thread about Las Vegas is very interesting because it confirms my strong suspicions about the house rental market. Phoenix is probably even worse. There aren't enough renters to absorb all the house rentals offered by investors.

May I suggest checking out my article posted on Minyanville or reposted on BUSINESS INSIDER.

15   Stephen Reed   @   2012 Feb 6, 12:35am  

I've been a landlord in Austin for 8 years and own 4 duplexes. Rents here are rising. I manage my own properties and vacancies are seldom more than a couple of weeks, provided my outgoing tenant gives 30 day notice. Craigslist is my most effective advertising.

16   Keith Jurow   @   2012 Feb 6, 12:48am  

Stephen,

Thanks for the info. Austin is a different world from the major bubble metros. Try renting a home in Phoenix. The overbuilding in Phoenix, Las Vegas and much of s. Florida was mind-boggling. Mortgage fraud didn't help either. The number of houses for rent in these bubble metros is soaring.

17   PockyClipsNow   @   2012 Feb 6, 1:25am  

One rental is not a trend. This thread is not scientific.

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