Las Vegas–Building Is Booming in a City of Empty Houses

In a plastic tent under a glorious desert sky, Richard Lee preached the gospel of the second chance.

The chance to make money on the next housing boom “is like it’s never been,” Mr. Lee, a real estate promoter, assured a crowd of agents, investors and bankers. “We’re going to come back like you’ve never seen us before.”

Home prices in Las Vegas are down by 60 percent from 2006 in one of the steepest descents in modern times. There are 9,517 spanking new houses sitting empty. An additional 5,600 homes were repossessed by lenders in the first three months of this year and could soon be for sale.

Yet builders here are putting up 1,100 homes, and they are frantically buying lots for even more.

Las Vegas is trying to recover by building what it does not need. It is an unlikely pattern being repeated in many of the areas where the housing crash was most severe.

Read it all.

print

Posted in * Economics, Politics, Corporations/Corporate Life, Economy, Housing/Real Estate Market, The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007--

2 comments on “Las Vegas–Building Is Booming in a City of Empty Houses

  1. Statmann says:

    Let’s review the bidding. The USA has a real debt problem: the answer is more debt. Europe has a real debt problem: the answer is more debt. Las Vegas has excess houses: the answer is build more houses. Sounds right to me. And the band played on. Statmann

  2. Sidney says:

    He plans to live in the house with his girlfriend, Cindy Rojas, and his 12-year-old daughter.

    An interesting bit of social commentary snuck into an article about housing markets.