Foreclosure Still a Concern and it May Continue to Escalate

By Alex Girda, Associate Editor

The Las Vegas housing market has been one of the hardest hit in the country. Now that prices seem to be nearing the bottom, some had hoped that the foreclosure epidemic would wind down, but that seems unlikely says housing analyst Larry Murphy.

According to Murphy, who was quoted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, another 100,000 homes could be added to the foreclosure roster thus doubling the amount of homes in the area that bear the stigma. Some ZIP codes have been hit harder than others. The Review-Journal reports that ZIP code 89086 is recording a staggering 33 percent of homes under foreclosure. It seems that the foreclosure plight will continue to go hand-in-hand with the price drop recorded by the area.

With predictions ranging from the market stabilizing into a low point to a continued slide, what can a homeowner do? It looks like the best answer would be not to live in the Aliante community or in the vicinity of the northern Las Vegas Beltway, statistics seem to indicate.

One of the least affected areas is ZIP code 89134 which actually has a 5 percent foreclosure rate—the smallest rate in the valley. That’s Sun City Summerlin, a code that mainly has retired individuals who paid cash for their homes. It is actually retirees who are preventing the market from plunging further into the abyss, according to The Journal.