Las Vegas Homes Selling Low, Foreclosed Homes Being Rehabbed

By Alex Girda, Associate Editor

Clark County has recently funneled $4 million in federal neighborhood stabilization dollars to Housing for Nevada, a nonprofit whose activities focus around the struggling market. The organization aims at buying, rehabilitating and reselling foreclosed or abandoned detached single-family homes to potential buyers who qualify. The targeted area for this phase of the project is Winchester, where a number of 25 foreclosed or abandoned homes would be given a makeover.

The project also aims at being environmentally conscious, and as a result, the rehab process includes the use of performance-based energy-efficient improvements in order to help reduce the utility costs of future owners. The goal is to get homes that are under the 120 percent area median income mark which means $61,000 per year, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. Housing for Nevada’s program uses the participation of contractors and appraisers that aid in the rehab work, as well as determining targeted areas.

In terms of home sales, Las Vegas has been on an upward curb when it comes to the sheer number of deals closed for a couple of months now, with August seeing a series of records threatened by the numbers posted in that period. It looks like that trend was still active during September. The growth in September was 15.5 percent compared to that same month last year, while prices fell 8.6 percent as compared to that same month, LVRJ reports. Las Vegas recorded 3,242 home sales at a median transaction price of $123,400.