Home Price Slide Eased in April

The latest from a trailing indicator -- Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index -- is that the decline in home prices slowed in April in 20 major cities. The index numbers released today show that 13 metropolitan areas had price gains in April, led by Dallas, Denver and Cleveland, where prices rose 1% or more from the previous month. In some second home areas, prices continued to drop. Las Vegas prices fell 3.5% compared with March, while Phoenix prices fell another 2.2%

Bargain Hunters Heat Up Vegas Home Sales

More interesting than national numbers on sales of existing homes, both primary residences and second homes, is the growing appetite among shoppers in snapping up foreclosed properties at fire-sale prices.

"Homebuyers shrugged off economic worries and pounced on sharply discounted foreclosed homes in California, Nevada and Arizona, driving up sales last month across the West, according to two reports," the AP reported yesterday.

But the median price for these homes sold in the 13-state West region was down 11 % to $252,400. The red hot center for sales: Las Vegas, which in March saw its median home price fall "about 42 percent to $135,723."

No surprise here. Investors with cash see rock-bottom prices as a chance to take advantage of the opposite end of the Vegas home-building boom. One broker told Alex Veiga of the AP that his buyers were chiefly Californians. ""The biggest difference between now and the investors from '04 is these investors are buying them in full cash, and in '04 it was everyone buying them with zero-down loans."

Takeaway point: We seem to be entering the vulture phase of real estate enterprise.

Vacation Home Prices and Sales Plunged in 2008, says NAR. This is News?

Surely nobody following the economic crisis was surprised when the National Association of Realtors announced recently that second-home prices and sales fell in 2008.

The real question is: what now? Is there any good news that might pull sellers and real estate agent out of the mire?

In three words, I don't know... and I doubt anyone else does, either. There is anecdotal evidence that banks are beginning loosen up their purse strings a wee bit for primary homes. But vacation or second homes are being sold in large measure either for cash or with seller finanding, say experts.

The data from 2008 itself: bleak.

"The median price of a vacation home was $150,000 in 2008, down 23.1 %from $195,000 in 2007. The typical investment property cost $108,000 last year, which is 28 % below the 2007 median of $150,000," according to the NAR press release. The actual number of vacation homes purchased last year was down more than 30 %, while investment-home sales dropped more than 17 %.

The most important stat: "more than 4 out of 10 investment buyers and more than 3 in 10 vacation-home buyers paid cash for their properties. That's heartburn territory for sellers.