April 01, 2006

Las Vegas land prices drop 47 percent in fourth quarter


I'd pontificate, but that number says it all

Posted by blogger at 4/01/2006

14 comments:

Osman said...

You're not telling the whole story (as usual).

While the $/acre dropped, the number of acres sold massively increased. Acres sold were up 147% from the same quarter in 2004 and 149% from 3q05.

It seems a shift to lower priced parts of town and two big land sales were the big factors in drove the pricing down. According the article, "Among the transactions were a $55.1 million purchase of 106 acres ($365,600 an acre) at Craig Road and Fifth Street in North Las Vegas and a $28.8 million for 80 acres ($345,600 an acre) at Tropical Parkway and Donovan Street in the north submarket."

Meanwhile your headline and photo makes it sound like sellers in Vegas panicked and dropped their prices 47%. Not so, but you just keep pushing the panic button and collect those ad-sense bucks.

Here's My Research Blog

April 01, 2006 7:43 PM
Anonymous said...

Direct quote from the Las Vegas Review Journal article:

"The average price for an acre of vacant land in the valley was $376,200 in the fourth quarter, down 47 percent from the previous quarter and down 28 percent from the same quarter a year ago."

April 02, 2006 12:52 AM
Osman said...

Lied about what? Read the article and click on the chart.

April 02, 2006 1:49 AM
Joe said...

The BLM has and will continue to sell off land in the northern parts of Las Vegas and along US-95. When a major sale takes place such as the one in Q4 2005 it would supress the mean price per acre.

The article also discusses land sales in Naked City (north of Sahara), most likely from a defunct condo project to another pie-in-the-sky would-be developer whose project will soon bust anyways.

Overall, the article seems to refute the "there aren't making any more land" claim that realtors love to use, as the BLM owns more land surrounding Las Vegas than the size of urbanized Las Vegas itself.

Perhaps osman should stick to conning ignorant investors into purchasing overpriced prices in his area of Colorado. Even better, go invest in some land north of Sahara behind the Stratosphere. I hear that quarter acre of land where that Latino gardener was holding out for million dollar offers is still for sale.

For more information on realtors and their profession, check out this article.

April 02, 2006 5:56 AM
Osman said...

Overpriced prices? Latino gardeners? Land north of Sahara? For somebody who calls himself Joe Logic, you aren't making much sense.

All I noted was that in the same article spun to incite panic (and boost google adsense clicks), it indicates a massive increase in the number of acres sold. Heck Joe, you even add to my point by noting that when a large sale takes place it will drive down the average $/acre.

For more information about where Joe's profession is headed, check out this article.

April 02, 2006 7:35 AM
Joe said...

My point in my previous post is that there is plenty of land in the LV valley, and when the BLM sells some of that is what caused the spike in sales volume (like the 147% you quoted). They are sitting on millions of acres, so of course some developer is gonna jump at the opportunity to pay $250k/acre. I used to live in NLV and I figured that growth would continue there, as trendy and overpriced areas like Summerlin and Henderson are built out.

I'll admit that land sales are no indication of the state of the housing market. But at the same time, the "they aren't making any more land" axiom doesn't apply here either. This bubble in Las Vegas was never caused by a shortage of land. Prices in Las Vegas are on the downward slide, despite what any of your cronies at NAR or whatever say. Look at this and then this article. Numbers don't lie.

The Latino gardener I referred to is actually a waiter. Geez, sorry for the mixup. Check out the article on MSNBC. Anyways, this bum was entertaining offers for a million plus, but decided to be greedy and hold out. Well guess what, all those condo projects got cancelled. And yes, I checked the assessor records and he still owns his crappy residence.

As for my profession, it is quite secure. The stuff I work on every day is far more important and takes a great deal of skill more so than driving a bunch of fools around to buy overpriced condos and pushing paperwork. Software jobs that are oursourced are low skilled that any monkey programmer can do. The truth is, outsourcing helps me indirectly in that it frees up potentially billions of dollars of capital that corporations like Microsoft spend, and creates bigger budgets to work on innovative, cutting edge projects.

April 02, 2006 9:27 AM
Anonymous said...

I've been looking at land in Colorado for a couple of months. In the past month or two, the real estate agents I've been working with there are starting to tempt me with some bona fide price reductions of 10% or so on some of the lots I'm looking at. It's starting to crack.

April 02, 2006 4:53 PM
Osman said...

Hey Cabinbound,
Before you jump on one of those 10% price reductions for land in CO, be ready to do your due dilligence on water rights, septic issues, and boundaries. You should do this during the inspection period, i.e. after an offer has been accepted, but don't let it slide. Horror stories abound...

April 02, 2006 5:32 PM
Anonymous said...

Joe Logic....

Do you ever have anything worthwhile to say other than quoting this article or that article?

"As for my profession, it is quite secure. The stuff I work on every day is far more important and takes a great deal of skill more so than driving a bunch of fools around to buy overpriced condos and pushing paperwork."

The "stuff" you work on is more important? Other than sounding like a parrot, the "stuff" you do doesn't sound anymore important than the baggers job at the local supermarket!

You all are just jealous of the realtors....you're just mad because we make as much money off of the sale of one house as it takes you to make in 2-3 months.....LOL

Who's the moron in this picture?? Sure not the realtors. You go bust your butt at your low paying, non-important job for 50-60 hours a week and I'll go sell a house.

You continue to work at your job that you just fill a space at like every other bubble head does, while I am out making the big $$. We'll see how retires earlier...me or you? LOL......

April 02, 2006 7:39 PM
Anonymous said...

Oh by the way....I forgot to tell you Joe Logic...I just sold a house and 2 condos this past week....

Looks like I just made 3 months of your salary in one week!!!

Oh but wait! According to you....the market is crashing.....Guess what....YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!!

April 02, 2006 7:45 PM
Kenric said...

I agree with Osman in that the headline for the article is clearly misleading. While the numbers are accurate and the article further explains the reason for the 47% drop, the headline chosen was used to further create real estate bubble panic.

I'm not saying that there is no bubble, but these bubble headlines are the same as the hot market headlines from 2 years ago.

April 02, 2006 9:22 PM
Joe said...

Geez you realtors are testy.

Anyways, having 3 properties close at end of month does not make one weeks work. But if you weren't lying and actually made my 3 months salary each week, you'd already be retired. And you'd surely not be trolling a housing bubble blog on a Sunday afternoon worrying about what people are saying about your profession -- which any idiot with a pulse and a glamour shot can do.

April 03, 2006 1:03 AM
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July 17, 2006 1:21 AM
Anonymous said...

The parcel at Tropical Parkway and Donovan Street is a triangle shaped piece of land that is smashed between I-15 and one of the UP railroads ramps and tracks. The parcel itself was used as a dumping ground for city buses, cars, billboards etc. Clean up will cost a fortune, it is encircled by range road which is the rear entrance to nellis AFB, several cement and rock hauling companies and recyclng companies skyscraper high with trashed vehicles. Not a nice parcel at all although it was just in front of the zoning board to be changed to multi use in 1/07. I surely wouldn't want to grow anything in the soil for decades to come.

February 12, 2007 7:49 PM

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