1. $255,000 : 7428 Redhead Dr, North Las Vegas
   
   3 beds, 3 full baths

   Home size: 2,712 sq ft

   Lot size: 10,018 sq ft

   Year built: 2005

   Parking spots: 3

   Days on market: 0

   Walk Score®: 37
   
2. $114,900 : 5913 Whitebridge St, North Las Vegas
   
   4 beds, 2 full baths

   Home size: 1,920 sq ft

   Lot size: 6,969 sq ft

   Year built: 2006

   Parking spots: 2

   Days on market: 0

   Walk Score®: 43
   
3. $99,999 : 6816 Dipper Av, North Las Vegas
   
   3 beds, 2 full baths

   Home size: 1,658 sq ft

   Lot size: 5,662 sq ft

   Year built: 2003

   Parking spots: 2

   Days on market: 0

   Walk Score®: 66
   
4. $99,950 : 3732 W El Campo Grande Av, North Las Vegas
   
   3 beds, 2 full, 1 part baths

   Home size: 1,887 sq ft

   Lot size: 6,098 sq ft

   Year built: 2002

   Parking spots: 2

   Days on market: 0

   Walk Score®: 38
   
5. $79,900 : 2054 Keller Ct, North Las Vegas
   
   3 beds, 2 full baths

   Home size: 1,576 sq ft

   Lot size: 5,662 sq ft

   Year built: 1994

   Parking spots: 2

   Days on market: 0

   Walk Score®: 48
   

Listing information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Read full disclaimer.

North Las Vegas is a working class area with an unwarranted reputation for high crime levels. Some of the newer developments are very attractive and well worth a look. In the southeastern side of Las Vegas is the master-planned community of Green Valley which is beautifully landscapes and extremely well thought out. Other planned communities are: Spring Valley, Summerlin, Peccole Ranch and Desert Shores.

Home owners associations are more common in Las Vegas than some other parts of the nation and you want to be careful that you understand that whilst the Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions keep things looking nice and uniform they also limit your freedoms – a lot of folks from the Mid-West find that they are more comfortable living outside of gated communities in order to avoid these restrictions. You can have liens placed against your property if you do not comply with the HOA.

An alternative to buying is of course renting, but traditionally this tends to be fairly expensive in Las Vegas relative to mortgage repayments. However, following the real estate crash occupancy for rental apartments has dropped to 90%, the available supply is as much as 20,000 units and rent rates have dropped below $1 per square foot. The highest are in the southwest and Green Valley-Henderson area, and the cheapest rents are in the northeast and southeast. When you rent you are usually required to commit to a period of six months or a year, and put down a security deposit in addition the first and last month’s rent. It is not uncommon for newcomers to rent prior to employment and you just need to show a bank statement that assures the landlord that you will be able to meet the rental obligations.

Once you move in you will want to get your Las Vegas utilities set up:

Water is provided by Las Vegas Valley Water District located at 1001 S. Valley View Blvd. Las Vegas, Nev. 89153. To start or transfer residential water service, call the office Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. at (702) 870-4194. You can also request service before 3:30 p.m. for same-day service for a $15 fee. You may be required to pay a $150 deposit to activate your water service.

NV Energy is the company to contact for connecting your electricity and they can be reached at (775) 834-4444. You do not require a deposit to activate this service, but if you are renting you will require a letter of reference from your previous electric company.

Southwest Gas Corporation has a very easy online set up service https://ssm.swgas.com/start.php, or you can call Toll Free (877) 860-6020, or vist the customer service office located in the Beltway Business Park, next to Starbucks and Port of Subs: Las Vegas, 6040 Badura Ave, Suite 110, Las Vegas, NV 89118. There is also a customer service office at North Las Vegas, 1374 W. Cheyenne # 107, North Las Vegas, NV 89030.

There are four Nevada assistance programs run by Southwest Gas that you can look into: Deferred Payment Program, Energy Assistance Program (EAP), Energy Share Program, and Nevada Energy Connection. These are designed to help low-income Nevadans with the cost of home energy.

There are also a number of energy efficiency programs that you can take advantage of to lower your bills. Call Southwest Gas for details on: Northern Nevada Low-Income Energy Conservation Program, Energy Start Home Program, Nevada Residential Energy-Efficient Consumer Products Rebate Program, Northern Nevada Furnace Rebate Program, and the Solar Thermal Advantage Rebate (STAR) Program.

Clark County Sanitation handles sewage and can be reached at: 5857 E Flamingo Rd Las Vegas, NV 89122-5507. The phone number is (702) 458-1180.

Trash removal is managed by Republic Services of Southern Nevada. They pick up around twice a week at a cost of less than $50 per quarter. They are located at 770 East Sahara Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89104 on phone: 702 735 5151. There is also a recycle center at  333 West Gowan Road, North Las Vegas, NV 89032 that can be reached on 702 399 1112.

For telephone Sprint Central Telephone Company is one option, but these days many people are opting for a bundled internet and phone connection from Cox Communications. Sprint is at 330 South Valley View Blvd. Las Vegas, NV  89107 on 702-244-7400, and Cox will happy to sell you TV, internet and phone 24 hours a day at (702) 383-4000.

Las Vegas House Hunting:

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The assessed values for all property in Clark County fell 26 percent from $90.8 billion in 2009-2010 to $67.1 billion, and within this the assessed value of industrial land fell 20.5 percent from $3.1 billion to $2.5 billion. This is a sharper decline that in the commercial sector as a whole (down 15 percent), but it is still less of a decline that that of residential property, which dropped 26 percent from $48.4 billion to $35.7 billion.

Industrial assessed values fell 22.2 percent in Las Vegas, 22.2 percent in North Las Vegas, and 19 percent in Henderson. It is typical for changes in commercial real estate pricing to trail those in the residential sector, whether they will see the same steep declines of Las Vegas residential remains to be seen.

Fifth and Farm subdivision as an example (near North Fifth Street and Tropical Parkway) is a microcosm of the Las Vegas market as a whole. Built in 2004 and 2005 this North Las Vegas community is in line with North Las Vegas’s foreclosure rate of one in fifteen properties. The Las Vegas Review Journal examined over 100 properties in the Fifth and Farm subdivision, and reported that 50 were owned by the original buyer, who purchased for roughly between $150,000 and $220,000; 25 had been purchased in 2006 or 2007 for as much as $330,000 and $325,000. The later you were to the party, the worse its music sounds. And moving to the reality of today’s post-party devastation the journal notes that over the past 18 months, 26 homes were purchased for prices between $80,000 and $185,000. Almost all of these were foreclosures.

Half of the houses in Fifth and Farm are owned by investors for rental income, and it is a familiar story across the valley to see new homes acquired for rental yields being the first to foreclosure. This is creating a situation where new communities are becoming low-level rental resorts. What do we mean by this? Well, consider that 25,000 homes built in Clark County between the boom years of 2004 and 2007 have been foreclosed on since 2007, whereas 24,700 of foreclosed homes were built between 1980 and 1999. The new investor-driven communities are if not crumbling, then under extreme pressure.

One of the factors compounding the problem of Las Vegas foreclosure homes is that as foreclosed properties are bought by yield-driven investors they end up lowering the community standards, and this in turn encourages other under water homeowners to walk away from their debt obligations. It sounds rough in black and white, but it is a fact that investors buying at lower acquisition prices need lower rents to meet their returns, and tenants paying lower rents are from lower income brackets. So now you have a family that paid $300,000 for their house living next to a family that pays $700 a month for rent. I am not saying that either social group is better that the other, but they are two different social groups, and that is having one major impact: the homeowners at the higher price points are walking away from their mortgages because they want to walk away from their neighborhoods.

Standards that are required for a Grade A rating in the Las Vegas market are: 30 feet clear height, swap coolers in the warehouse, 3% of roof with sky lights, ESFR sprinklers, docks at grade level, ramps to grade, and 120 feet radius for the loading areas.

A typical Las Vegas warehouse is 100-250,000 square feet, and there are a dozen or so projects in the market of over one million square feet where four or more buildings are together in an industrial park. There are around 12 single buildings in excess of 300,000 square feet, half of which are owner-occupied.

North Las Vegas and the South West are the dominant sub-markets. CBRE divides the market up as per the map on the left, whereas Colliers considers that there are more sub-markets as per the map on the right.

Local distribution is the main segment. The vast majority of industrial space is in place to service Las Vegas, its casinos, retail, tourists and two million residents. Most trucks arrive full and leave empty. The most common flow of traffic is from Southern California via the I15. This is the driver behind the South West of Las Vegas being the primary location for warehousing. Anything past Sahara Avenue and trucks coming from Southern California can’t go and come back in a day.

Las Vegas is located at the southern tip of Nevada in the Great Basin, the western region between the Sierra Nevada and Wasatch mountain ranges. Situated at the hub of an 11-state western region, Las Vegas is an ideal location for industrial business. It is a centralized and logistically appealing location for industrial tenants seeking to distribute regionally throughout the Western U.S. Thus, in addition to servicing the Las Vegas MSA population of 2m and its massive hotel industry, the warehouses are used as regional distribution hubs for the 11 states that can be reached overnight.

South West Distribution Hub

When it comes to regional distribution Phoenix is a cheaper alternative, but it adds two hours journey time to the key destinations. Also Las Vegas has the advantages of a low tax regime, low cost of readily available labor, and low cost of living. Not only is it preferable to Phoenix, it is also a legitimate competitor to Ontario as a redistribution point into Southern California.

Las Vegas’s close proximity and easy access to major markets such as Los Angeles as well as local access to international ports, position it as a key player in trade and commerce. McCarran International Airport (the nation’s sixth busiest airport), the International Air Cargo Center, the Union Pacific Railroad, and the Interstate 15 transportation thoroughfares offer rapid and easy access to trade arteries both domestic and foreign.

Positioned for California Distribution

The Las Vegas International Air Cargo Center at McCarran International Airport, located eight miles south of downtown Las Vegas, has positioned the city and surrounding area as a major West Coast air-truck distribution center. The Cargo Center is less than one mile from a major interstate highway and railroad access. Additionally, plans are on place to build a California-Nevada Interstate Maglev line from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to provide a faster and more direct route to the sixth largest economy in the world.

The CANAMEX Corridor of Innovation
One other factor to consider in the Las Vegas industrial real estate market is the Canada-American-Mexico Corridor of Innovation, also known as the Smart Corridor, or CANAMEX. The CANAMEX Corridor of Innovation is an initiative to improve public and private shipping, rail, highway and inspection facilities through a multi-state cooperative of Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Idaho. Whist most truck and freight train traffic currently runs east and west, CANAMEX aims to free up north-south trade in North America and more efficiently reach out to the Far East.

Las Vegas could become a major distribution hub on the transportation route between Canada, Mexico and the United States as the $4 billion worth of highway improvements are deployed, including the Hoover Dam bypass, which is underway.

United States Highway 93 (U.S. 93), which cuts through Las Vegas, has been designated a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) route. The increasing congestion caused by the switchbacks leading to the Hoover Dam site and the restrictions at the dam crossing have led to the development of the Hoover Bypass Project. The Hoover Dam Bypass Project is a 3.5-mile corridor beginning at approximately milepost 2.2 in Clark County, Nevada and crossing the Colorado River approximately 1,500 feet downstream of the Hoover Dam, then terminating in Mohave County, Arizona near milepost 1.7 on U.S. 93. Once these road improvements are complete it will provide a further boost to Las Vegas Industrial real estate.

Metropolitan Statistical Areas are central urbanized areas consisting of a relatively high population density. They can be made up of multiple counties, but in the case of the Las Vegas metropolitan area consists of just Clark County, which is the 15th largest county in the U.S. and is made up of five cities: Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, Mesquite, and North Las Vegas.

A central part of the metropolitan area is the Las Vegas Valley, a 600 square mile basin, which includes the metropolitan area’s largest city, Las Vegas. Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada, and the 28th most populous city in the United States with an estimated population of 558,383 as of 2008.

The estimated population of the Las Vegas metropolitan area as of 2008, was 1,865,746. Back at the time of the 2000 census the racial makeup of the MSA was 71.58 White, 9.08% Black, 5.74% Asian, 0.79% American Indian and 12.81% of other or mixed race, and the median income for a household in the MSA was $44,616 and the median income for a family was $50,485. The per capita income was $21,785.

Economy of the Las Vegas Real Estate Market
Las Vegas is the entertainment capital of the world, and is home to fourteen of the U.S.’s fifteen largest hotels. The Las Vegas economy is driven by leisure and tourism, with the key employment sectors for the last decade having been construction, especially residential construction, and leisure and hospitality. The Las Vegas recovery will be driven by improvements in the national economy fueling tourism, and by the imbalances in the local housing market correcting. Economic recovery in Southern Nevada will probably lag behind the rest of the country as employment and wages will have to rebound nationally before visitor volume and gaming revenue can rebound locally.

Other sectors that male a contribution to the economy are conventions, shopping, and restaurants, and like casinos these are mainly fueled by tourists. The pro-business tax climate has seen the commercial sector steadily growing, and in addition to this government, the military and schools are significant employers.

The Las Vegas-Paradise MSA lost 58,600 jobs between May 2008 and May 2009, sending the unemployment rate to 11.1 percent. The largest loss of jobs occurred in construction (-17.3 percent), information (-10.9 percent) and professional & businesses services (-9.3 percent). Gaming revenues and visitor volume are down compared to April 2008, and only the deep discounts offered by local hotels have improved room occupancy. Multiple gaming companies are in default on their debt or declaring bankruptcy. Condo projects have seen their prices fall approximately 30 percent from their peak. Home foreclosures remain high throughout the Valley, and apartment occupancy is at its lowest level in 10 years.

All real estate sectors have grown with the economy: casinos have driven demand for off-strip warehouses; a growing business community has seen more offices being built; and retail has grown as a tourist attraction as well as to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population. The residential real estate sector has been hard hit by the recent economic downturn, and consists of a wide range of stock from single family homes, through to luxury condos.

Las Vegas Casino Industry – the commercial real estate driver
In the first six months of 2009 Nevada’s gaming revenues were down 13.5%, and 14.7% on the strip. In June the state’s gaming revenue sunk to 2004 levels: casinos collected $818.2 million from customers in June, which is a 13.8% decline from June 2008, and is the 18th straight monthly decline. On the Strip gaming revenue fell 14.8% in June to $414.5m.

A lot of Las Vegas’s appeal is based on the discretionary income that had increased through stock heavy 401Ks, home value increases, and easy lending practices. This lead to a building boom and focus on higher end casinos.

Las Vegas is more highly correlated with the national economy than it was previously because of its reliance on this discretionary income which has been eroded by the current recession. The wealth effect that drove Vegas’s boom is unlikely to come back quickly, particularly in the middle-market segment of customer.

The way that Las Vegas has traditionally worked is to have each building cycle create it in demand. But the idea of “build it and they will come” is clearly not something that will work in the current environment, and there is a significant supply of housing coming online.

Basically the industry built some very grand casinos based on average room rates in excess of $250 per night and with easy access to financing. With room rates below half that target the debt is becoming harder to service, and it may be the case that the cost structures are unsustainable, and that the next few years will witness collapses and changes of ownership. It may the case that the bull cycle owners go bust, and it is the next owners that make the money.

The Las Vegas Office Real Estate Market
There is 32 million square feet of offices over 10,000 square feet in Las Vegas, excluding those which are owner-occupied, or medical office buildings. Whilst one million square feet of office space was built in 2008, this was just 37% of 2007 levels. Vacancies in offices stood at 17% by the end of 2008.

The Las Vegas Retail Real Estate Market
There is 61 million square feet of off-the-Strip non-owner occupied retail buildings larger than 20,000 square feet. Vacancy in retail space stood at 9.9% at the end of 2008, which is double the rate at the end of 2007. With rising unemployment, and a fall in the discretionary spending of consumers the retail sector has been hard hit.

Las Vegas Residential Real Estate Market
In July foreclosure filings were up 32% on the same time a year earlier, and Nevada had the nation’s highest foreclosure rate for the 31st straight month. Deutsche Bank estimates that the MSA of Las Vegas-Paradise has 81% of homeowners who own homes valued at less than is owed on them, and it predicts that this will increase to 90% by the first quarter of 2009. These price pressures are likely to drive an increase in foreclosures. In the multi-family home sector vacancy rates increased from the average of 7.68% in 2007 to 8.76% in 2008. In the Class A sector the vacancy rate for apartments was 7.80%, Class B was 9.26% and Class C was 9.04%.

The Las Vegas Industrial Real Estate Market
Of the 102 million square feet of industrial real estate in Las Vegas, approximately 35 million is warehouse distribution, of which 40% is Grade A quality. Typical warehouses are around 100 to 250,000 square fee, but there are also larger distribution centers, and industrial parks of multiple buildings. North Las Vegas and the South West are the dominant sub-markets. In addition to servicing the Las Vegas MSA population of two million, and its massive hotel industry, the warehouses are used as regional distribution hubs for the 11 south-west states that can be reached overnight.