Is it a good idea to buy Las Vegas house now?

Many investors or California home owner found that houses price in Las Vegas is much more affordable and cost-efficient so they think it's a better investment than buying something old and small in LA. It is true that with $150,000, it's not difficult to find a single 3 bed and 2 bath house in Vegas while it's almost impossible to find one in Los Angeles area. However, is this really a good investment move? We don't think so. Why is that? Here we came up with three key points that lead us to believe that Vegas might not be able to regain it's glory as it is used to be.

1. Vegas is no longer the world's #1 casino

Without a doubt, China has replaced US to become the most powerful consuming country in the world. Even though many Chinese travelers have been to Vegas these days, they only account for less than 10% of the entire Chinese population. Then, how about the rest of 90% Chinese population? Where do they go when they want to get away trying their luck on the table? The answer is Macau. Macau has become the world #1 casino for the past three years while major casinos in Vegas have experienced huge deficit. Since casino business is the main revenue source of Vegas, it's hard to believe that house price will grow as much when the economy of the city will not be as prosperous. 

2. Hard to rent out in the long run

Most of resident live in Vegas working at Casinos. Since the overall casino business is not doing well these years, fewer new hiring opportunity will rise. In this case, there will be low rental demand because workers are not coming to town. Although the property management fee is relatively low in Vegas(around $100 monthly), it is still an overhead cost to investor when tenants are hard to find. In the long run, the house vacancy will again rise, which will eventually lead to house price stagnate.   

3. Business meeting/show relocate

Vegas used to be the #1 place where many business entities to host heir annual meeting, even some of the famous trade show are taken place in Vegas annually, such as CES, General Merchandise, and etc. These business activities in deed account for huge percentage of the revenue of all the major hotels in Vegas.  However, this might not be the case in the future. Many of the big companies, such as Microsoft, have decided to drop out from the CES show to cut their expense because they figure that Internet is more efficient and cost-effective way to debut their new product or messages. On the other hand, many major shows and meetings have been relocated either to Shanghai or to Beijing simply because China customers are their main focus now. All above phenomenon indirectly shows that Vegas has less importance to the business entities so it will eventually lead to less business activity and even worse economy. If this were the case,  the house price will never be good in the future.

All in all, we don't encourage small investors to buy houses in Vegas and hope the house price go up in the long run because the house value might not be back up for a while and even if it did go up in 10 years, is there a market for you to sell at the price you want? 

Thank you for visiting our blog. If you have any question regarding Real Estate in Southern California, please give us a call @ 626-757-1520 or email us info@cadreamer.com or check out our website for our weekly deals www.cadreamer.com        

2012 南加州買房的時機

近幾個月 不論是Orange County, Los Angeles County, 或是 San Bernardino County 的房價都有小幅上漲的趨勢 當然接近夏天房價上揚早是美國房地產的慣性 但是 照理說 加州仍有這麼多的銀行法拍屋 供應仍大於需求 所以應該不至於造成近日來的成長 加上美國的景氣並沒有回溫的景象 油價仍是高居不下 消費者信心指數又低 唯一能解釋目前的房地產回溫情形 就是Obama 有計劃性的不讓銀行放出剩下的法拍屋 主要就是因為年底選舉快到了 政府想要製造景氣回覆的假象 控制房價就是一個直接又快速的方法 因為外國投資者正用現金到處收購房產 加上原本的美國本地的購屋者 就行成了供不應求的現象 因為好的房子大加都搶著要 自然會造成房價上漲 由其是這一兩個月更為明顯 所以 如果可以等 或願意等的購屋族 不如等到9月再開始看房子 等到選舉日一近(加上是秋東季) 相信會有更多的法拍屋被政府(銀行)放出 到時候亦有更多的選擇.

如果您有任何購屋賣屋的需求 請與我們"加州夢想加" CA DREAMER 南加專業經紀聯絡
626-757-1520 www.cadreamer.com or info@cadreamer.com

2012 Southern California Real Estate Trend

      Ever since home price crashed in 2008 due to secondary mortgage as well as global recession, the overall real estate economy has been gloomy for years. Even though numbers of house sales for the past two months seem to show the sign of house price recovery, many factors discovered these days can reflect the fact that real estate economy might not recover anytime soon.

      First of all, banks are holding too many “Shadow Inventory” (such as bank owned or short sales units) and seem to be reluctant to release those units. The reasoning behind that is simple because banks want to recover the loss during the recession by trying to sell the house at the best price possible. Therefore, they are doing a good job controlling market supply to ensure home price remain strong.

      Second, many foreign inventors start to jump into US real estate market since the house price is too attractive to be missed resulting in surge in first quarter sales. However, based on the statistics from Department of Real Estate, average price of house bought by cash buyer is around two hundred thousand dollars. In other words, the foreign investors are mainly interested in condos and apartments rather than houses. In this case, it doesn’t really help overall real estate market because majority of the properties holding inside the pocket of the banks are single houses.

      Third, presidential election is approaching, which means that the US government has strong incentive to see home price bouncing back, even just for a short period of time, because home price is always an important index for current economy status and consumer confidence. Besides, summer and fall are usually the high season for real estate market so US government could stay with the flow and somehow maintain the sales numbers till election.

      Based on all three factors above, the current sign of recovery in home price might be just a temporary phenomenon that is said to lead to overall economy recovery. With remaining high unemployment rate, especially in California and hiking gas price, it is difficult to believe that we are heading towards economy recovery.   

Notes: For people who are interested in buying or selling houses, please contact us at info@cadreamer.com or give us a call at 626-757-1520. We speak English, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Taiwanese. Thank you for visiting our blog.