After reaching as much as $600,000 an acre in 2007, prices for land in the Las Vegas Vally have declined substantially and bargains are available at a fraction of peak prices.

The slowdown in home construction that saw builders close on  fewer than 7,000 homes in 2009 is depressing the market to the point some residential land must be priced below the cost of the improvements .

Finished residential lots may even sell for under $25,000, which is a 20 percent to 30 percent discount of the underlying land improvement costs. That means finished lots are trading at a discount and the underlying land at many  locations for residential development have reached rock bottom prices in today’s distressed market.

Once the valley works off the  overhead of foreclosures of resale properties,  residential land demand should improve and increase in value.

As large public homebuilders add to the problem with their new-home inventory, which must be discounted and priced to levels that can compete with foreclosures, it creates the perfect storm for long term investors.

As the land market  finishes  wringing out the excessive speculation and greed that developed in 2005-2007 declines in current market values should bottom out in 2010. In Phoenix for example, finished lots are trading for as little as as $11,000 — less than half the price in the Las Vegas Valley.

As the pain subsides in the Vegas land market, the fundamentals of supply and demand  will reassert themselves in late 2010.   Most land loans coming due relate to inflated transactions that occurred from 2005 to 2007. Any equity that had previously existed in these land assets has been wiped out compared with today’s drastically reduced prices.  While this is stressful to those who bought at the peak, it is an opportunity for those interested in entering the market.

Please contact us at 702-858-8778 for either commercial or residential land tracts.