Las Vegas ‘Foreclosure Express’ bus tour

The housing market in Las Vegas is pretty bleak. Many real estate agents are looking to find new ways to attract buyers into the glacially slow real estate market.

One such “hook” that has popped up in a few places all over the country such as Stockton, San Diego, Palm Springs and now Las Vegas, are foreclosure bus tours. If you’ve loved partying in Vegas, riding through the suburbs might be a good way to see what you’re in for before your wild hair leads you to something more permanent. And then again, it could also help those in search of the never-ending Vegas party.

[Ed.: See Peter Viles' L.A. Land blog for daily coverage of the rapidly changing southern California real estate landscape.]

I recently took a “Foreclosure Express” tour in Las Vegas. Partially out of interest in the concept, and partially because with Vegas being one of the slowest housing markets in America, I wanted to see just how bad it had gotten. Or, for some people, how good it had gotten. Information provided by the sponsors of the Vegas Foreclosure Express said, “there is one foreclosure for every 152 households, giving the state the highest foreclosure rate in the nation.” Filings in 2007 were up 16% from the year before, they said.
The peppy real estate agents from Prudential offered us Danish and muffins and then loaded us in a small shuttle bus (like the ones that take you from your hotel to the airport), and away we went to have a look at 16 cherry-picked foreclosure properties in Summerlin, the well-respected and desired “master-planned” community in Vegas.

The tour can feel a little like you are being sold a timeshare, and my husband and I were the only two people under 55 on the bus, but it did prove to be interesting. It is definitely an effective way to see many houses in a short period of time, and get a feel for the neighborhood.

Details:
Las Vegas Foreclosure Express
Saturday and Sunday at 11 a.m. (ongoing)
Where: The Zucker Team offices
8337 W. Sunset Road, Suite 150
Contact: (702) 823-8230 (call for reservations)
Cost: Free

Caveats:
Your tour guide will ask you to look at the houses with a bit of forgiveness. Even though you’re hungry for a bargain, you’re looking at another person’s broken dreams, and they are not always kind to the houses once they find out they’ve been foreclosed on. The worst we saw of this was bad carpeting and one broken window.

The real estate agents (tour guides) will strongly encourage you to sign an “agency agreement” binding you to use them as your agent if you want to buy a home seen on the tour. They asked us to do this right when we got on the bus. We didn’t, but we also didn’t end up being seriously interested in any of the houses. As with any contract, read the fine print carefully before you sign.

Benefits: What we did come away with was that we really liked Summerlin. If you are thinking about staying long-term, then you will find good deals in pricey neighborhoods. The houses on their list ranged in price from $212,000 to $379,000. There was a loan officer for a mortgage company on board the bus as well who let us know how much monthly payments would be. The agent also ran down the history of sale prices on each house beginning with what it first sold for. Note that these houses are not the cheapest homes in Vegas, and you can purchase a brand new home for the price of what they were showing, but it would most likely be in less-desirable neighborhoods.

— Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel Deal Blogger

[Photo: Jen Leo]

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23, 2008 at 7:54 am by Jen Leo and is filed under Las Vegas, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.