Las Vegas Real Estate Now Being Featured on Thumbtack.com!

Las Vegas Real Estate is now being featured on Thumbtack.com! Our company was contacted by the all new website, Thumbtack.com to be one of their featured Las Vegas real estate sites! It is always nice to be recognized by outside service providers for doing a great job, and we are excited about the extra promotional opportunities this will afford us to market our listings.

Speaking of new listings, we have a dandy in Green Valley Ranch! It’s a beautiful and immaculate 1769 sf 3 bedroom 2.5 bath townhome in a guard gated community across from the fabulous Green Valley District. This will go fast, so check it out at: Green Valley Town Home

HomePath Real Estate Listings in Las Vegas

If you are looking for a GREAT deal on Las Vegas real estate, you definitely need to check out the HomePath real estate listings in Las Vegas! HomePath listings are properties that were foreclosed upon and are now owned by Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae (a federally chartered corporation that purchases mortgages) has thousands of properties in it database, and is known for pricing those listings VERY competitively to sell quickly.

Fannie Mae may also offer special HomePath financing with less strict guidelines than traditional Las Vegas mortgages. Whether or not a property is eligible for HomePath financing is determined on a case by case basis and will be listed on their web site. There are a limited number of Las Vegas mortgage lenders who are authorized HomePath brokers, and the benefits can be no required appraisal and no required condo certification. This really helps in many of the condo communities where traditional financing is not available at all.

Fannie Mae listings are not quite like other Las Vegas foreclosures. They have certain guidelines that must be followed in order to purchase. When Fannie Mae foreclosures first come on the market, there is a 30 day mandatory "First Look" period. During this time frame Fannie Mae will ONLY accept offers from buyers who are purchasing the property as their primary residence. Offers from investors will only be considered after the 30 day "First Look" time period has expired with no acceptable offers from owner occupants. Fannie Mae will also require a lender pre-approval or proof of funds to pay cash to be submitted with any offer. They will not consider any contingencies on the sale of another property.

And while Fannie Mae may make some repairs to properties to increase their marketability, the buyer should be aware that other repairs may be needed. Fannie Mae sells each property "as is," which means that the buyer accepts the property "as is." Though the buyer will have a due diligence period to inspect the property for major defects, Fannie Mae is not responsible for fixing any problems after settlement.

But back to the part about the great deals! Fannie Mae properties typically sell for 10% to 15% less than comparable properties. It can be frustrating for investors to wait out the 30 day mandatory "First Look" period, but there are many terrific Las Vegas homes and condos that slip through the cracks or fall out of escrow. Primary homebuyers (owner occupants) should definitely be targeting Fannie Mae foreclosures as some of the best deals on the market. There are currently over 1200 Fannie Mae properties on the market in Clark County, Nevada, and they even release new listings in advance of actually putting them on the market. If you would like to receive new Fannie Mae listings monthly, weekly or even daily, just contact us!

Playing Fair with Your Real Estate Agent

This week's blog is about playing fair with your real estate agent.

Last week I was in New York City visiting family, and while I was there I met my niece and her husband for lunch and a show. They live in the city - my niece is an astrophysicist and only about ten people in the world really understand what she does. Something to do with black holes and dwarf stars and galaxies far far away!

We had just settled into our seats at this great Cuban restaurant when my niece said she needed to ask me some real estate related questions. I told her I would try to answer her questions, but with the disclaimer that New York City real estate was out of my realm of expertise.

My niece and her husband have decided they need more room than they currently have, so they are looking for a two bedroom apartment. Number one on their list was an apartment with about 900 square feet, 2 bedroom 1.5 bath for $4,500 a month. (You can buy 6,000 square foot Las Vegas luxury homes around the $700,000 price range for that kind of monthly payment, including the taxes and insurance!)

She showed us the floor plan, and the second bedroom was literally 10x5 - really more of a den off the dining room. The kitchen was minimal, and the bathrooms were only just big enough to turn around in if you were on the slender side.

But here's the kicker and where the real estate question came in. They had previewed this apartment with a local real estate agent. In addition to paying $4,500 per month for the place, they were also expected to pay the real estate agent 15% of the total rental amount for the year, another $8,100! But after returning home they found the same apartment listed on another agent's web site for only $4,400 per month with the landlord paying the agent's fees.

The question: what kind of liability/responsibility did they have to the agent that showed them the apartment in the first place?

After I picked my jaw up off of the ground in amazement at how much the New York agents make on rental properties, my first question to them was whether or not they had signed any type of agency agreement with the first agent. They said she had tried to get them to sign an agency agreement, but they had declined signing her paperwork. (My niece's husband is an attorney, fortunately, and he knows better than to sign something without fully investigating the ramifications.)

So I felt pretty confident telling them that they had no financial obligation to the first agent. However, I also explained that in the Las Vegas real estate market we have what is called "procuring cause." The agent that shows the listing to a client is entitled to the commission in most circumstances as per the guidelines of our local Las Vegas MLS board. I told them I did not know if the same rules were true in New York, but it could be that if my niece and her husband used another agent, the second agent might be liable to the first agent for the commission.

I suggested that as a courtesy to the first agent they let her know that they had found the apartment online for less money and without the agent's commission being paid by the tenant. They should give her the chance to represent them if she was willing to negotiate on their behalf and collect the agent's fee from the landlord. However, if she was not willing to do that, they should contact the second agent and let that agent know the circumstances so the agent wouldn't be blind sided later in the transaction.

This way the first agent would still have the opportunity to work with them. But if she declined their terms, the second agent would be in a much better position to collect the commission for performing the job, though that would still not be guaranteed.

This is an issue that all buyers/tenants should be aware of. If an agent shows you a property, in most states they are entitled to the commission from the sale as "procuring cause" of the sale unless there are extenuating circumstances. While most of the time "procuring cause" does not affect the buyer/tenant financially, they need to be sure they are being fair to the real estate agent that has done most of the work. After all, who wants to work for free? We have seen too many situations where a buyer asks an agent to show them Las Vegas homes for days on end and then turns around and has a friend (who was either too lazy or too busy to show them homes at the time) write the offer.

You have to have a compelling reason to use another agent, or that second agent may not be entitled to compensation. A compelling reason is NOT that you prefer to use a friend or that the first agent was not available on short notice to write an offer. A compelling reason would be that you had good reason to believe that the first agent was not working in your best interests or had "abandoned" you as a client. Most of the time that is very hard to prove.

And above all, the morals and ethics of the situation call for being fair to all parties. If the real estate agent does the work, they should get compensated for that work. So if you are looking for homes for sale in Las Vegas, make sure that only the agent you expect to represent you shows you the homes you might want to buy.