Las Vegas Adds The Smith Center for the Performing Arts‏

The symphony, now located in The Smith Center, began in the mid-’90s when a group of community leaders gathered to discuss “building a world-class performing arts center.”

The financing was a near 50-50 split of private and public money for a total of $470,000,000.

The Smith Center for the Performing Arts definitely puts Las Vegas in the major leagues of the cultural venues, and that’s entirely by design.

The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that not only did Smith Center officials visit renowned cultural landmarks — from New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to Paris’ Theatre des Champs Elysees and Milan’s La Scala — they even used templates of existing complexes to plan Las Vegas’ downtown cultural center.

Here is a sampling of some of the events:
(Past Events in March)

• Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater - Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater showcases the vision of new Artistic Director Robert Battle with programming that embraces the Ailey tradition and extends the legacy in new directions.
• Las Vegas Philharmonic Masterworks IV - The Las Vegas Philharmonic makes its debut at The Smith Center with nearly 300 performers onstage.
• Straight No Chaser - If the phrase “male a cappella group” conjures an image of students in blue blazers, ties and khakis singing traditional college songs on ivied campuses, think again. Straight No Chaser members are neither strait-laced nor straight faced, but neither are they vaudeville-style kitsch.
• Savion Glover’s Bare Soundz - Under the direction of Savion Glover, Savion Glover’s Bare Soundz is a celebration of tap dance to sound and sound to dance.
• Nevada Ballet Theatre - presents “Words on Dance,” conversations and screenings with dance artists, featuring ballerina Cynthia Gregory and moderated by Donald Williams, “Phantom of the Opera” performer and former principal dancer with Dance Theater of Harlem.

(Coming Events)

• March 30 The Pink Floyd Experience – Pink Floyd presents “Wish You Were Here” live in its entirety with a light and video show, full quadraphonic sound and six musicians.
• March 31 Branford Marsalis – Three-time Grammy winner Branford Marsalis is one of the world’s most talented saxophonists, and he performs live inside the intimate Cabaret Jazz club.
• April 1 “Golda’s Balcony” – A portrait of one of the great women of our time, Golda Meir, “Golda’s Balcony” is the latest work from Tony Award-winning playwright William Gibson (“The Miracle Worker,” “Two for the Seesaw”) and an award-winning play that, in 15 sold-out months on Broadway, set the record for the longest one-woman show in Broadway history.
• April 3-6 & April 7-8 “The Color Purple” – “The Color Purple” is a musical based on the classic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker and the film by Steven Spielberg. It is the story of a woman named Celie, who finds her unique voice in the world.
• First Friday & Saturday of every month beginning April 6, 8:30 p.m.
• Clint Holmes – Singer Clint Holmes returns to Las Vegas to start an exclusive engagement at Cabaret Jazz.
• April 1, 6:30 p.m. Las Vegas Youth Orchestra Spring Concert
• The Las Vegas Youth Orchestras (student musicians, ages 8-18) perform with its Percussion Ensemble. Also featured is the Youth Philharmonic’s Concerto Competition winner, soloing with the orchestra.
• April 13, 7:30 p.m. & April 14, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Women Fully Clothed – Their clothes stay on, but you might laugh your pants off. This sketch comedy show delves into the naked truth of everyday life.
• April 13, 8:30 p.m. & April 14, 7 and 9:30 p.m. Andrea Marcovicci — Marcovicci Sings Movies With an array of movie songs from the 1930s through the 1940s and with a nod and a wink to silver screen legends, Andrea Marcovicci illuminates how movie music has scored our lives and loves.
• April 14 Las Vegas Philharmonic Pops III – An evening of George Gershwin’s greatest hits, including “Rhapsody in Blue” and “American in Paris” and songs such as “S’wonderful” and “Summertime,” with Broadway star Lisa Vroman and renowned jazz pianist David Loeb, who is director of jazz studies at UNLV.
• April 21, 7:30 p.m. The Cleveland Orchestra – Under the leadership of Music Director Franz Welser-Most, The Cleveland Orchestra has become one of the most sought-after performing ensembles in the world.
• April 20, 8:30 p.m. & April 21, 7 and 9:30 p.m. Joey DeFrancesco Trio – Joey DeFrancesco officially emerged on the jazz scene in 1989 with the release of his first album on Columbia, titled “All Of Me.”
• June 12-15, 7:30 p.m. & June 16-17, 2 and 7:30 p.m. “Million Dollar Quartet” “Million Dollar Quartet” is the hit Broadway musical inspired by the true story of the famed recording session where Sam Philips, the “Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” brought together icons Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins for one unforgettable night.

The Smith Center Las Vegas

.30-year fixed mortgage dropped.

The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage dropped to the lowest since records have been kept, creating a tempting target for people to refinance their homes.

Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage hit 3.87 percent, down from 3.98 percent the prior week. That’s below the previous record of 3.88 hit two weeks ago.

The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage fell to 3.14 percent, also a record low. Records for mortgage rates date back to the 1950s.

Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which fell below 1.9 percent this week.

Mortgage rates have hovered near 4 percent for the past three months, and have perhaps contributed to a slight improvement in the housing market. But many homeowners remain underwater and the pipeline of foreclosures continues to be huge, putting heavy pressure on housing prices.

High unemployment and scant wage gains have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Many don’t want to sink money into a home that they fear could lose value over the next few years.

Sales of previously occupied homes were dismal last year. New-home sales in 2011 were the worst on records going back half a century.

Builders are hopeful that the low rates could boost sales next year. But so far, they have had a minimal impact.

Mortgage applications have risen slightly over the past four weeks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. But they are coming off extremely low levels.

To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week.

The average rates don’t include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.

The average fee for the 30-year loan rose to 0.8 from 0.7; the average on the 15-year fixed mortgage was unchanged at 0.8.

For the five-year adjustable loan, the average rate fell to 2.80 percent from 2.85 percent. The average on the one-year adjustable loan rose to 2.76 percent from 2.74 percent.

The average fee on the five-year adjustable loan rose was unchanged at 0.7; the average on the one-year adjustable

New state law slows banks from starting foreclosures.

A new Nevada law that took effect in October has slowed banks from initiating foreclosures, resulting in just 116 notices of default filed in the first three weeks of October, compared with 3,649 filings in September, a spokesman for ForeclosureRadar.com said Thursday.

“We have seen a huge drop-off from September to October in regards to notices of default filed in Clark County,” said Mike Daniel, marketing director for ForeclosureRadar, a Discovery Bay, Calif.-based listing service. “It’s a shocking hit.”

That will choke off bank-owned inventory in coming months and spark the kind of “knee-jerk reaction” that created the housing bubble in the first place, foreclosure investor Zolt Szorenyi said.

Typically, about half of notices of default are cleared up, usually by people catching up on delinquent mortgages, while 1,700 to 1,900 go to foreclosure, he said. About 200 a month are sold to third parties at trustee auctions.

Roughly half of existing home sales in Las Vegas are real-estate-owned, or bank-owned properties. With a current REO inventory of 10,000 homes, it will take four to six months to absorb that inventory, Szorenyi said.

“People are going to see this and have a knee-jerk reaction. They’re going to make offers without appraisals, just like they did five years ago,” said Szorenyi, president of Lenders Clearing House Las Vegas, a company that works with banks in selling REO properties.

“With this constant interference from the government, they are putting shackles on the banks and holding everything back and then releasing the shackles,” he said. “That artificially jerks the market around. Banks have a huge bottleneck to deal with. They’ll just cut prices left and right because they’re just competing with themselves,”

Assembly Bill 284 requires a lender seeking to foreclose in Nevada to record a notarized affidavit of authority to foreclose that includes information showing that they have the legal right to exercise the power of sale.

The new law protects homeowners from improper foreclosures and protects the integrity of the homeownership system, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said. It was crafted largely in response to the robo-signing scandal that surfaced last year. Servicers of mortgage loans will be fined $5,000 if robo-signing fraud is detected.

The law also gives Nevada homeowners access to data on companies that hold their mortgages by requiring that documents used in foreclosure be recorded in the county where the property is located, a challenge to the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS.

No one knows what will happen if foreclosures are halted or slowed materially, broker Frank Nason of Residential Resources said. He thinks investors would abandon the market except for select properties.

“Could it increase prices? Possibly, but it could stop the absorption of all product types until it became clear what the ultimate disposition of the distressed inventory was,” Nason said. “Just because foreclosures were halted for legal reasons doesn’t fix the underlying problem — underwater houses and people losing their jobs or other life events that require a sale or walk-away.”

Foreclosure filings in Clark County topped 6,000 in July, August and September last year, retreating into the 4,000 to 5,000 range for most of this year, according to ForeclosureRadar.

Nevada Bankers Association President Bill Uffelman said affidavit requirements from the new law are tripping up title companies.

“The reality is because of past allegations of robo-singing, what all the financial institutions are doing now is revalidating, if you will, everything in the foreclosure process, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s and checking everything a second time because you don’t want to suffer the consequences,” he said.

“OK, it’ll take one or two more months, but it’ll return,” he added. “What everyone loses track of is the individual not paying their mortgage. At some time, the banks have to foreclose. You can’t sit in a house and not pay anyone.”

Las Vegas City Council sets hearing on foreclosure proposal.

A proposal that could put bankers behind bars for failing to maintain foreclosed homes in Las Vegas probably will advance, albeit with some changes to the wording.

The City Council recommending committee on Tuesday voted to hold another hearing Nov. 15 on the measure, proposed by Ward 6 Councilman Steve Ross, which would make it a misdemeanor offense for lenders to allow distressed houses to fall into disrepair.

The delay will give banking, real estate and other groups more time to press for changes to the proposal, including changes that would lessen penalties.

“Who is going to jail, eventually, if it came to that point?” Mayor Pro Tem Stavros Anthony asked. “Is the president of Bank of America going to jail?”

The proposed ordinance would require lenders to register abandoned and distressed homes on a list with the city at a cost of $200 per house.

It also includes requirements that the lender maintain the property to prevent it from becoming an eyesore or a health and safety hazard.

Penalties for violating the ordinance would be a misdemeanor, punishable with up to a $1,000 fine or six months in jail for each offense.

Val Steed, an attorney for the city, explained why the potential penalty is so harsh.

“You have to put some penalty in there, traditionally what we have is criminal,” Steed said. “When corporations are prosecuted criminally, it doesn’t happen much, an officer has the potential to go to jail.”

The reasoning behind the proposed ordinance is simple: Las Vegas is home to about 28 percent of the foreclosed homes in Southern Nevada, a national epicenter for the national housing market collapse.

As such, there are about 300 homes becoming vacant and foreclosed each month, according to an August analysis of real estate statistics presented Tuesday.

Although all houses in the city, no matter who owns them, are subject to residential maintenance codes, vacant, distressed properties tend to accumulate more violations than occupied homes.

The result is a plethora of houses burdened by city-attached liens that can complicate future sales.

Proponents of the proposed ordinance say it will prompt banks to act to prevent vacant houses from deteriorating.

“The years it is sitting there and no one is taking care of the property, it goes to crap,” Anthony said. “Who is responsible for upkeeping that home? Right now it is the city of Las Vegas, but that is getting old.”

Critics, including Bill Uffelman of the Nevada Bankers Association who called the ordinance “not ready for prime time,” say it contains vague wording, would apply to commercial property also and puts banks on the hook for maintaining property they don’t own.

Uffelman joined Nevada State Bank attorney Charles Cook and Senior Vice President Harry Hinderliter in identifying potential problems with the ordinance.

They urged the city to change the wording so the registry and maintenance requirements aren’t triggered until the notice of sale, an action that occurs three weeks before an auction and is recorded with the county recorder.

They said the notice of sale is an appropriate trigger because it occurs after mediation and other efforts to prevent foreclosure are exhausted. Earlier triggers, they said, could result in banks being told to maintain properties on which they have no legal right to set foot.

Uffelman also said the penalty for non-compliance is too stiff.

“I don’t think the regional president of a national bank is going to be interested in visiting the lockup here in Clark County,” he said. “That one gets people’s attention, but I don’t think it encourages compliance.”

Despite the questions raised, recommending committee members appeared poised to push through some sort of vacant property registry and maintenance ordinance.

“I feel we need a couple of weeks to listen to people and find the wording that will make something work,” Councilman Bob Coffin said.

Las Vegas home sales still strong in October 2011

Home sales in Las Vegas continued on a record pace in October, while prices dipped from the previous month and from a year ago, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported Monday.

Realtors sold 3,118 single-family homes during the month, 3.8 percent fewer than in September, but a healthy 20 percent increase from the same month a year ago.

The decline in home sales from September to October is consistent with seasonal sales trends, said Paul Bell, president of the association.

“For at least the last seven years, we’ve sold fewer homes in October than we did during September,” Bell said. “But I think the significant thing here is that October sales are up substantially from last year.”

Seasonal trends suggest home sales will likely continue to decline through the holiday and winter months that make up the slowest season for home sales, he said.

But even with the expected lull in November and December, 2011 is running about 10 percent ahead of last year’s sales pace and has a chance to hit 46,000 to 48,000 for the year, including condos and townhomes, Bell said. He attributes the sales surge largely to investors buying low-priced homes.

“A lot of retirees are buying, too,” he said. “They’re definitely here. I worked with a cash buyer in October on a home purchased as a foreclosure for $70,000 and sold for $110,000, with a remodel.”

The inventory of single-family homes on the Multiple Listing Service fell to 21,478 in October, a 4.8 percent decrease from a year ago. Of those, 10,346 units are available without pending or contingent offers.

The median price of all single-family homes sold in October was $121,000, down 1.9 percent from September and down 9 percent from a year ago.

Realtors sold 763 condos and townhomes in October at a median price of $59,000, up 4.4 percent from September, but down 9.2 percent from $65,000 in October 2010.

About half of all existing homes sold in Southern Nevada were bought with cash.

Meanwhile, 25.4 percent of all existing local homes sold during October were short sales, which occur when a bank agrees to sell a home for less than what the borrower owes on the mortgage. That’s up from 23.5 percent in September, but still down from a peak of 34 percent in June 2010.

Bank-owned homes accounted for 48.1 percent of all existing-home sales in October, down from 49.4 percent in September.

GLVAR reported a total of 4,563 condos and townhomes listed for sale on its MLS at the end of October. That’s up 10.5 percent from 4,129 in September and down 22.6 percent from one year ago.

Realtor statistics are based on MLS data, which does not necessarily account for newly constructed homes sold by local builders or for sale by owners.

The monthly value of local real estate transactions tracked through the MLS in October decreased by 5.4 percent for single-family homes, to nearly $468 million. For condos and town homes, the total value of all sales in October was nearly $57 million, down 18.1 percent from September.

CLARK COUNTY FORECLOSURE FILINGS

	August 2011	July 2011	August 2010
Notice of default	5,279	3,617	6,116
Notice of sale	3,108	3,380	5,631
Cancellations	1,540	1,695	2,684
Back to bank (REO)	1,555	1,533	1,822
Sold to 3rd party	699	596	566
Days to foreclose	373	326	256

Nevada foreclosure filings surge in August 2011

Lenders filed notices of mortgage default on 5,279 Clark County homes in August, sharply reversing a six-month slide in foreclosure actions, real estate tracking firm ForeclosureRadar reported Wednesday.

The sudden spike of nearly 46 percent in default notices — the initial step in foreclosure — since July signals that banks are starting to move against homeowners nearly a year after they were forced to back off while sorting out problems with sloppy and improperly handled loan documents.

Nevada continues to lead the nation in foreclosures, with one in every 118 households receiving a foreclosure-related notice last month, RealtyTrac Inc. said in a report scheduled for release today.

Though default notices surged last month, they fell 13.7 percent short of the 6,116 notices filed in the same month a year ago, ForeclosureRadar reported.

The jump in initial default notices in Las Vegas was mirrored by a 33 percent increase nationwide, a nine-month high and the biggest monthly gain in four years, RealtyTrac reported.

The surge in foreclosure filings is primarily attributed to Bank of America, the nation’s single largest lender, which is moving forward on troubled mortgages where paperwork was found to have been improperly “robo-signed” by bank employees, ForeclosureRadar Chief Executive Officer Sean O’Toole said Wednesday.

Banks are fighting legal battles against states and the federal government over the foreclosure process and are having to play “catch-up,” O’Toole said.

“It’s possible that they are clearing up files that were set aside during review of the robo-signing,” the foreclosure analyst said. “If that’s the case, I think this will be a one-month blip of cleanup.”

But RealtyTrac Senior Vice President Rick Sharga said it may be just the start.

“This is really the first time we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of new foreclosure actions,” Sharga said. “It’s still possible this is a blip, but I think it’s much more likely we’re seeing the beginning of a trend here.”

Foreclosure filings also increased for Wells Fargo and US Bank, while filings by JP Morgan Chase and Citibank were essentially flat.

Notices of trustee sale in Las Vegas, the next major step after a default notice, declined 8 percent for the month and 44.8 percent from a year ago, to 3,108 in August. That fifth consecutive month decline is likely to reverse when August’s rush of defaults reach that step.

Investor activity increased in August. Properties sold at auction to third parties rose 17.3 percent, to 699, while those going back to the bank — commonly known as real estate-owned — increased 1.4 percent, to 1,555. Cancellations of default notices fell for the fourth straight month, dropping 9.1 percent in August to 1,540, the lowest number in 15 months.

Time to foreclose reached a record of 373 days in August.

While painful for homeowners, the foreclosure process is seen as a necessary step in turning around the U.S. housing market. Experts say a revival isn’t likely to occur as long as there remains a glut of potential foreclosures .

Foreclosures weigh down home values and create uncertainty among would-be homebuyers who fret over prospects that prices may further decline as more foreclosures hit the market. About 3.7 million more homes nationwide are in some stage of foreclosure now than there would be in a normal housing market, Citi analyst Josh Levin said.

“This bloated foreclosure pipeline now presents the greatest obstacle to a housing market recovery,” Levin said in a client note this week.

Las Vegas-based housing research firm SalesTraq showed a bank-owned inventory of 10,478 foreclosed homes in July, compared with 13,370 a year ago. Bank repossessions totaled 1,502 during the month, a 7 percent decrease from the same month a year ago.

Nevada foreclosure filings surge in August 2011

Lenders filed notices of mortgage default on 5,279 Clark County homes in August, sharply reversing a six-month slide in foreclosure actions, real estate tracking firm ForeclosureRadar reported Wednesday.

The sudden spike of nearly 46 percent in default notices — the initial step in foreclosure — since July signals that banks are starting to move against homeowners nearly a year after they were forced to back off while sorting out problems with sloppy and improperly handled loan documents.

Nevada continues to lead the nation in foreclosures, with one in every 118 households receiving a foreclosure-related notice last month, RealtyTrac Inc. said in a report scheduled for release today.

Though default notices surged last month, they fell 13.7 percent short of the 6,116 notices filed in the same month a year ago, ForeclosureRadar reported.

The jump in initial default notices in Las Vegas was mirrored by a 33 percent increase nationwide, a nine-month high and the biggest monthly gain in four years, RealtyTrac reported.

The surge in foreclosure filings is primarily attributed to Bank of America, the nation’s single largest lender, which is moving forward on troubled mortgages where paperwork was found to have been improperly “robo-signed” by bank employees, ForeclosureRadar Chief Executive Officer Sean O’Toole said Wednesday.

Banks are fighting legal battles against states and the federal government over the foreclosure process and are having to play “catch-up,” O’Toole said.

“It’s possible that they are clearing up files that were set aside during review of the robo-signing,” the foreclosure analyst said. “If that’s the case, I think this will be a one-month blip of cleanup.”

But RealtyTrac Senior Vice President Rick Sharga said it may be just the start.

“This is really the first time we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of new foreclosure actions,” Sharga said. “It’s still possible this is a blip, but I think it’s much more likely we’re seeing the beginning of a trend here.”

Foreclosure filings also increased for Wells Fargo and US Bank, while filings by JP Morgan Chase and Citibank were essentially flat.

Notices of trustee sale in Las Vegas, the next major step after a default notice, declined 8 percent for the month and 44.8 percent from a year ago, to 3,108 in August. That fifth consecutive month decline is likely to reverse when August’s rush of defaults reach that step.

Investor activity increased in August. Properties sold at auction to third parties rose 17.3 percent, to 699, while those going back to the bank — commonly known as real estate-owned — increased 1.4 percent, to 1,555. Cancellations of default notices fell for the fourth straight month, dropping 9.1 percent in August to 1,540, the lowest number in 15 months.

Time to foreclose reached a record of 373 days in August.

While painful for homeowners, the foreclosure process is seen as a necessary step in turning around the U.S. housing market. Experts say a revival isn’t likely to occur as long as there remains a glut of potential foreclosures .

Foreclosures weigh down home values and create uncertainty among would-be homebuyers who fret over prospects that prices may further decline as more foreclosures hit the market. About 3.7 million more homes nationwide are in some stage of foreclosure now than there would be in a normal housing market, Citi analyst Josh Levin said.

“This bloated foreclosure pipeline now presents the greatest obstacle to a housing market recovery,” Levin said in a client note this week.

Las Vegas-based housing research firm SalesTraq showed a bank-owned inventory of 10,478 foreclosed homes in July, compared with 13,370 a year ago. Bank repossessions totaled 1,502 during the month, a 7 percent decrease from the same month a year ago.

Hope Now, an alliance of mortgage insurers and servicers, reported 3,523 foreclosure starts in Nevada in July, down from 4,195 in June. Completed foreclosure sales dropped to 1,972 in July from 2,773 in June.

Servicers completed 603 proprietary loan modifications in July, excluding modifications through the Home Affordable Mortgage Plan, HAMP, compared with 633 in June

Las Vegas home resales surge in August 2011

Local sales of existing homes surged in August.

Too bad housing prices couldn’t keep up.

Numbers released late Wednesday by the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors showed record sales of condominiums and townhomes in August. The month also brought the second-best month ever for overall existing-home sales, the group said.

Taken together, sales of single-family and attached homes totaled 4,693 units, just nine sales short of the June 2009 record.

Yet, median prices continued their precipitous decline, falling by double-digit percentages year over year.

Association members sold 987 condominiums and townhomes, up 13.1 percent from July and 20.5 percent from August 2010. Attached homes sold for a median of $56,000 in the month, down 5.1 percent since July and off 16.4 percent compared with August 2010. Condos and townhomes peaked at a median price of $205,000 in mid-2006.

Realtors also sold 3,706 single-family homes, up 17.1 percent from July and 31.5 percent from August 2010. Single-family properties sold for a median of $120,000, down 1.6 percent from July and 14.3 percent from August 2010. Prices peaked at $290,000 in fall 2006.

Paul Bell, the association’s president, called August a “super active month for sales.”

He attributed the jump to investor activity and to historically low interest rates and listing prices. The calendar may also have helped: August has 31 days, and no big holidays to distract buyers.

Bell added that August’s tally would have been several hundred units higher had banks approved more short sales, or sales for less than what the borrower owes on the mortgage.

As it was, 21.7 percent of all existing homes sold in Southern Nevada in August were short sales. That was up from 20.2 percent in July, but down from a June 2010 peak of 34 percent.

Also, the inventory of local homes for sale showed stabilization.

The local market had 22,400 listings in August, down 0.2 percent from July and off 1 percent from August. Supplies of attached housing fell even more: The 4,862 units on the market were down 4.6 percent compared with July, and off 19 percent compared with August 2010.

The total value of single-family units sold in August was $546.3 million, up 14.3 percent from July and 14.7 percent from August 2010. Among attached homes, the total value was $73.2 million, up 9.7 percent from July and 0.1 percent from August 2010.

The association’s numbers are based on figures from its Multiple Listing Service, and may not account for sales by owners, homebuilders or other purchases that didn’t involve a Realtor.

Sales of new homes slipping.

New-home sales in Las Vegas are at their lowest level in 23 years, struggling to maintain a pace to reach 3,500 for the year, housing analyst Dennis Smith of Home Builders Research said Monday.

He counted 316 new-home sales in July, bringing the total for the year to 1,990, a decrease of 41.8 percent from the same period a year ago, when the federal homebuyer tax credit was in effect.

The numbers will probably dwindle in the later months of the year, as the summer months are typically the peak home-buying season, Smith said.

Traditional new-home closings — not including high-rise condos and apartment conversions — tumbled from a high of 30,829 in 2005 to 4,761 last year.

Some homebuilders in Las Vegas have turned to purchasing and remodeling existing homes for resale to stay in business.

“These smaller builders — my hat’s off to them,” Smith said. “They could just fold up and go on vacation, and some of them have. Some of them are out there doing stuff, not getting rich doing it, but keeping their doors open and keeping people working.”

The median price of a new home fell to $198,518 in July, down 5.6 percent from a year ago. In June, the price was up 7.4 percent.

Smith said the new-home price keeps bouncing around the $200,000 mark and will probably stay there for many months.

“As much as we would like to feel optimistic for any positive signals that would suggest upward price movement of new homes, it does not appear to be in the cards,” the housing expert said.

Builders pulled 287 new-home permits in July, led by KB Home (42), Richmond American (38) and Pulte (26). Permit activity is down 28.5 percent from a year ago, at 2,311.

There were 3,837 recorded resales in July, down from a robust 4,541 in June. For the year, existing-home sales are up 5.3 percent, to 26,709.

The median price of resale closings was $109,900, down 10.9 percent from a year ago, and the fifth straight month of decline. There’s no way of telling how long the trend will continue, Smith said.

About half the sales are foreclosures and 20 percent are short sales, or lender-approved sales for less than the principal mortgage balance. Investors are taking advantage of the distressed market.

But anyone who thinks the Las Vegas housing market is dead is out of touch with current market conditions, said Amelia Hyden, chief executive officer of Appraisal Management Company of Southern Nevada.

“If you are fortunate enough to be one of those cash buyers, the market is anything but dead,” she said. “The amount of cash buyers in today’s market is phenomenal.”

If there’s any good news, it’s that many of the empty, dilapidated homes that languished on the market for months have been purchased at steeply discounted prices and rehabilitated, Smith said.

“Look around your neighborhood. Is your neighborhood better or worse than a year ago? If I compare my neighborhood, mine looks better,” he said.

One of the topics being discussed in Washington, D.C., is how to rid the economy of foreclosed homes held by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Authority.

With today’s tight lending policies and lack of good credit among consumers interested in buying a home, it makes sense to turn some of those foreclosures into rentals, Smith said. Nationally, about 800,000 foreclosed homes are owned by banks, including 264,000 by Fannie, Freddie and FHA.