It was bound to happen sooner or later. Folks looking at empty houses in Las Vegas and deciding "Why pay rent?": [Hat tip to The Judge]
On New Year’s Eve, a middle-class neighborhood in southwest Las Vegas discovered new neighbors in foreclosed and formerly vacant homes.
James Totland, a nearby resident, said the new residents appeared to be squatters.
"It’s insane," Totland said. "It’s scary really."
Real estate saleswoman JoAnn’E Verry and broker Scott Hurlburt reached the same conclusion. The new residents were intruders who were trespassing, the real estate sales people said. They enlisted the help of Las Vegas police Thursday in evicting the squatters.
"This is something that is caused because houses are vacant," Hurlburt said.
The Greater Las Vegas Board of Realtors calculates that about 45 percent of the 22,005 single-family houses on the market are vacant as the area struggles to recover from a residential realty bust.
But squatters remain uncommon in the Las Vegas area, said Patty Kelly, president of the Realtors board.
"It’s really somewhat of a rare occurrence that comes up," Kelly said. More often, homeless people or people who were evicted break into homes, she said.
My expectation is that this will become more common. There’s a lot of empty houses out there, and it’s difficult to monitor them all.
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I wouldn’t be suprised if this really started happening in all those tract areas where dozens of houses were built, but never sold & now the builder is BK.
Who would be there to call the police in the first place?
Diana-
That was my thought. Even if there are neighbors, who sees the paperwork when you move in? I think it could be tough to tell the difference between a renter, a buyer, and a squatter.
And they could get free lawn service to go with the free rent.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_02/b4066046083770.htm?campaign_id=yhoo
Hutch-
It almost makes you wonder why you’d work and save to buy a house when you can get by off the stupidity of others.
True story: I was visiting a friend in Ann Arbor, Michigan this past October. Across the street from his office was an old church that was supposed to be converted into residential/retail space.
Alas, the project went belly-up, but the church has found a second life as a homeless encampment.
There really is no way to keep this from happening wide-scale in metro areas with many vacants like Phoenix, Vegas, and the IE. Sure, some observant neighbors and agents will call the police to roust them. But there are plenty of (less watched) choices available and limited police resources. Meth addicts are flexible.
As sales tax revenue plummets due to the recession, there will be even fewer police resources just as the problem peaks over the next three years.
Wasn’t there a Scottsdale vacant house article this week?
BTW, the best part of the article:
“Verry told the group to leave the Slipstream property by 1 p.m. Thursday, when police would arrive. The individuals then moved down the street to another vacant home in the 9500 block of Rustic Galleon Street, which was foreclosed and is owned by Countrywide Home Loans.”
I think the key here (disclaimer: I am NOT advising you to do this, as in many jurisdictions it would be illegal) would be to walk right up and introduce yourself to the neighbors as a new renter, and keep the place in good order. Then, until the Realtors show up to try and show it, no one will be the wiser, and if/when one does show up, either (i) you make a deal with them to keep the place in order and let them show it while you stay there, or (ii) you just move on to the next subdivision.
Of course, option (i) is a little dangerous because a Realtor might lie to your face, even taking bribe money or money for “rent” and then still send the Sheriff over.
Can’t you keep a property you successfully squat on for 7 years, at least in some jurisdictions?
Not that I’d want to play that game but there are probably some folks who will pull it off.
I also remember another post here about ‘adverse tax posession’ or something like that in AZ, whereby you could pay the property taxes on a property and then if you aren’t paid back in a few years the property is yours. Might be a strategy here, too.
JimAtLaw-
I’ve seen homes in Queen Creek that are owned by the banks, but not listed on MLS. For squatters who are willing to do their research, I suspect there are lots of options. [Some more legal than others.
Today’s stock market plunge is widely thought to have occurred because of the bad numbers on new non-farm employment.
But are the December non-farm employment numbers even worse than were reported today?
And did the (U.S.) National Association of Realtors report misleading employment numbers?
“According to the December (U.S.) Jobs report, the real estate sector added 5,400 jobs in the month and is even above the number for December of 2006. How can that be, when real estate agents are fleeing the business?”
..
” NARs chief economist (said)earlier this week that a quarter of all real estate agents in California didnt even make a sale in 2007″
http://www.cnbc.com/id/22505383/site/14081545
BTW, on that link I post above, check out the blue “Current Housing Indicators” box on the bottom-right of the page.
Who knows where those numbers come from, or how they are produced, but I thought this was interesting:
“Existing Home Prices(Current)”: $207,800
“Existing Home Prices(2006)”: $218,900
Okay, so that is a drop of five percent. BUT…
“New Home Prices(Current)”: $217,800
“New Home Prices(2006)”: $250,400
Now THAT is a drop of thirteen percent
In other words, the builders are wising up to what it takes to sell homes, and are now selling new homes at almost the same price as old used home.
Or in yet other words, if you are buying a used home right now, chances are high that you are getting ripped off.
If you must insist on buying a home today, go buy yourself a new home!
I consider a new home to be HIGH risk… How shoddy has the construction been the last 5 years?
I prefer housing stock from the mid to late nineties in a sub that is 100% built.
Plus if you buy a new home today, what protects you from liens if the builder doesn’t pay the subs?
Hey, my first response has been in limbo for more hours than usual.
In honor of this Sunday’s return of television’s finest drama ever, HBO’s “The Wire,” let’s see how drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield’s enforcers Snoop and Chris made use of vacant houses in Baltimore:
“With Carcetti’s stamp of approval, Freamon and Daniels sent the entire police force out hunting for those telltale nails on hundreds of vacants. By halfway through the episode, they had found 17 dead bodies. At the end, the list of red names was so long that the homicide department had to add a makeshift paper extension to the dry-erase board.”
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1568526,00.html
Russ-
Sorry about Igor- I wish he’d let me know when he grabbed a comment- I always need to go looking for them.
Another interesting use for vacant houses. Sometime we’ll need to have a discussion on possible uses for all those empty houses. “Storage” I guess would be one.
The squatter syndrome is all in the news here in Wisconsin.., except we call them homeless.
However, they are living in storage lockers.
http://www.channel3000.com/news/14985463/detail.html