They have this amazing innovation in Las Vegas. It’s called a newspaper, and what it is is a daily detailed run down of important facts with no editorializing, which they somehow manage to constrain to the opinion pages. It would be so wonderful to have something like this in Phoenix…
Particularly for real estate reporting. Here’s an interesting article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal on the impact of land-use restrictions on single-family housing development:
It’s a local mainstay: The new-home subdivision with 150 single-family homes, comfortably ensconced on 6,500-acre [6500-sf?] lots behind thick cinder-block walls.
More than 71 percent of new homes sold in the Las Vegas Valley today are single-family properties, data from research firm SalesTraq show. Given that market dominance, it would seem inconceivable to consider the typical Las Vegas production-home tract an endangered species.
However, one local housing analyst predicts that sometime in the next seven years to 10 years, the lights will go out on the last traditional new single-family subdivision in the valley.
Steve Bottfeld, a senior analyst with Marketing Solutions, says a multitude of trends will conspire to render new single-family development obsolete within the next decade.
Area builders acknowledge the market changes that are complicating single-family development. But they’re also planning adjustments in how they develop that they say could save the single-family tract.
We’ve been in new home subdivisions in Sin City that were built on amazingly small lots. Three stories to allow for a one-car garage, 2000sf livable on a 2400sf lot. Basically the ‘back yard’ is a smoker’s porch. These are sold as fee estates (you own the underlying land), not condo plats, but your neighbors will never, ever argue in secret. Allowing for appearance, they reminded me of single-family homes in Queens, New York, or the near-in suburbs of Chicago.
There is a lot of high-rise development in Vegas right now, but construction costs put low-end housing at $300 per square foot. Mid-rise wood-frame construction is cheaper — but that cheapness shows in short order, and water damage is accretive and ultimately irreparable.
Las Vegas is a leading-indicator market for Phoenix, so it will be interesting to see how all this works out. And when news happens there, there’s a good chance we’ll be able to find out about it — in their newspaper…
Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing
