Spring is in the air signaling the start of homebuying season. But here in Las Vegas, buyers “are aplenty,” 1st Realty Group owner Thomas Blanchard tells the Las Vegas Review Journal, but “we just don’t have the properties to sell them.”
It hardly seems possible, not enough homes for sale. After all, squatting in bank-owned homes has become a cottage industry in Sin City, where 2% of all homes, close to 14,000, sit vacant (or occupied by trespassers), remnants of the housing crash.
“Las Vegas metropolitan police, which patrol an area of nearly two million residents, have seen a 25% leap in the last three years in calls for service regarding suspected squatters, up to nearly 5,000 annually,” writes John Glionna for The Guardian.
In North Las Vegas, which was hardest hit by the crash, “officers have worked to remove trespassers from 180 homes in the last year alone.”
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This has the attention of the Nevada legislature which is considering a bill allowing “police a way to cut to the quick,” to remove squatters, writes Rick Anderson for the Las Vegas Sun. Last year law enforcement received 5,394 complaints about squatters — an average of 16 a day. In 2014, Metro received approximately 3,000 calls.
“This is affecting the entire valley,” Metro Police Lt. Nick Farese told The Sun. “There’s $600 million in property that is essentially being held hostage.”
In addition to the squatters holding properties hostage, according to Zillow.com, 16.6% of Vegas mortgagees were upside-down in the fourth quarter of last year, highest among large metro areas, but a far cry from the 71% who were underwater in 2012.
With Las Vegas being the nation’s underwater capital, many homeowners are trapped,…