submission

Here’s the market for you, scars and all. There’s not much more to say than that I don’t fell you can argue with northern Nevada market and numbers. As I said about a year ago, I still think its real estate gauntlet is running almost two years ahead of the rest of the country. I’m sticking with summer 2010 as the overall bottom of the crash. Granted, the extremes in the size of the bubble and the burst will no doubt be greater in Nevada but the effects will be felt everywhere. In June 2005 I put my home in Fernley, NV on the market at $299,000 – I was about a quarter late in listing it or it probably would have sold for something close to asking price. After a year of absolutely no activity or offers I had brought the price down to $250,000 in May of 2006. I finally found a buyer – by dumb luck I’d gotten the name of a California company buying Fernley property from a property manager and we spoke on the phone about my house. It sold and closed the last week in May 2006 as I was packing up to move to the D.C. area. So,, I was wondering this morning how the Reno and Fernley markets were doing, and I do, and I went to the realtor that built and sold me the house, and who resold it three years later for me, and lo and behold my old house is back on the market two years after I sold it for $250,000. Feel free to take a look at some pictures of the place (click here and page over two pages...look for the listing at 1017 Pepper Lane) and ponder just what’s happened. It’s now listed for sale at $134,900. I knew back in ’06 how lucky I was to find a buyer and get out when I did – I just didn’t know how my life would have been hammered (even more) if I had two more years to serve before trying to sell and move on.

I almost want to buy the house back, fix up the lawn, pull up the carpets and put down some wood, and hold it as a vacation home. I can probably get it for $125,000 and everyone can use it when they want. Looks like with nothing down we could swing taxes and insurance for about $1,000 – who’s in with the good credit. I’ll pitch in $500 a month for the mortgage payment and go hike at Tahoe and spend the Holidays in the high desert.

t