[RobertFisher]

I am watching the LV real estate market. One aspect is watching the rent situation, and I do so by studying the Craigslist rental ads.

I just scanned the LV rental posts now and observed a couple of unique phenomena; I wonder if anyone has insights on these.

1. I filtered for one bedroom one bed ads, and found that rents for these are around $1000-$1400. But there are 20197 such postings currently (and this is just for one bedroom). Let's assume 2/3 duplicates, it's still a very large number of supply now. Are landlords finding tenants at this time? And in general, during regular market condition how long does it take to find tenants in LV?

2. I see around downtown some posting are for $300+, $500+, or $800+... a few are marked as weekly rent, but most have no such marking. Should I assume these below-normal numbers are weekly rent?

[airics]

It would be more then 2/3 duplicates since you list every couple days to keep the add at the top. I would actually have several different ads of the same place also. Better chance to be seen. And a lot of those ads don’t get removed when rented. I’d guess 80% fall into that category. And yes those super low numbers are weekly.

[longviewJoe]

My rentals never have a vacancy. I would say the market is pretty tight. That is for single family homes. I don't know about apartments.

[luckydogg]

I have been following the LV market very closely lately on Zillow (both for sale and rent) because I plan to move there next year, but I also own two townhomes there already that are rented out so I was already keeping up on the rental market.

My observation is that the rental market has become just as tight as for the for sale market. For years, the area of Henderson that one of my townhomes are in would routinely have 5-7 similar units for rent in the general area at any given time. However that has been steadily dropping over time and even before covid I noticed I only was seeing maybe 2-3 for rent. That's only continued to drop and today there's nothing for rent at all, and when one does come on it's usually gone within a week. I also should mention the rents have been going up year after year as well.

I think it just comes down to supply and demand.... for years more people have been moving to Vegas than moving out, and housing has not kept up. Now we are seeing the result.

It sucks really, because whether I buy or rent my choices are going to be limited. And the prices are going up fast so it's making it really hard to know whether to buy now and rent it out or wait until I am ready to move. Prices may be 10% higher by next year at this rate. I hate this

I don't use Craigstlist or trust it. I used it years ago when it wasn't full of scammers, fake postings, etc but now it's just a sh*t show.

[SusVelo]

For sfh I'd guess a 15-20% increase in rental rates year over year, but it's just me observing and marking comparisons to what I was remembering price wise from last year.

[airics]

Originally Posted by SusVelo

For sfh I'd guess a 15-20% increase in rental rates year over year, but it's just me observing and marking comparisons to what I was remembering price wise from last year.

that rental increase is happening nationally for the most part... I have had the same tenant in Cleveland for 10 years.. 1300 square foot home.. was paying 1200 a month.. I never raised the rent until I was thinking of selling the home.. she begged me not too... I told her, I am going to put the rent each year at what Zillow thinks it should be.. She's been paying 1700 with no issues now. Has no interest in buying a home... (you can easily buy for 200k and mortgage with taxes would be around 1300). Amazing

[Mike from back east]

For those who can get into the WaPo, there's an article today on just how gruesome it is to be a landlord in upstate NY these days.

Excerpt:

"He drove through the low-income neighborhoods of Schenectady, stopping at a half-dozen small homes that accounted for most of his income and all of his family’s savings. He cajoled $75 in cash from a laid-off hairdresser who owed him more than $7,000. ... He collected $200 from a renter who was $1,600 behind. ... he continued up the street to his oldest property, a three-story home that had helped lift him into the middle class and was now sending him closer to bankruptcy. Budhoo parked in front and flipped through his receipts. The tenant owed more than $12,000, and on the porch Budhoo saw a pile of warnings and eviction notices dating back almost a year. ... More than 8 million rental properties across the country are behind on payments by an average of $5,600, according to census data. Nearly half of those rental properties are owned by what the government classifies as “small landlords” — people who manage their own rentals and depend on them for basic income, and who are now trapped between tenants who can’t pay and their own mounting bills for insurance, mortgages and property tax."


I assume it's a lot the same in Las Vegas with so many service industry personnel not working.

[RationalExpectations]

Originally Posted by luckydogg

...I don't use Craigstlist or trust it. I used it years ago when it wasn't full of scammers, fake postings, etc but now it's just a sh*t show.

What do you use instead? (I'm neither a landlord nor a renter, but I'm just curious).

[Cold Warrior]

For those who can get into the WaPo

Doesn't that come free with Amazon Prime?

[Dom Cobb]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

For those who can get into the WaPo, there's an article today on just how gruesome it is to be a landlord in upstate NY these days.

Excerpt:

"He drove through the low-income neighborhoods of Schenectady, stopping at a half-dozen small homes that accounted for most of his income and all of his family’s savings. He cajoled $75 in cash from a laid-off hairdresser who owed him more than $7,000. ... He collected $200 from a renter who was $1,600 behind. ... he continued up the street to his oldest property, a three-story home that had helped lift him into the middle class and was now sending him closer to bankruptcy. Budhoo parked in front and flipped through his receipts. The tenant owed more than $12,000, and on the porch Budhoo saw a pile of warnings and eviction notices dating back almost a year. ... More than 8 million rental properties across the country are behind on payments by an average of $5,600, according to census data. Nearly half of those rental properties are owned by what the government classifies as “small landlords” — people who manage their own rentals and depend on them for basic income, and who are now trapped between tenants who can’t pay and their own mounting bills for insurance, mortgages and property tax."


I assume it's a lot the same in Las Vegas with so many service industry personnel not working.

It’s unfortunate for that landlord, but if he was so leveraged to buy all of those properties and could not pull equity out, apply for a PPP loan ect, that he could not maintain his portfolio makes him partially culpable for his plight. He bought that house a long time ago and should have little to no mortgage on it, so I’m guessing that he’s leveraged to the max.

Yes, it’s a shame that the tenant is refusing to pay rent. But, that’s the risk you run when your a landlord for lower income renters. There needs to be a way to make the landlord partially whole here but like any business he’s assumed some risk.

I’ve been lucky that my rentals have been solid but I’m renting to upper income people.