Every landlord should determine what their rental strategy is. There is no right or wrong strategy, but you need to have one! The core of the rental business is to maximize rent while decreasing costs.

I see one of the biggest costs of being a landlord as tenant changeover. Any tenant change over generally costs three months worth of rent:
- One month's lost rent while vacant
- One month's rent for all the fees to re-rent
- One month's rent for all the misc repairs, touchups, cleaning etc done even at a good tenant's turn over.

I have two different strategies I use that have evolved with experience.

Spend the Minimum:
When I could barely afford to pay the mortgage I spent the minimum on repairs and upgrades, put less qualified tenants in who actually paid higher rents (cause no one else would rent to them) but who moved out more frequently and caused more problems. But this paid the mortgage and allowed me to save money to build a portfolio.

New Granite tops, splash backs, stainless steel sink and faucets $5000

For overseas owners renovation costs are substantially cheaper in the states than in most countries. Check out www.homedepot.com for a variety of home products and what they cost new. Good quality second hand items can be found on www.craigslist.org.  Quality labor is inexpensive in Nevada, ranging upon trade and the job from $10 - $65 per hour.

When sourcing properties for investors I am often asked "what will this rent for?" Rents obviously depend upon supply and demand, quality and size of property, improvements, specific location etc. The following table is a VERY rough guide to give a snapshot of approximate rents in the Vegas market today compared to property cost:

Las Vegas average rents Spring 2012

TYPE                            PRICE            RENT p/mth               SIZE          DETAILS

Condo                       $45,000             $750                       950SF          2 bed/2 bth
Small House              $55,000             $750                       950SF          2 bed/2 bth/2 car
Starter Home            $100,000          $1,050                   1,250SF          3 bed/2 bth/2 car
Move up Home          $170,000          $1,750                   2,250SF          4 bed/3 bth/3 car/pool
Capital Gain               $300,000         $2,300                 +3,500SF          5 bed/3 bth/3 car/pool

1996, single story, 1141SF. Lot size of 3904 SF. 2 bed, 2 bath, 2 carport. Fenced back yard, backs onto golf course, covered patio, tiles, upgraded kitchen.

Short Sale Feb 2012 $80,000 Cash

Annual Rent $13,200
Monthly Rent $1,100

Closing Costs $1,751

Annual Taxes and Insurance:
$1,030 County Taxes
$1,680 HOA includes House Insurance

Purchase History
- 2003 sold for $167,500
- 2004 sold for $260,000
- 2008 sold for $225,000
- 2012 Feb for $80,000

NEXT PROPERTY >>>

Traditional Sale Feb 2012 $45,000 Cash

Annual Rent $9,600
Monthly Rent $ 800

Closing Costs $2,408

Annual Taxes and Insurance:
$423 County Taxes
$850 House Insurance
$ 0 HOA

Purchase History
- 1995 sold for $34,500
- 2003 zillow estimate $95,000
- 2006 sold for $164,500
- 2009 sold for $40,000
- 2012 Feb for $45,000

NEXT PROPERTY >>>

Short Sale Feb 2012 $50,000 Cash

Annual Rent $9,600
Monthly Rent $ 800
Closing Costs $3,499

Annual Taxes and Insurance:
$1,023 County Taxes
$  357 House Insurance
$      0 HOA

Purchase History
- 2004 sold for $195,000
- 2012 Feb for $50,000

NEXT PROPERTY >>>

Short Sale Oct 2011 $45,000 Cash

Annual Rent $9,000
Monthly Rent $ 750

Closing Costs $865

Annual Taxes and Insurance:
$777 County Taxes
$363 House Insurance
$ 0 HOA

Purchase History
- 1997 sold new $81,000
- 2006 Zillow estimate for $222,000
- 2011 Aug listed $44,900

NEXT PROPERTY >>>

Short Sale Oct 2011 $116,500 Financed

Annual Rent $15,000
Monthly Rent $ 1,250

Closing Costs $4,279

Annual Taxes and Insurance:
$1,339 County Taxes
$ 584 House Insurance
$ 660 HOA

Purchase History
- 2002 sold for $162,720 (Original Construction)
- 2004 sold for $311,000
- 2007 sold for $319,000
- 2011 April listed $145,000

NEXT PROPERTY >>>

I can't think how difficult it would have been trying to organise everything on our own. Once the sale was finalised, Steve managed everything from getting us on the books with a property manager that he himself uses, organising the few minor repair issues that came up on the property inspection, house cleaning and more.

I have no hesitation recommending Steve to anyone looking to invest in the States.

Short Sale May 2011 $249,100 Financed

Annual Rent $25,440
Monthly Rent $ 2,120

Annual Taxes and Insurance:
$2,545 County Taxes
$1,464 House Insurance
$0.00 HOA

Closing Costs $6,695

Purchase History
- 2002 estimated value $276,900
- 2004 June, sold for $469,000
- 2006 estimated value $568,000
- 2010 September, listed $420,000

NEXT PROPERTY >>>

- Patricia Armstrong  Escrow Officer Fidelity National Title of Nevada, Email: Patricia.Armstrong@fnf.com

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With Steve's guidance I was able to buy my first home.  A spacious one story in a very nice area.  Within a year he had found me a sound investment property that I recently purchased.   He taught me a great deal about property investing and some of the strategies and angles that go along with it.  After buying my investment property I had a lot of fun fixing it up and finding renters.  While doing so I learned a bunch of new skills in the process.    

I couldn't be happier with my newly acquired assets and couldn't have done it without all his help.  Thanks Steve!

"Housing Market Conditions" Q4 2012

"Housing Market Conditions" Q3 2012

"Housing Market Conditions" Q2 2012

"Housing Market Conditions" Q1 2012

"Housing Market Conditions" Q3 2011

University of Nevada, Centre for Business and Economic Research

"Are Las Vegas Home Prices Still Declining? Reports Differ"

Steve Green, 27 March 2012 in Vegas INC.
New data issued Tuesday sent mixed signals about the Las Vegas-area residential real estate market ...

"Zappos CEO to rebuild Downtown Las Vegas"

Leigh Gallagher, 23 January 2012 in CNN Money.
Tony Hseih is trading shoes for urban planning - and spending $350 million to rebuild Downtown Las Vegas.....

"Las Vegas Home Prices Will Hit Bottom in Late 2012"

Buck Wargo, 16 August 2011 in Vegas Inc.
A Wisconsin research firm said Las Vegas home prices haven’t found their bottom and won’t until the fourth quarter of 2012.....

"Valley’s three mayors on quest to revive economy, create jobs"

Las Vegas Sun August 8, 2011
Carolyn Goodman attended a recent gathering of U.S. mayors where solutions to the nation’s economic woes dominated the conversation......

University of Nevada, Centre for Business and Economic Research, "Las Vegas Economic Overview"

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"Are Las Vegas Home Prices Still Declining? Reports Differ"

Steve Green, 27 March 2012 in Vegas INC.

New data issued Tuesday sent mixed signals about the Las Vegas-area residential real estate market.

Debt rating agency Standard & Poor's issued its monthly S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, which cover data through January. S&P said Las Vegas-area prices in January fell to June 1996 levels, a post-recession low, as they slipped 0.5 percent from December and were down 9 percent from January 2011. These changes compare to a decline of 0.8 percent from December to January and a year-to-year drop of 3.8 percent for 20 big U.S. markets tracked by Standard & Poor's.
More recent data, however, from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors shows prices locally in February improved on a month-to-month basis. The Realtors said this month that the median price of single-family homes sold locally in February was $121,000, up 2.5 percent from $118,000 in January; but down 5.5 percent from $128,000 in February 2011.

Separately, data collector CoreLogic reported Tuesday that the mortgage delinquency rate in the Las Vegas area decreased in January, a sign that potentially there will be fewer loan defaults and foreclosures in coming months. CoreLogic data for January show 14.71 percent of mortgage loans locally were 90 days or more delinquent compared to 18.93 percent for the same period last year. Despite the improvement, the Las Vegas rate in January was more than double the U.S. rate of 7.24 percent, CoreLogic said.

CoreLogic also reported that the rate of Las Vegas-area foreclosures among outstanding mortgage loans was 5.75 percent in January, a decrease of 3.55 percentage points compared to January 2011, when the rate was 9.3 percent. This decline could be linked to a trend seen in 2011 of banks proceeding with fewer foreclosures while they figured out how to comply with a new Nevada law boosting foreclosure documentation standards.
Foreclosure activity in the Las Vegas area in January remained higher than the national foreclosure rate of 3.43 percent, CoreLogic said.

With unemployment in Las Vegas still elevated at 13.1 percent, analysts say it's unknown when local residential real estate prices will show steady, sustained gains.

"Zappos CEO to rebuild Downtown Las Vegas"

Leigh Gallagher, 23 January 2012 in CNN Money.

Tony Hsieh is well known for building Zappos into a billion-plus company, and perhaps even better known for building an unusually strong culture that encourages employees to have fun, embrace quirks and "create fun with a little weirdness." He's become a workplace evangelist of sorts: his 2010 book Delivering Happiness, which details the Zappos philosophy, has sold more than 300,000 copies; in addition to selling shoes (and now clothes and more), Zappos also has a consulting arm that trains companies like Google and Eli Lilly on building happy workplaces. But as Hsieh floats toward guru status, he's also quietly been up to something totally, completely different. And if his next act goes as planned, Zappos and delivering happiness may just be his first chapter.

What's he up to? In short, he's trading shoes for urban planning -- and spending $350 million to rebuild downtown Las Vegas.

A little over a year ago, Hsieh, 38, made headlines in Las Vegas when he announced his company would be moving from its suburban Henderson, Nevada headquarters, where it's been based since 2005, to Las Vegas' City Hall building in Vegas' overlooked downtown neighborhood. Under the terms of the deal, Zappos would lease the building from its new owner, Resort Gaming Group, start on some $60 million in renovations this coming April, and move Zappos' 1,200 or more employees into the new headquarters in October 2013. The city cheered, Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman hailed the move as a new beginning for the city's long-forgotten downtown, and soon the mainstream press moved on.

But the move, and the new Zappos building is just one small piece of Hsieh's plan.

Hsieh and a few partners -- the vast majority of the investment is Hsieh's -- plan to spend $350 million to develop and build a small city in the roughly 1.5-square mile downtown area around the Fremont East and Arts District areas (for CES-trekkers and other Vegas aficionados, it's a few miles north of the Strip). Hsieh's goal: To turn the overlooked area into a neighborhood not just for his workers' coffee breaks, but a new live/work/play destination for Las Vegas' emerging creative class.

This is the plan (modest it's not): $100 million will go to the purchase of land (not including the new Zappos headquarters) and building acquisition. An additional $100 million will go to residential development including the building of high-rise apartments. Fifty million dollars will go to tech startups Hsieh plans to recruit to the area with seed investments of $100,000 or so apiece. Another $50 million will go toward drawing local small businesses like bakeries, yoga studios, restaurants, coffee shops and other requisite creative-class amenities. And because Hsieh wants people to move here and that requires having decent education for their children, another $50 million will go toward education and the building of -- what else? -- a school system.

Dream much? It's Steve Wynn meets Walt Disney meets Jane Jacobs meets -- Tony Hsieh, really. "This isn't so different from what we built at Zappos," he says in his soft-spoken, low-key manner. "We're just scaling it." Read more .....

"Las Vegas home prices will hit bottom in late 2012"

Buck Wargo, 16 August 2011 in Vegas Inc

A Wisconsin research firm said Las Vegas home prices haven’t found their bottom and won’t until the fourth quarter of 2012.

Fiserv, which produces the Case-Shiller Indices, projects home prices will fall 13.9 percent by March 2012 and another 6.3 percent by March 2013.

The calculations are based on the first quarter of 2011 as a starting point. Home prices fell 5.1 percent between March 2010 and March 2011, the firm said.

David Stiff, the chief economist at Fiserv, said it will take time for Las Vegas home prices to recover because of the area's high foreclosure and jobless rates.

“Even though prices are affordable, it’s going to take until the supply improves and job market improves,” Stiff said.

Stiff said Las Vegas will see prices bottom by the end of 2012 and should start to see an increase in 2013. Any immediate increase could be a double-digit one as buyers jump into the market, but he said it could flatten out after that.

“Markets like Las Vegas are likely to be volatile, and people won’t jump in fully until they think the market is stabilizing,” Stiff said.

Fiserv calculates prices by what the same homes sold for in the past. That makes the forecast look bleaker than others who track median prices of all homes sold in a month or quarter.

One research firm projected Las Vegas wouldn't regain half of the real estate valuation it lost during the downturn until 2020 and wouldn't regain all it lost until the early 2030s.

Mark Boud, a California economist who tracks the Las Vegas housing market, predicted home prices would fall 2.6 percent in 2011 and increase by 2.5 percent in 2012. He projected a gain of 3.4 percent in 2013, 5.2 percent in 2014, 7.7 percent in 2015 and 8.8 percent in 2016. That’s a 31 percent gain in five years.

"Valley’s three mayors on quest to revive economy, create jobs"

Las Vegas Sun August 8, 2011

Carolyn Goodman attended a recent gathering of U.S. mayors where solutions to the nation’s economic woes dominated the conversation. They pondered the underlying dynamics plaguing the employment picture, considered the challenges faced by big and small cities, and throughout the entire discussion the newly elected Las Vegas mayor focused on a simple mantra: jobs, jobs, jobs.
Yet, the newly negotiated debt-ceiling deal in Washington doesn’t reflect the sort of government spending plan that would not only save private- and public-sector jobs but generate new ones.

“We have to create jobs to get the economy moving again,” Goodman said of Clark County, where the June employment rate stood at 13.8 percent. “It has to be about jobs, jobs, jobs.” Read more .....