'Home Rescue Fair' Tries to Curb Foreclosures

With foreclosures up nearly 42 percent last month, the city of Las Vegas is hosting a Home Rescue Fair to help teach home owners how they can save their homes.

At the event, home owners facing foreclosure or financial hardship will be able to have face-to-face sessions with loan specialists, housing counselors, and attorneys and attend workshops to learn how they can keep their home. Several local services — such as in education, job placement, and public benefits — will also be available at the Home Rescue Fair, which runs May 20-21.

Las Vegas’ real estate market continues to be one of the most plagued in the country by a high number of distressed sales, which is bringing its housing prices down. Home prices in the Las Vegas metro dropped to $117,000 in March, which is the lowest level since January 1996. Distressed sales accounted for 69 percent of all market transactions in March, according to DataQuick.

The foreclosure problem doesn’t seem to be easing either. Lenders foreclosed on 3,331 single-family homes and condos in March, which is up 41.6 percent from February, according to DataQuick.

However, high inventories are slowly being chipped away. Nearly 5,000 homes sold in the Las Vegas-Paradise metro area in March, the highest volume in five years, DataQuick reports. Sales increased 27.3 percent compared to one month prior, with demand mostly coming from investors and cash buyers who were snatching up bargain-priced distressed properties.