Las Vegas House 'flipping boom' Goes Bust

Cities prime for new firms
from the Arizona Republic, reports that a new Inc. Magazine ranking show Yuma and Prescott as the number 2 and 3 best cities in the country to start a business. Business owners in Yuma and Prescott said the ranking reaffirm their initial reasons for locating to the cities. Last year, Yuma had the top spot and Prescott ranked 16th. Metro Phoenix jumped from 36th last year to 14th this year. Tucson went from 52, up from 60 last year. Flagstaff fell from 56 to 73 this year. The Valley's big jump in the ranking was a result of the metro area's non-farm employment base rising from 1.74 million jobs to 1.88 million jobs between 2005 and 2006, according to the magazine.

Las Vegas house 'flipping boom' goes bust from MSNBC.com,
reports that Nevada leads the nation in foreclosure rate primarily as a result of all the investors who went into Las Vegas during the boom, purchasing homes in hopes of reaping large profits, only to be caught on the tail end of the boom and now having an asset that is worth less than what they purchased it for. The result is a glut of homes on the market, communities spotted with empty houses and for sale signs, and a statewide foreclosure rate of one in every 183 households. In Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, one of every 30 homes began the process toward foreclosure last year. When the market slowed, many buyers of new homes and condos forfeited their deposits. Speculators dried up and inventories went up, depressing prices. In March, the number of resale listings in Las Vegas grew 30 percent from a year ago to 27,282, and sales and values of homes sold were both down 38 percent from a year ago.

U.K. home prices still on the rise
A housing slump hasn't yet hit our pals in the U.K. apparently, Bloomberg News reports today:
"U.K. house prices advanced the most in almost four years in April as London properties changed hands at a faster pace, according to a survey by Hometrack Ltd. The average cost of a home in England and Wales rose an annual 6.8 percent, the most since June 2003, to 174,600 pounds ($350,000), the London-based research company said today. Prices rose 0.7 percent on the month. The figures are based on a survey of 3,500 real-estate agents."
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Home-Equity Borrowing Stalls As the Housing Market Cools from the WSJ
Reports that the amount borrowers owe on lines of credit fell for the first time since 1999, leading banks to court homeowners more as they grow wary.

Housing Bubble and Real Estate Market Tracker from SA for 4/30