Slow recession recovery leaves Pahrump with wide open spaces
(AP) — Howard Steiger lives in Cottage Grove Estates, a suburban-style enclave here with one-story homes, a roundabout and street names like Spruce Lane and Bristle Cone.
Roads lead to nowhere, curbs and sidewalks line unpaved streets and fire hydrants sit by themselves, surrounded by acres of dirt.
Investors streamed in to buy property here at bloated prices, developers got approval to build thousands of homes and Las Vegas commuters snapped up houses as a cheaper alternative to the valley.
Builders and buyers alike here struggle to obtain loans, and with home prices in Las Vegas more affordable now, masses of workers don't have to put up with an hour commute anymore to find cheaper housing.
[...] with few major employers here, the town seems to draw more retirees than young families, limiting the pool of buyers.
Las Vegas' homebuilding market is dominated almost entirely by out-of-state, publicly traded companies that sell houses nationwide and can afford to buy big swaths of land and develop several communities at once.
Mountain Falls "is still hot," but "as far as the rest of the valley is concerned — not so much," says broker Norma Jean Opatik, owner of Realty Executives in Action.
New-home buyers paid $150 to $170 per square foot during the bubble — which meant a 2,000-square-foot house cost $300,000 to $340,000 — but they now pay about $110 per square foot, says broker Cathy Slaughterback, owner of All Star Real Estate.
[...] it's not nearly as robust as it was a decade ago, when this former farming and ranching outpost with legal bordellos became a hot investment spot.
Homebuilders put customers on waiting lists, homebuyers went from one sales office to another looking for property, and more than 15,000 commuters drove to and from Las Vegas every day, according to real estate executives.
The population soared to 36,400 by 2010, and in an eight-year span last decade, developers received approval to build more than 17,000 homes, Nye County records show.
Pahrump still has no natural-gas service and residents must get water from private companies, not a government agency that serves the town.
Pahrump also didn't have its own hospital until 2006 — "easily the most-needed service in a community of 34,000 with 24-hour emergency health care 55 miles away," the Pahrump Valley Times reported.
[...] the road connecting Pahrump to Las Vegas, Highway 160, became "Nevada's poster child for traffic fatalities and the problems caused by urban sprawl," the Las Vegas Sun wrote in a 2006 editorial.
Construction ground to a halt, property values plunged, subdivisions became ghost towns, homes were seized through foreclosure, builders went out of business, real estate agents left and job losses mounted.
Opatik, of Realty Executives, said she spent all of her retirement money to keep her business afloat.
Sales volume remains volatile, though buyers picked up 414 homes last year, up 9 percent from 2014, according to data from the GLVAR's resale-heavy listing service.
For homebuilders, "it's still a little bit iffy" to construct spec homes, but overall, demand for new houses "is picking up," AVCO Builders owner Scott West said.
Larry Canarelli, founder of Las Vegas-based American West Homes, obtained approval in 2005 to build a 1,340-acre, 5,160-home project on the south edge of Pahrump, Nye County records show.
Pahrump is unlikely to lose its status anytime soon as an affordable place for retirees and others to buy an acre, enjoy the town's solitude and open space — and be locked and loaded.