I’ve had several readers ask questions recently, and I think the answers to these two would be of interest to most of my readers:   Deb recently asked why she read in my blog that sales are increasing, yet read the following in a Yahoo story: “Sales of new homes fell in February for the fourth straight month, pushing activity down to a 13-year low as the steep slump in housing continued." First, real estate is local; the national news does not always reflect what is happening in any given state, city, or neighborhood. More importantly, we specialize in resales; the Yahoo article was about new home sales.   Single family home sales were up approximately 34% in March. People thought I was crazy in November when I said we were nearing the bottom in terms of sales, and that we should see sales start to rise in late February. Okay, I may be crazy — but I’m also smart! I don’t have a crystal ball, just accurate statistics and the nerve to go out on a limb and make a prediction. I’d like to tell our readers when prices will hit a bottom, but for that I’d need a crystal ball and maybe that cool software that helped Denzel Washington go forward in time a bit. Or was it back in time?   As a reminder: while I will find any type of home my client wants, my research covers about 85% of all resales listed on the MLS. Because they are statistically insignificant, we exclude mobile homes, age-restricted homes, condos and rural areas from our research findings. $3m condos can really skew the statistics, as can these other types of single family residential dwellings. So there’s your answer, Deb, and thanks for asking.   John asks: “Robin, you talk about vacation and retirement home sales; have you seen an increase in non-U.S. buyers? With the dollar so low versus other currencies, has anyone focused on the foreign buyer?”   John, there is a major influx of foreign nationals picking up second homes in Las Vegas. Many of these are from Canada, and they are almost exclusively cash buyers. I’m sure some agents are targeting foreign investors; with our Top10, I don’t need to market — they find me!   People are lured to our market by the incredible values right now, so even when their own currencies are bouncing around a bit they are still looking for homes here. People from all over the world love Las Vegas; now that we are seeing these great investment opportunities here, a number of people are looking to buy their retirement home well before they actually retire.

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