Henderson latest Southern Nevada city to launch home foreclosure registry

ASSOCIATED PRESS

An auction sign for a foreclosed home in Las Vegas bends in the wind, Nov. 17, 2010.

In a region still stung by foreclosures, Henderson officials have kicked off the latest effort to track abandoned homes and prevent them from falling into disrepair.

Nevada’s second-largest city this week launched a foreclosure registry at registerhenderson.com to monitor homes that are abandoned or at risk of becoming so.

Properties to be tracked include single-family homes, townhouses, condominiums and multi-family buildings with up to four units. Owners must register a property — and pay a fee to do so — if it has an unresolved notice of default or other foreclosure filing on record with the Clark County Recorder’s Office.

Before this, Henderson officials discovered abandoned homes only after they became blighted and neighbors complained.

The registry’s goal is to ensure that homeowners, lenders and property managers “are good neighbors and maintain the properties,” according to a news release.

The city is charging $200 for new registrations and $50 to update an entry with new information. Registration must be renewed annually, also for $200, if the property remains distressed.

Failure to comply with the measure may lead to, among other things, fines and fees of $150 a day per violation and criminal misdemeanor conviction. City officials have been meeting with lenders and property managers to inform them about the registry.

Henderson officials hired Applied Analysis through a bidding process to create and manage the registry, which launched Monday. The company’s contract expires June 30, 2016, but can be extended annually for three years, said Keith Paul, spokesman for Henderson city government.

As its payment, the Las Vegas-based economic research firm will receive 35 percent of the program’s registration fees, Paul said.

When the housing bubble burst last decade, Southern Nevada’s bloated market was among the hardest hit in the country. Countless people fell behind on their mortgages as foreclosures swept through the valley and many residents fled, making their homes vulnerable to squatters, vandals and decay.

It’s all but impossible to track the precise number of abandoned homes in the area, but if foreclosures are any indication, there have likely been thousands, if not tens of thousands, of abandoned properties in recent years. In 2011 alone, lenders seized about 30,500 homes valleywide, according to RealtyTrac.

What’s more, valley residents who are on track to lose their homes to foreclosure pack their things and bolt far more often than homeowners nationally.

Some 33 percent of Las Vegas-area homes that are in the foreclosure process — but not yet bank-owned — have been vacated by the owners, according to RealtyTrac. The rate nationally is 18 percent.

As it stands, an estimated 5,000 homes in Henderson are in some stage of the foreclosure process, Paul said. That means lenders have filed a notice of default against a house, scheduled a public auction or seized the property.

Residents often flee their home because they can’t afford the mortgage. While gone, their financial woes only worsen with unpaid taxes, mortgage penalties, HOA dues and other fees, Windermere Prestige Properties agent Keith Lynam said.

“There’s no way they’re coming back,” he said.

Registries such as Henderson’s tell local officials who is responsible for abandoned, blighted homes. But if lenders don’t bother to take care of their properties, they won’t bother to sign up for the tracking program, either, said Lynam, incoming president of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.

“I don’t know what this registry solves,” he said.

Henderson isn’t the only city in Southern Nevada with such a program, though.

In December 2011, the Las Vegas City Council passed a measure requiring the registration of vacant, foreclosed properties. Lenders who fail to register face civil penalties of up to $500 a day for residential properties and $750 a day for commercial properties, as well as criminal misdemeanor citations.

A total of 6,315 properties have been registered since 2012, according to Diana Paul, spokeswoman for Las Vegas city government. She did not immediately confirm how much revenue the program has generated.

In December 2012, the North Las Vegas City Council approved a foreclosure tracking program, as well. To date, 3,593 properties have been registered, and the program has generated almost $800,000 in revenue, said Greg Blackburn, director of community development and compliance.

The Henderson City Council approved its registry this past February, but not without pushback from real estate pros.

City records indicate that the GLVAR wanted, among other things, that homes defined as “those in danger of becoming abandoned” be stripped from the measure, and that property managers should not be held liable under the ordinance because they don’t have ownership stakes in properties.

In a joint statement, the GLVAR and the Nevada Association of Realtors said the “bulk of our issues” were addressed by the Henderson City Council before it approved the measure.

Banks aren’t seizing nearly as many homes as they used to. But in a sign that Nevada’s once-toxic housing woes haven’t fully abated, lenders still target delinquent borrowers more often here than in almost every other state.

Nevada had the fourth-highest foreclosure rate in the country last quarter, with one in every 218 homes receiving a foreclosure-related filing, according to RealtyTrac. Nationally, one in every 415 homes was hit with a filing.

Real Estate

Share