Las Vegas home sales traditionally slump at the end of the year as people wait until the spring to consider buying, and analysts are wondering how strong the market will be as the holidays and 2010 approach.

But the focus these days is more on Washington than on Las Vegas for what the future holds.

Congress is debating whether to extend the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers that expires Nov. 30. The credit has bolstered sales and likely will be extended, analysts said.

But Congress is considering making the credit available to additional buyers — a move that could boost the housing market.

Here’s what the New York Times has to say.

Leave it journalists to have a nostalgic look back at…well, just about everything. But seriously, the folks at NPR’s Planet Money are following up with several of the folks who they profiled a year ago in their effort to tell the story of the biggest financial mess in recent memory.

A little over a year ago, NPR and This American Life partnered on a series of stories that would explain the mortgage crisis. They called it the “Giant Pool of Money”, and you can listen to the original This American Life program here. The program they made had such a big impact, that NPR/TAL ended up creating a team at NPR focused on money and finance, called Planet Money.

This past week, the Planet Money team revisisted many of the folks who they interviewed for that first show–people we have come to see as archetypes in the mortgage crisis: borrowers, subprime lenders, and those who created the complex financial instruments which repackaged debt in a way that hid the risk of that debt.

You can hear some of these characters…two of the borrowers are here:

[Audio available: view full post to listen]

An update on subprime lender Glen Pizzalaruso, who was making $100K a month at the height of the crisis, is here:

[Audio available: view full post to listen]

The federal government and states are girding themselves for the next foreclosure crisis in the country’s housing downturn: payment option adjustable rate mortgages that are beginning to reset.

“Payment option ARMs are about to explode,” Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said….”That’s the next round of potential foreclosures in our country,”…

Option-ARMs are now considered among the riskiest offered during the recent housing boom and have left many borrowers owing more than their homes are worth. These “underwater” mortgages have been a driving force behind rising defaults and mounting foreclosures.

In Arizona, 128,000 of those mortgages will reset over the the next year and many have started to adjust this month, the state’s attorney general, Terry Goddard, told Reuters after the meeting.

“It’s the other shoe,” he said. “I can’t say it’s waiting to drop. It’s dropping now.”

Bobbi Giguere had no luck in securing a loan modification from her mortgage servicer, Wells Fargo. For months, she had sent the bank the financial documents it requested to process her modification. But each time she called to check on the request, she was told to send her paperwork again.

 “I submitted the paperwork three times, and nothing happened,” said Mrs. Giguere, 41, who has a high school education and worked as restaurant manager before losing her job.

On Thursday, something happened. She questioned a Wells Fargo official about the bank’s lack of response — under oath.

The spectacle of a high-ranking banking executive being grilled by an ordinary homeowner was the result of an unusual decision by Judge Randolph J. Haines of the United States Bankruptcy Court to summon a senior executive from Wells Fargo to appear in Mrs. Giguere’s bankruptcy case.

Bernard L. Madoff’s massive fraud stunned some of the wealthy denizens of Malibu Colony, especially when a couple devastated by the scheme surrendered their oceanfront home to Wells Fargo Bank.

But some neighbors say the real shocker came when they saw one of the bank’s top executives spending weekends in the $12-million beach house and hosting eye-catching parties there. 

We’ve heard over and over that home prices have “hit bottom”, when it’s now painfully clear that no one really knows what “bottom” is. Think those in the business of peddling advice have learned any lessons? Check out the padded prediction here: 

The chances are growing less likely that Las Vegas median home prices will fall to $100,000, according to a Las Vegas housing analyst.

But no one should expect prices to shoot up anytime soon despite a lack of inventory, said Larry Murphy, president of SalesTraq, a housing research firm.

“It appears prices have stopped falling,” Murphy said. “It’s possible that prices could fall further and hit $100,000 by the end of the year, but I don’t think that will happen.”

But no one should expect prices to shoot up anytime soon despite a lack of inventory, said Larry Murphy, president of SalesTraq, a housing research firm.

“It appears prices have stopped falling,” Murphy said. “It’s possible that prices could fall further and hit $100,000 by the end of the year, but I don’t think that will happen.”

This, snipped from an Aug. 3, 2009 article from the Las Vegas Sun. And a recent State of Nevada conversation on real estate prices:

[Audio available: view full post to listen]