MARKWAITE / PVT Construction activity seems slow and not many single-family residence permits have been issued lately. Advertisement

Home foreclosure worries appear to have been reflected in the Wednesday legal notices in the PVT, which listed 18 notices of trustee sales.

The number of such notices soared from nine in August and September 2006 to 47 in August and September this year.

Actual trustee sales of property recorded with the Nye County recorders office -- the final stage of the foreclosure process -- were at a two-year monthly high of 19 in August 2007, while another 16 were recorded in September.

Sixteen notices of trustee sales were filed with the county recorder in August 2006, followed by less than 10 per month until March 2007.

Realty Trac, an Irvine, Calif.-based company that tracks pre-foreclosures, listed at the most, 28 properties in Nye County for any month in 2006. That includes any properties in the foreclosure process after the initial notice of default.

This year, the numbers soared to 59 in April, 55 in May, dipping in June and July, then back up to 55 in August.

Sen. Harry Reid, D.-Nev., convened a meeting last week in Reno of state, federal and agency leaders to combat the foreclosure problems. Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons also met recently with major lenders in an attempt to solve the problem.

Reid proposed setting up mobile resource centers in Clark, Douglas, Elko, Nye and Washoe counties, where foreclosure rates have increased the most.

Housing experts, lenders and non-profit organizations like Consumer Credit Counseling, would be on hand in a town hall type meeting to help residents with foreclosures. Reid spokesman Jon Summers said details haven't been set up for the centers.

Reid also proposed increasing federal funds for housing counselors.

Michele Johnson, chief executive officer of Consumer Credit Counseling Service in Nevada, said her office's funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been cut from $131,000 last year to $30,800 this year. HUD financing forms 16 percent of her budget.

"We've been busy. Our HUD funding was dramatically cut for the next grant year at a time when the needs of our state population has grown exponentially," Johnson said. "Statewide, we're experiencing a huge uptick in consumers needing services and a huge downward spiral on funds available to provide those services."

Consumer Credit Counseling provided advice to about 1,000 people last month, not entirely on housing matters, Johnson said. The difference in pre-foreclosures and final trustee sales is from property owners who were able to mitigate foreclosures, with such things as a "short sale" to another buyer to pay off the debt, she said.

The real estate slump has also affected building activity. While commercial projects are going up, Pahrump Building and Safety issued only 24 permits for new single-family residences in September, the lowest monthly total since May 2003.

Pahrump Senior Building Inspector Brent Steed said, "It's real slow."

A drive around some new housing developments showed building activity was tentative, except in a couple of sections at the Mountain Falls North subdivision. At the Beazer Homes Tesora at Pahrump project, 14 large homes from 2,357 to 2,995 square feet were already constructed on Sedgwick Avenue at The Enclave. But no one seemed to be on duty at the sales office Wednesday morning. A walled community of Beazer's Burson Ranch up the street, where the sign advertised homes of 1,625 square feet to 2,749 square feet, was empty inside the walls.

A tour of Concordia Homes of Nevada's Pleasant Valley project off Homestead Road, showed 49 homes already constructed, but the only activity Wednesday was a landscape crew putting in plants at Pleasant Valley Park. A count showed 14 for-sale signs in front of homes while there were 11 homes with vehicles parked in front that probably weren't construction workers.

"Our projects are moving right on along. I think we had four or five sales last month," said Concordia Homes spokesman Stormy Andrews of the Pleasant Valley project in Pahrump.

"We'll go through and build up an entire section and sell through it," he said. "Once we get through those, we start the next grouping."

Rows of house frames were going up on cul-de-sacs in Mountain Falls in the Tivoli section and in Entrata. Luxury homes were going up in the Paradiso development, with advertised prices in the $400,000 range.