The Review Journal reports from Las Vegas. "Looking for an affordable home? Your chance to buy a foreclosed home at below-market value in Las Vegas comes Nov. 19 at the JW Marriott. Hudson & Marshall is offering nine Las Vegas homes valued from $275,000 to $460,000. They're among more than 100 homes on the block in the foreclosure-battered states of Colorado and Nevada."

"The homes are 'real estate owned,' or REO, property taken back by national lending institutions and asset management companies after every effort was made to work with the borrower. 'Posting a foreclosure doesn't necessarily mean foreclosure,' principal Dave Webb said. 'These homes are in foreclosure, not default. Realtors have already had their shot at (selling) them.'"

"Rising interest rates have forced many homeowners with adjustable-rate mortgages to default on their loans because they no longer can afford the rising mortgage payments, Webb said."

"'We've had some large sales in Las Vegas. I'd say we did two to three (auctions) a year in Vegas from 1999 to about 2003 with a big inventory, 40 to 50 homes,' he said. 'Then the market took off. You were building like crazy. There were very few foreclosures from then until about the last six months.'"

The Las Vegas Business Press. "There are currently 92 mid- and high-rise residential projects planned in Southern Nevada, totaling 50,252 units, consultant John Restrepo reports. Yet only 12 projects (or 14.5 percent) have broken ground thus far, due to rising construction, land and financing costs."

"That's an even lower batting average than the one forecast by MGM Mirage CEO J. Terrence Lanni at the 2005 Global Gaming Expo, when he predicted that 80 percent of the condo projects announced for Vegas would fail to materialize."

"'Developers increasingly face the realities of the depth of demand, plus high land, labor and material costs,' said Restrepo. 'There have been notable cancellations and delays, including Aqua Blue, Ivana, Liberty Tower and Icon.'"

"Winter came early for the the Las Vegas Valley housing market, which suffered a seasonal chill in October with just 1,689 sales. That represented a 34.4 percent drop from October 2005, reports the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors."

"'What we are seeing are continued signs of what is referred to as a 'soft landing,' or a market correction,' said Linda Rheinberger, GLVAR president."

"Home listings climbed to a record 23,475 units in October, which is 53.8 percent higher than a year ago, while condo/townhome listings skyrocketed to 6,261 units last month, 128 percent more than in 2005. There were a scant 357 condo/townhome sales in October, a precipitous 45.2 percent drop from last year."

"In total, October saw $623.5 million worth of home sales activity, 33.2 percent less than in 2005. Condo/townhome sales saw similarly frosty results with $78.7 million last month, which was 46.2 percent below last year's numbers."

The Reno Gazette Journal. "The National Association of Realtors thinks its a good time to a buy a home and it wants the nation to know about it. 'We feel that there are a lot of positive factors in play that need to be emphasized as well as the negative ones that are out there,' said Stephen Haley, president of the Reno-Sparks Association of Realtors."

"According to the University of Nevada, Reno's Bureau of Business & Economic Research's last report, units sold dropped 38 percent in the third quarter compared with the third quarter of 2005."

"But will the NAR's campaign be enough to stoke interest in the real estate market? Bob Felten, associate professor of advertising at UNR, said the ads will have a tough time attracting sellers to the market, adding that the ads offer little evidence that this is a good time to sell."

"'This kind of advertising will support local Realtors' efforts to sell homes,' Felten said. 'The problem is, of course, for many homeowners they have to sell to buy. If you are in a situation where you have to sell a house to buy a house, I don't know that this is a particularly good time to do that. That is the sort of the shoe that isn't dropped here (in the ads).'"

"Still, Felten said, the ads do make a compelling case for buyers, and could bring some potential buyers into the market that are currently on the fence. 'It is likely to have results for those people who may be sort of hesitant to leap into the home market because of all of the noise around the issue of the collapsing real estate market,' Felten said."

The Arizona Republic. "A subcontractor that worked on the idle Elevation Chandler has filed a foreclosure lawsuit against the developer in an attempt to force the sale of the property. Construction stopped in April on the hotel-condo tower being developed south of Chandler Fashion Center."

"The defendants listed on the lawsuit are the developer; the general contractor, Weitz Co.; the mortgage lender, Mortgages Ltd. of Phoenix; and seven subcontractors."