Las Vegas' economy will be a dumpsite on its own by 2010...we'll be glad to have Yucca jobs!

The cure for all this is transparency. Since LV is ground-zero for the real estate debacle in the West, Nevada as a state should take the legislative lead in requiring total & constant transparency before, during, and after RE transactions. Becoming the first state as a testbed would be an economic boost on its own, attracting web & software developers for the process.

What this means is all elements of the RE process should be encouraged, and later required, by law, to migrate to the Internet. Buyers & sellers can see everything that's going on behind the scenes. All legal, insurance, construction, design, inspection, regulatory, financial inputs are forced to become transparent AND private (via passwords, other credentialed documentations) to the specific parties involved. Past condo wrecks from developers who hide in the future won't be tolerated by the marektplace.

As this process takes hold, all transactions will ultimately be done in this manner. Real estate commissions will shrink dramatically as the "efficiency of the market" increases, so will any buy-sell pricing spreads, as it becomes easier to effect a transaction with a minimum murkiness. Real estate salespeople will be compensated more like car salesmen, who unlike them, have an actual inventory risk in the cars they're trying to move off the lot.