LAS VEGAS -- Since Thursday's announcement of the massive mortgage settlement, many Nevadans are wondering if it will help them and the answer may not be what they want to hear.
The settlement isn't going to help most Nevada homeowners because they owe much more than the five major banks will pay out.
The hope, though, is that the settlement will force banks to work with homeowners to avoid foreclosure.
No neighborhood is immune. Nearly two-thirds of Nevada homeowners owe more than their home is worth.
The settlement is supposedly going to allow homeowners to reduce the amount they owe between $17,000 and $34,000. Most homes in Nevada are underwater by at least $50,000. Who will be helped first? That's a question many homeowners want answered. Dona Rogner is current on her mortgage and wants to keep her home but wants a lower fixed interest rate.
"I'd been asking, asking, asking for a modification, no one would talk to me or work with me, and I thought the only way I can get anyone to talk with me or work with me is to quit making my payment," she said.
Rogner is one of 400,000 Nevadans whose home is underwater.
A quarter of those folks are delinquent on their payments and another quarter have been foreclosed on.
So, even with a new $1.5 billion, it's barely a drop in the bucket.
"Nevada alone, if we want to take care of the distressed situation, is about $120 billion alone for Nevada, that's impossible for anyone to deal with," said Nasser Daneshvary, a UNLV real estate professor.
Daneshvary believes this new infusion of money won't change home prices at all.
He says getting foreclosures and short sales sold and off the market is what will make have the most impact.
In the past two years, almost 92,000 have come off the market and buyers paid cash for half of those homes.
"We have removed that many out of the market that were underwater," said Kolleen Kelley, president of Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.
Real estate experts like that the settlement forces banks to work with homeowners.
"With all the signs of recovery starting, and if inventory keeps dropping, and with supply and demand, that's a natural sign of prices going back up again," Kelley said.
There is another concern though.
Many of the foreclosed homes owned by the banks have not been released back to the market and some national economists think the five major banks will do that now to recoup some of the $25 billion they're paying out and that could drop housing prices again.
Kolleen Kelley is the president of Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.
