It’s not magic, but this bus can drive you house hunting

RE/MAX Central of Las Vegas whisks home shopper through a "showroom" of foreclosure residences in the valley, while passengers can take a crash course in Foreclosures 101 at the same time.

At 11:30 a.m., every Tuesday and Saturday, the 40-capacity Foreclosure Bus Tour pulls out of the RE/MAX parking lot at 8400 W. Sahara Ave. The next stop? It depends on what's been selected for the day, and it may be Henderson, Summerlin or whatever area of town blazes the best foreclosure trail.

Passengers just sit right back and they hear a tale of bank-owned homes for the three-hour tour, but then disembark and do walk-throughs at each property. The bus stops at about five total homes, all of them bank-owned, and all of them readily available.

Nick Nolf, a sales agent at RE/MAX, often takes his spot at the front of the bus with a microphone in hand.

"The majority of the speaking that I do up there is educational," Nolf said. "I wouldn't feel comfortable putting anyone into a home without them knowing the parameters of what they're getting into and the process of buying a foreclosure.

"Anytime you have a bus with a lot of people on it, you really have to adjust what you're talking about too. You have people looking for investment properties and you're going to have people buying their first home. So, I try to allow for open questions on the bus and I try to keep it informal so that we can have a discussion instead of a lecture."

He stated that he never wants anyone to feel "lectured," nor "pressured." Ease is essential on the tour.

"I thought that the camaraderie was great," said Carl Conte of Great Falls, Mont., who was in Las Vegas for a few days, and hopped on the bus with his wife, Michelle recently. "It wasn't like a college professor lecturing to his students -- there was good feedback and decent questions. It was a friendly, business-like atmosphere, which is what I like."

Ruth Ahlbrand, co-owner of RE/MAX Central, said she approves of the relaxed atmosphere on the bus, but also stresses the need to educate the participants.

She and husband and partner, John, brainstormed the entire bus tour project about two years ago, and got the Greyhound-sized wheels rolling in December of 2007.

The Ahlbrands purchased the bus from the military, which was using it at Nellis Air Force Base, according to Nolf. The Ahlbrands also trained 14 total real estate agents to specialize in the multi-layered procedures of bank-owned homes so they can all leap through the process of clearing all the legal and financial hurdles.

All this -- plus television and print advertising -- represented a $100,000-plus investment on the part of the Ahlbrands.

"It was in 2006 that my husband, John, saw the adjustable-rate mortgages were going to cause our average homeowner payments to increase to a point to where the homeowner wasn't going to be able to make the payment. So, the foreclosures were imminent," Ruth Ahlbrand said. "Now an interesting thing is that in the latter part of 2007, we saw the banks starting to lower the pricing on their foreclosed properties and that's when we decided that we would get into this with 20 percent of our company's resources and build a specialized foreclosure department."

The Ahlbrands also make sure the properties shown on the tour fulfill two criteria:

-- The homes must be presentable and look like they're ready for move-in, as some bank-owned properties were not left in picture-postcard condition by their former occupants.

-- Homes must save the potential buyer up to 40 percent of the original value or sales price.

The main cast on the bus also includes Gregrory Cook, loan consultant of EVOFI, a local mortgage lender. Cook, in the latter stages of the tour, takes the mic from Nolf and expounds on securing a loan in the current market and, like Nolf, fields any queries that come his way; in this case, on the subject of financing.

"They want to know about buying programs -- I think there could be a lot of confusion there," Cook said. "But the bus is a good format because I have a captured audience, and I can explain on a group basis and then on a one-on-one basis to answer their questions.

"A lot of people aren't aware of how the available programs of the lending industry have changed over the past six months. A lot of the lenders are looking for people who can prove their income as opposed to just good credit scores. Even borrowers with lower credit scores are able to get prime loans."

After the tour, the bus pulls into a neighboring RE/MAX office for lunch.

Ahlbrand said the bus fills up regularly. "We're predicting that this foreclosure/buyer's market is going to continue well into 2009," Ruth Ahlbrand said.

More information can be found at TourVegasHomes.com or by calling 360-2030. Sunday's tour can also accommodate Spanish-speaking participants, while selected RE/MAX agents can also speak Chinese or Thai and will join any bus tour where those languages are required.

The Pros Realty, a Las Vegas company, also sponsors a bus tour which is held by Vegas Market Source once a week. Call 285-1165 for more information.

Another tour known as the Vegas Foreclosure Express is held by Barbara and Marshall Zucker of the Prudential Americana Group.

For more information, call 823-8230, or visit vegasforeclosureexpress.com.