VIDEO: If you’re a developer, what’s one way to get rid of some houses to clear space for a new project?
Let ’em burn.
Having bought nearly $17 million worth of real estate in the southern Las Vegas Valley, Richmond American Homes donated houses to the Clark County Fire Department for training. One Friday afternoon last month, after fire crews trained in a house over the course of three days, they stripped the drywall, went outside and watched as the one-story house went up in flames.
The so-called live-fire training, off Valley View Boulevard and Cactus Avenue, offered a glimpse into a seemingly little-known slice of Las Vegas’ housing market: Instead of demolishing homes, builders sometimes give them to firefighters to burn to the ground.
Southern Nevada homebuilders frequently buy project sites that are empty tracts of land, with no structures to demolish.