There are a lot of reasons to move to Las Vegas. If you’re looking to invest in residential real estate, though, you’d best stay away.

Las Vegas topped a dubious list last week, ranking as the city experiencing the largest drop in housing prices, according to a story on SmartMoney.com written by reporter AnnaMaria Andriotis.

According to the story, home values in Las Vegas have fallen 24.5 percent from their peak, the largest drop in the nation.

Of course, Vegas isn’t the only city experiencing major declines in housing value. Miami, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego all joined Sin City on SmartMoney’s list.

During this housing slump, we’ve all read that home prices across the country have fallen. But by how much have they dropped?

BusinessWeek last week ran an interesting story by writer Prashant Gopal, which listed the U.S. cities that saw the biggest drop in housing prices from one year to the next. The biggest drop — I’d call it a plummet, actually — took place in Sacramento, where the asking prices on houses for sale had fallen 40.96 percent from one year earlier. That’s a huge drop.

Phoenix, which has been having serious housing problems of its own, came in next on the list with a drop in asking price of 25.85 percent. Next came Los Angeles, with a drop in asking price of 25.56 percent. Rounding out the top five were Las Vegas, with a drop of 23.38 percent, and Atlanta, a drop of 22.19 percent.

You can read the story here. If you’re selling a home, just hope that your city isn’t anywhere on the list.

The nation’s Sun Belt continues to be the fastest-growing region of the United States. Texas, especially, saw big population gains in both 2006 and 2007.

Writer Paul Weber, with the Associated Press, wrote that four Texas metropolitan areas were among the 10 metro areas that saw the biggest population increase in the two years. You can read the story here.

Dallas-Fort Worth topped the list, adding 162,000 residents from July of 2006 to July of 2007. Houston, Austin and San Antonio also made the top 10.

Atlanta saw the second-largest jump, adding more than 151,000 new residents, while Phoenix came in third with more than 132,000 newcomers.

According to the story, 27 of the 50 fastest-growing metro areas were in the South, while 20 were in the West. Two were in the Midwest, and none were in the Northeast. The reamining metro area, Fayetteville, Ark., straddles the South and Midwest.

C’mon, people, what’s wrong the Midwest? I’m a proud Midwesterner since birth. You don’t like snowstorms, freezing winters, muggy summers or high unemployment?

If this trend continues, I fear I may be the last person living in the Midwest.

It’s a day before Christmas, and there’s one present that loads of homeowners want more than any: a property reassessment.

Jennifer Steinhauer, a reporter with the New York Times News Service, wrote an interestin feature that showed up in Sunday newspapers across the country yesterday. in it, she writes about the escalating number of homeowners who are asking their local governments to reassess the values of their homes.

The reason? Home values in many parts of the country are dropping. The owners of these homes, then, should also be seeing their property taxes drop accordingly. That won’t happen, though, if their homes are still assessed as they were during the residential real estate boom.

Find a reporter’s standpoint, this is an exciting time to be covering residential real estate. There’s always something new happening. This nationwide demand for reassessments is just one more example. Who can imagine a property owner in, say, Phoenix asking for his home to be reassessed two years ago? But today? The value of that same property owner’s home has probably tumbled. After that home’s reassessed today, this homeowner will be shelling out less on his property tax bill.

Not surprisingly, local governments aren’t thrilled with this. Many of them relied heavily upon rising property taxes to help fund their programs. What will they rely upon if they are forced to collect less in property tax revenue each year?

That last is a good question. It’s also a good example of how it wasn’t just individuals who relied far too heavily on this country’s residential real estate boom. We as a nation became fat and happy during the housing boom, letting artificially high real estate prices cover up other more serious issues, whether those issues be personal debt or governmental budget shortfalls.

Well, the real estate boom is over. It’s time for both individuals and governments to come up with some other revenue source.

What makes me think that a growing number of our rather unimaginative governmental bodies are going to be turning even more frequently to casinos?