As Nevada voters prepare to caucus, their experience living through the worst of the national foreclosure crisis will play a large part in who they choose

Mark is going to vote for Donald Trump. But he says he could live with Bernie Sanders as president.

“I really think Trump has the knowledge. There’s a lot of support for Trump among the people I know. But I like Sanders, too. If we have to have a Democrat, I really hope it’s him and not Hillary,” he said.

Mark – who will not give his surname but is happy to have his photo taken – is not as confused as he may sound.

As he and his fellow Nevada voters caucus for the Democrats on Saturday and the Republicans on Tuesday, their experiences living through the worst of the US housing collapse will play a large part in their decision making.

At the height of the crisis, 1 in 16 homes in Nevada faced foreclosure, compared to 1 in 69 nationwide. Nearly 60% of houses were worth less than the mortgages taken out on them. The median price of a home dropped by nearly two-thirds to $115,000.



With that came the collapse of a building industry that had been churning out so many new homes it created a shortage of cranes for construction in other parts of the US. The unemployment rate more than tripled to 14%.

Mark lives on Brown Street in Las Vegas, where prices fell by close to 90% at the peak of the crisis. The house next door was foreclosed on years ago. Several others nearby were seized by the banks. The one opposite was found in a survey by the Las Vegas Review-Journal to have sold for $249,000 at the peak of the market, only to tumble in value to little more than $26,000. Mark’s own property is still under water.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mark’s own property in Las Vegas is still under water. Photograph: Chris McGreal/The Guardian

“We bought this house 12 years ago. We’re about $50,000 down,” he said. On top of that, Mark worked in a trade – mason bricklayer – that was all but wiped out in Las Vegas for a few years.

All that has left him with little faith in establishments and institutions knowing what they are doing or even doing what they say. Except, perhaps, for Trump and Sanders. He says he has faith in both men to do what they say, unlike any of the other candidates.

“The people who have been running things don’t know what they’re doing,” he said. “Look at the last two presidents. It’s not a Republican or Democrat thing. I feel Obama did his best. It’s just not worked out. Trump will bring the jobs back. It’s about keeping American business in America.”

“I don’t know about Sanders but he’s honest,” Mark continued. “Clinton’s just about the money.”

Many still cautious after foreclosure crisis

Recently, the crisis gives the appearance of passing. Tourism-driven Las Vegas had a record number of visitors last year – around 43 million. Unemployment has fallen close to its pre-crisis level of 5%. House prices have picked up significantly, and although they are still well short of values before the crash, new homes are going up across the city. Mark is back at work.

“No doubt about it. We got crushed in the Great Recession,” said Jonas Peterson, chief executive of the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance. “However since then, Nevada has been doing many things right and is accelerating out of that recession really well. Nevada in 2015 was pretty much one of the fastest job producing states in the country. We’re at record visitor volume. You see massive residential developments that went bust during the recession and just completely shut down. Now we’re revived.”

But that does not mean the old confidence has returned.



The foreclosure crisis was a searing experience for those who lived at the sharp end of it, and it is not yet in the past – 1 in 4 homes is still worth less than the outstanding debt on them.

Among Democratic Nevadans, Sanders’ charge that the crisis was the result of Wall Street running a casino economy appeared to have more resonance than Hillary Clinton’s more cautious promise of federal assistance for those who were worst hit. It may explain, in part, why Clinton is facing a tight race in a state she had been expected to win easily.

Sanders launched a television campaign in Nevada this week focused on the foreclosure crisis with victims recounting the personal cost of lost homes. Clinton has spoken in more general terms, seemingly avoiding the root causes of the crash because subprime mortgages flag up her ties to Wall Street.

“I know how hard-hit Nevada was – I think the highest rate of foreclosures. You still have a lot of houses under water,” she said this week. “I take that very seriously ... I want us to move any way we can in the federal government to help relieve the burden of already existing homeowners.”

Toward the end of Brown Street, a foreclosed house is being refurbished for sale. Victor Rodriguez is working on the kitchen. He’s 34 and was born in Mexico City but is a naturalised American citizen. He said there is no way he is voting for Trump.

“That guy’s a fucking idiot. To be honest with you, I’d be an idiot too if I had his kind of money. I don’t want him to be president of my country. If he becomes president, I’m going back to where I came from,” Rodriguez said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Victor Rodriguez was born in Mexico City but is a naturalised American citizen. He called Trump a ‘fucking idiot’ and said he won’t vote for him. Photograph: Chris McGreal/The Guardian

“I’m not voting,” he added. “If I did, I’d vote for Sanders. I’ve got faith in Sanders. He’s telling it like it is. But they’ll never let Sanders win. The result is already fixed.”

A couple of blocks away, Craig Johnson, a hotel worker, lost his house when the mortgage rate skyrocketed, nearly doubling his payments, just as the value of his home dropped by two-thirds. So he walked away from the property.

“Maybe I could have paid the mortgage if I’d put every penny I earned in,” Johnson said. “But I thought to myself, this house is worthless, so I’m just giving money to the bank. That’s money I could be spending on my children.”

Now he rents and will be voting for Sanders.

“Until I lost my home, I never knew how the system worked with Wall Street and all that. I still don’t understand it, but now I’m aware of it and I know enough to see that it’s this system where even when they screw up the economy they get rich,” Johnson said.

“Bernie’s the only one talking about changing that. Hillary’s been bought off by them. The Clintons have always been about money for themselves.”

Republican candidates have had surprisingly little to say, possibly learning from Mitt Romney in 2012, who did himself no favours in Nevada by saying that the market must be allowed to do its work and foreclosures were part of it.

But Trump’s assertion that the root cause is the collapse of American manufacturing, and that when jobs go so does Las Vegas’s tourist-driven economy, plays well with some Republican voters.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest When the economy nosedived, tenants pulled out and Bill Tanna had to sell the properties at 40 cents on the dollar, costing him close to half a million dollars. Photograph: Chris McGreal/The Guardian

Bill Tanna, 60, had retired but was forced back to work when the stock market crash wiped out most of his retirement fund and property investments collapsed.

“I’d been retired five years. Now I’m back to refurbishing houses,” he said at the wheel of his truck outside one of the houses he’s doing up.

Tanna owned five commercial properties, which provided a good chunk of his retirement income. When the economy nosedived, tenants pulled out and he had to sell the properties at 40 cents on the dollar, costing him close to half a million dollars.

This has led him down the path to Trump. Tanna ticked off a familiar list of reasons: Trump’s “not a true politician” and represents “a big change”. But the key attraction is that the New York entrepreneur “will bring business back”.

Tanna said the root of the US’s problems was not Wall Street but the loss of industry. “We need to start manufacturing like we did in the 50s and 60s. We don’t manufacture anything anymore,” he said.

‘Wall Street is the house, and it always wins’

For all the losers in the Nevada crash, there are also winners.

Amy Isbell and her husband happened to be looking for a house just as prices were at their lowest in 2010. She’s a schoolteacher and he’s a doorman at a Vegas strip casino, so they didn’t have a lot of money. But the fall in prices meant they picked up a house for $118,000 that would have cost at least twice as much a few years earlier. Now, with two young children, they’re looking to move and their home has been valued at least 50% more than they paid for it.

She’ll be voting Republican, but not for Trump.

“I don’t really like any of my options. I thought Trump was such a joke in the beginning and now he’s made it this far,” she said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Schoolteacher Amy Isbell will be voting Republican, but not for Trump. Photograph: Chris McGreal/The Guardian

“I like Jeb Bush,” she added. “I feel like he’s a regular guy even though he comes from money. I also like Rubio.”

Without having endured the worst of the housing crash, other factors play into her decision, including immigration.

“I’m a schoolteacher and so I’ve come across a fair share of illegal immigrants in my classes. I probably have less sympathy for the parents than the kids. It’s not their fault they’re here,” she said.

Many of those who struggled through the recession have little confidence it won’t happen again. Rodriguez spent years with little work. With the construction boom, he’s now got all he can take, working 60 hours a week, he says.

But he wonders who is going to live in all the new houses.

“It’s crazy. There’s this idea: if you build, they will come,” he said.

For now they are. But Peterson, of Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, says he understands the fears of a new construction bubble.

“We go through the boom-bust cycle as well as anybody. The next downturn is inevitable,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who got burned during the great recession who have taken a more conservative approach this time around and are really trying to meet demand.”

Johnson, the hotel worker, isn’t convinced.

“This whole city’s built on greed – the idea you can win big,” he said. “Wall Street is the house, and it always wins. Bernie wants to change that. I hope he does, but the casinos didn’t get rich by letting the punters win.”