Home prices continue recovery in Las Vegas market

From the Greater Las Vegas Realtors group:

Statistics released today by the Greater Las Vegas Association of REALTORS® (GLVAR) show the median local home price reached $200,000 for the first time since 2008.

GLVAR reported the median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada during July was an even $200,000, up 0.1 percent from $199,900 in June and up 11.1 percent from July of 2013. That’s the highest median home price GLVAR has reported since August of 2008, when the median price was $210,000. The median price of existing condominiums and townhomes sold in July was $106,000, down 2.8 percent from $109,000 in June, but up 15.8 percent from one year ago.



“It’s a nice milestone to see our GLVAR median home price hit the $200,000 mark again,” said GLVAR President Heidi Kasama, a longtime local REALTOR®. “This tells you how far we’ve come back from the depths of our downturn a few years ago, but also how much room we have before home prices in our area get back to where they were at their peak.”



Putting these prices into perspective, Kasama said existing local home prices are still well below their June 2006 peak of $315,000. Prices bottomed out at a median of $118,000 in January 2012 before rising for a record 19 straight months until September 2013, then increasing more gradually since then.



As in past months, GLVAR reported that fewer single-family homes were sold in July than during June. Kasama said local home sales so far in 2014 are running well behind last year’s pace. At the current sales pace, she said Southern Nevada has less than a three-month supply of available homes. But compared to one year ago, she said Southern Nevada has about twice as many homes available for sale without pending or contingent offers on them.



Since 2013, GLVAR has reported fewer distressed sales and more traditional home sales, where lenders are not controlling the transaction. However, for the second straight month, GLVAR tracked an uptick in short sales – which occur when lenders allow borrowers to sell a home for less than what they owe on the mortgage. In July, 11.5 percent of all existing local home sales were short sales. That’s up from 10.8 percent in June. Another 9.1 percent of all July sales were bank-owned properties, down from 10.1 percent in June.



Kasama said short sales have slowed this year due in part to uncertainty about whether Congress will vote this year to extend the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 that expired Dec. 31, 2013. If Congress doesn’t extend this law and make it retroactive to Jan. 1, it can create a significant tax hit for anyone who completed a short sale in 2014. She said REALTORS® are still pushing Congress to extend this act for at least another year. Unless Congress extends this act, as Nevada’s congressional delegation has proposed, any amount of money a bank writes off in agreeing to sell a home as part of a short sale starting in 2014 may become taxable when sellers file their income taxes.



The total number of single-family homes listed for sale on GLVAR’s Multiple Listing Service in July was 13,717. That’s down 0.9 percent from 13,838 in June and down 2.9 percent from one year ago. GLVAR reported a total of 3,624 condos and townhomes listed for sale on its MLS in July, down 2.4 percent from 3,715 listed in June and up 4.2 percent from one year ago.



By the end of July, GLVAR reported 7,266 single-family homes listed without any sort of offer. That’s up 2.0 percent from 7,126 such homes listed in June, and a 55.2 percent jump from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 2,330 properties listed without offers in July represented a 0.1 percent decrease from 2,333 such properties listed in June and a 44.8 percent jump from one year ago.



According to GLVAR, the total number of existing local homes, condominiums and townhomes sold in July was 3,314, up from 3,274 in June, but down from one year ago. Total sales increased thanks largely to a 12.2 percent monthly increase in condo and townhome sales.



GLVAR said 35.6 percent of all existing local homes sold in July were purchased with cash. That’s up slightly from 34.7 percent in June, but still near a five-year low and well short of the February 2013 peak of 59.5 percent, suggesting that fewer investors are buying homes in Southern Nevada.



The median price of bank-owned homes sold in July was $161,203, up from $150,000 in June. The median price of homes sold as part of a short sale in July was $165,000, down from $170,000 in June.



These GLVAR statistics include activity through the end of July 2014. GLVAR distributes such statistics each month based on data collected through its MLS, which does not necessarily account for newly constructed homes sold by local builders or for sale by owners. Other highlights include:



The monthly value of local real estate transactions tracked through the MLS during July decreased by 1.4 percent for homes to more than $634 million. For condos and townhomes, the total value of all July sales was nearly $93 million, up 5.1 percent from June. Compared to one year ago, total sales volumes in July were down 2.3 percent for homes and down 15.8 percent for condos and townhomes.


In July, 70.4 percent of all existing local homes and 62.5 percent of all existing condos and townhomes sold within 60 days. That compares to June, when 69.4 percent of all existing local homes and 67.3 percent of all existing condos and townhomes sold within 60 days.