Holiday slump hits Southern Nevada Real Estate
Here is a press release from the Realtors group in Las Vegas that shows that the usual holiday slump has hit. Anyone with any experience in real estate knows that the holidays is the worst time to be selling a house -- because few people buy, and those who are trying to sell during the holidays must be very motivated sellers who will take lower prices to close a deal.
If you can, avoid selling during the holidays.
But if you are buyer, this is the time of year when you can make great deals.
Here is the press release:
According to statistics released today by the Greater Las Vegas Association of REALTORS® (GLVAR), local home prices cooled off in November after posting steady gains for nearly two years.
GLVAR reported that the median price of an existing single-family home sold in Southern Nevada during November was $183,000, down 1.1 percent from $185,000 in October. November’s median price was still 25.3 percent higher than November 2012, when the median price was $146,000.
Meanwhile, the median price of existing condominiums and townhomes sold in November was $99,000, down 1.0 percent from $100,000 in October, but up 33.8 percent from $74,000 one year ago.
GLVAR President Dave Tina, a longtime local REALTOR®, has been expecting local home prices to dip along with the temperature heading into the holidays, as they do in most years.
“I’m not surprised to see prices go down a bit this month,” he said. “We may see prices soften a bit more through the winter before hopefully bouncing back in the spring. We’ve been saying for months that it’s very hard to sustain the kind of price increases we’ve been seeing since 2012.”
Existing local home prices bottomed out at a median price of $118,000 in January 2012 before appreciating for a record 19 straight months until September 2013. Tina said local home prices are just now back to where they were five years ago and still well below their June 2006 peak of $315,000.
GLVAR saw very little change in the number of foreclosures and short sales – which occur when a lender agrees to sell a home for less than what the borrower owes on the mortgage. In November, 21 percent of all existing home sales were short sales, unchanged from October. Another 7 percent of all November sales were bank-owned properties, up from 6 percent in October. The remaining 72 percent of all sales were the traditional type, down from 73 percent in October.
Tina said the clock is ticking on those considering a short sale, since the federal Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act is set to expire Dec. 31, 2013. Barring any further extensions of this deadline, 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.
GLVAR said the total number of existing local homes, condominiums and townhomes sold in November was 2,694. That’s down from 3,192 in October and down from 3,293 total sales in November 2012. Compared to October, single-family home sales during November decreased by 16.2 percent, while sales of condos and townhomes decreased by 12.7 percent. Compared to one year ago, single-family home sales were down 17.9 percent, while condo and townhome sales were down 19.3 percent.
Reversing another trend, GLVAR reported fewer homes listed for sale in November. The total number of properties listed for sale on GLVAR’s Multiple Listing Service decreased in November, with 14,240 single-family homes listed for sale at the end of the month. That’s down 5.1 percent from 15,011 single-family homes listed for sale at the end of October and down 8.9 percent from one year ago.
GLVAR reported a total of 3,624 condos and townhomes listed for sale on its MLS in November, down 4.0 percent from 3,776 listed in October and down 1.0 percent from one year ago.
GLVAR also reported fewer available homes listed for sale without any sort of pending or contingent offer. By the end of November, GLVAR reported 6,830 single-family homes listed without any sort of offer. That’s down 3.4 percent from 7,072 such homes listed in October, but still up 77.4 percent from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 2,192 properties listed without offers in November represented a 2.4 percent decrease from 2,247 such properties listed in October, but an 80.0 percent increase from one year ago.
In November, GLVAR reported that 43.7 percent of all existing local homes sold were purchased with cash. That’s down from 44.9 in October and from a peak of 59.5 percent set in February 2013.
The median price of bank-owned homes sold in November was $152,500, down from $162,501 in October. The median price of homes sold as part of a short sale in November was $158,500, down from $161,000 in October.
These GLVAR statistics include activity through the end of November 2013. 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 November decreased by 18.4 percent for homes to nearly $497 million. For condos and townhomes, the total value of all sales in November was more than $70 million, down 15.6 percent from October. Compared to one year ago, total sales volumes in November were up 1.5 percent for homes and up 9.5 percent for condos and townhomes.
· In November, 73.5 percent of all existing local homes and 67.2 percent of all condos and townhomes sold within 60 days. That compares to October, when 75.4 percent of all local homes and 67.8 percent of all condos and townhomes sold within 60 days.
