LAS VEGAS – Statistics released today by the Greater Las Vegas Association of REALTORS® (GLVAR) show the median price of homes sold last month in Southern Nevada bounced back above the $200,000 mark as fewer homes were sold and listed for sale.

GLVAR reported the median price of homes sold through its Multiple Listing Service during November was $202,000. That’s up 1.1 percent from $199,900 in October and up 10.4 percent from one year ago. Meanwhile, the median price of condominiums and townhomes sold in November was $111,450, up 12.6 percent from $99,000 in October and also up 12.6 percent from one year ago.

“It’s good to see local home prices bounce back a bit after dipping down in October,” said GLVAR President Heidi Kasama, a longtime local REALTOR®. “Even though we’re selling fewer properties each month, we’re selling more homes in higher price ranges. That’s keeping our median home prices up. Our local housing market has been fairly stable this year. Unless something dramatic happens in the coming months, we expect to see more of the same in 2015.”

GLVAR’s median single-family home price is still well below the June 2006 peak of $315,000. Local single-family home prices bottomed out at a median of $118,000 in January 2012 before increasing by about 24 percent per year in 2012 and 2013.

According to GLVAR, the total number of existing local homes, condominiums and townhomes sold in November was 2,483, down from 2,861 in October and down from 2,694 one year ago. At the current pace, Kasama said Southern Nevada has about a four-month supply of available homes. REALTORS® consider a six-month supply to be a balanced market.

For roughly two years, GLVAR has reported fewer distressed sales and more traditional home sales, where lenders are not controlling the transaction. That trend continued in November, when 9.6 percent of all local sales were short sales – which occur when lenders allow borrowers to sell a home for less than what they owe on the mortgage. That’s down from 10.6 percent in October. Another 8.7 percent of all November sales were bank-owned properties, down from 8.9 percent in October.

Throughout 2014, Kasama has said short sales have been declining due in part to uncertainty about whether Congress will vote to extend the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 that expired Dec. 31, 2013. The U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to pass a bill that would extend the tax break for one year and make it retroactive to Jan. 1, 2014. She said it remains to be seen if the Senate and President Obama will approve this extension. 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. Unless Congress extends this act, any amount of money a bank writes off in agreeing to sell a home as part of a short sale 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 November was 13,421, down 7.0 percent from 14,430 in October and down 5.8 percent from one year ago. GLVAR tracked a total of 3,529 condos and townhomes listed for sale on its MLS in November, down 3.4 percent from 3,653 in October and down 2.6 percent from November 2013.

By the end of November, GLVAR reported 8,195 single-family homes listed without any sort of offer. That’s down 7.7 percent from 8,880 such homes listed in October, but up 20.0 percent from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 2,458 properties listed without offers in November represented a 3.5 percent decrease from 2,548 such properties listed in October, but a 12.1 percent increase from one year ago.

GLVAR said 31.9 percent of all local properties sold in November were purchased with cash. That’s down from 35.1 percent in October and well short of the February 2013 peak of 59.5 percent, suggesting that fewer investors have been buying homes in Southern Nevada.

The median price of bank-owned homes sold in November was $155,000, down from $161,615 in October. The median price of homes sold as part of a short sale in November was $170,000, up from $165,000 during October.

These GLVAR statistics include activity through the end of November 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 November decreased by 14.0 percent for homes to more than $494 million. For condos and townhomes, the total value of all November sales was more than $65 million, down 17.1 percent from October. Compared to one year ago, total sales volumes in November were down 0.5 percent for homes and 7.4 percent for condos and townhomes.

· In November, 67.1 percent of all existing local homes and 64.3 percent of all existing condos and townhomes sold within 60 days. That compares to October, when 64.6 percent of all existing local homes and 55.3 percent of all existing condos and townhomes sold within 60 days.