Warren and Toby Pincus stand outside their Centennial Hills home Tuesday. Warren Pincus said the couple is having difficulty selling their home and have had to lower their original asking price. Photo by K.M. Cannon.
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Warren Pincus is having a hard time selling his 1,600-square-foot, two-story home in the gated Elk Ridge community in northwest Las Vegas.
He's lowered his asking price from $315,000 to $307,000 and now he's thinking about changing real estate brokers after only two prospects have come by to look at his house in six weeks.
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It's a nice home, built by Avante about two years ago with a large backyard, he said.
"I suggested to my broker that we reduce the price. I'm willing to sell for less," Pincus said. "I understand it's bad right now and I know the big builders give them dough to bring someone. How can I compete with builders offering 11 or 13 percent (commission)? You can't. I feel helpless, but that doesn't mean I am helpless. I'm just so frustrated. That's the word."
He's not alone. With more than 20,000 homes on the Multiple Listing Service in Las Vegas, some are taking six months or longer to sell.
There were 4,271 recorded resales in Clark County in June, compared with 5,767 in the same month a year ago, local firm Home Builders Research reported. The year-to-date total of 23,305 is down 20 percent from a year ago.
"The resale segment continues to be gripped by the investor hangover that is like a black cloud of inventory," Home Builders Research President Dennis Smith said. "There are a lot of homes to show and some good deals out there."
The median price of an existing home, where half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less, was $290,000 in June, a 6.2 percent increase from a year ago, Smith reported.
NAR chief economist David Lereah said the housing market is flattening out.
"Over the last three months home sales have held in a narrow range, easing to a level that is near our annual projection, which tells us the market is stabilizing," he said.
"At the same time, sellers have recognized that they need to be more competitive in their pricing given the rise in housing inventories. Home prices are only a little higher than a year ago," Lereah also said.
The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $231,000 in June, up 0.9 percent from June 2005 when the median was $229,000.
"The change in price performance is directly tied to housing inventories," Lereah said. "A year ago we had a lean supply of homes and a sellers' market, with monthly home sales at an all-time record high."
Smith of Home Builders Research has said for months that the annual comparison of existing home prices in Las Vegas would gradually come down to the low single digits, probably below 5 percent by August or September.
Las Vegas is a reflection of the national housing market, which experienced a 1.3 percent drop in existing home sales for June, according to National Association of Realtors numbers released Tuesday.
Sales of existing homes in the United States fell in June for the eighth time in the past 10 months while home prices edged up at the slowest pace in more than a decade -- more signs that the housing market has slowed dramatically.
Nationally, the median price of a home sold last month was $231,000. That was up 0.9 percent from June 2005 and represented the smallest year-over-year price gain since May 1995. It was also far below the 16.8 percent jump in prices recorded for the 12 months ending last October.
The 1.3 percent decline in sales was in line with expectations. It represented the third drop in a row and the eighth decline in the past 10 months as the nation's once-booming housing market has shifted to a slower pace in the face of rising mortgage rates.
Nationwide, the inventory of unsold homes rose to a new record of 3.725 million units, which is a 6.8 months supply at the June sales pace. That is the longest period required to exhaust the overhang of unsold homes in nearly nine years.
Analysts said the growing level of unsold homes will further depress prices in coming months and add to the slowdown in sales.
"With interest rates still rising and job growth slowing, the slowdown in sales will continue," predicted Patrick Newport, an economist at Global Insight, an economic consulting firm.
He forecast that existing home sales would decline by 8 percent this year and 9 percent in 2007.
For June, sales of single-family homes fell 0.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.81 million units while sales of condominiums dropped 5.5 percent to an annual rate of 805,000 units.
CONFIDENCE INDEX RISES A steady job market helped consumers overcome their concerns over high energy costs in July, unexpectedly lifting a barometer of consumer sentiment on Tuesday.
But there are warning signs the optimism may be short-lived as shoppers face concerns from a cooling housing market and rising interest rates to war in the Middle East.
The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its confidence index rose to a better-than-expected reading of 106.5 from a revised 105.4 in June. Analysts had expected the index to fall slightly to 104.
"The employment situation is helping confidence hold at a decent level," Gary Thayer, chief economist at A.G. Edwards & Sons. "Right now, consumers are happy that they have a job, and that at least most of the economy outside of housing is doing well."
Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, noted the worrisome signs. "Present-day conditions remain favorable, though not as strong as earlier this year. Expectations for the months ahead remain cautious and also below levels earlier this year," said Franco, in a statement.
The Present Situation Index, which measures how shoppers feel now about economic conditions, rose to 133.0 from 132.2. The Expectations Index, which measures consumers' outlook over the next six months, edged up to 88.8 from 87.5 last month.
