Linda Rheinberger, president of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, said she tells clients that there is no rush to sell. Photo by Isaac Brekken. A "sold" sign is posted by a house at 9320 Angel Fish Dive. Data from housing research firm SalesTraq show resale home inventory in Las Vegas was 17,161 homes in April, up 63 percent from a year earlier. Photo by John Locher.

For home buyers, sellers and real estate agents who remember 2004's tight housing market, 2006 is offering a distinctly different feel thanks to skyrocketing inventory.

Statistics from SalesTraq, a local real estate research firm, showed 2,992 resale homes listed in Las Vegas in April 2004. That number jumped 250 percent to 10,493 resales in April 2005 as buyers looked to cash in on big appreciation increases. Resale inventory rose again 63 percent to 17,161 homes in April 2006, the most recent month with available data.

Add to April's existing-home inventory a sizable number of new homes.

About 7,000 converted condominiums sat on the market in April, and 4,000 new single-family homes and traditional condominiums were also for sale. That brings the total backlog of properties for sale in Southern Nevada in April to 31,000.

"We were spoiled for so long, and now we're having an adjustment period," said Linda Rheinberger, president of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors and owner of One Source Realty and Management. "We do have to look at things differently than we have the last couple of years."

However, experts say the increase in housing availability is not a major concern yet. Inventory could become an issue, though, if the number of available properties doesn't peak soon and begin to retreat, industry watchers say.

Lawrence Yun, a senior economist with the National Association of Realtors, said 17,000 resale listings aren't excessive in a market of 2 million. For example, the Multiple Listing Service inside the city of Houston, which Yun said serves a population of 2.5 million, typically has around 30,000 resales online at one time.

And the spike in housing inventory is worse nationally than it is in Las Vegas. Between April 2005 and April 2006, the number of homes reaching the market across the country rose 33 percent, compared with 23 percent in Las Vegas.

Yun called the 2,900 listings of April 2004 "unbelievably low," and said even the 10,500-home inventory of a year ago was "still too low" for a metropolitan area the size of Las Vegas.

Those listing numbers were troubling because the rates of population growth and job formation in Southern Nevada are the nation's highest.

The Las Vegas Valley adds as many as 7,000 residents a month, and Yun's data show employers in the market created 47,000 jobs in the past 12 months. About a third of the city's new residents will buy homes immediately, Yun said. Plus, existing residents who want to trade up their home equity or stop renting generate additional demand for properties.

The time a typical house spends on the local market also indicates equilibrium between sellers and buyers, Yun said.

In a market with a balance between supply and demand, the average seller can expect to wait 90 days for a buyer, Yun said. In Las Vegas, the average listing time in April was 52 days, a slight increase from 48 days in April 2005. According to statistics from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, 42.9 percent of resales on the market in April sold in a month or less.

"Relatively speaking, that (52-day period) would mean a tighter market," Yun said.

What's more, perhaps the biggest barometer of the match between supply and demand -- prices -- continues to rise.

Data from SalesTraq show the median price for an existing home is up 5.2 percent locally, from $268,050 in April 2005 to $282,000 in April 2006. That even though resales were down 25.7 percent year over year in April.

New-home sales in Las Vegas are also down -- 9.1 percent in April year over year. Yet new-home prices have risen substantially. The median cost has jumped 18.1 percent, from $282,060 in April 2005 to $333,117 in April 2006.

Yun said increasing prices in the face of plummeting sales reflect an imbalanced market before 2006.

"Demand was far exceeding supply last year, and now it appears demand is just modestly higher than supply," he said. Even though supply has doubled, he said, that there's price appreciation shows a sustained army of buyers.

SalesTraq President Larry Murphy said the present inventory glut has yet to become a crisis.

"The real crisis was two years ago, when we didn't have houses," Murphy said, because that lack of available properties led to a cost spike that forced the median home price above $300,000.

"We overreacted to the housing shortage of 2004," Murphy said. "Now, in 2006, we have all the inventory we wish we'd had two years ago. We overshot. We're going to spend the rest of the year eating through the excess inventory."

Some experts worry inventory will continue to increase.

Bob Hamrick, broker-owner of Coldwell Banker Premier Realty in Las Vegas, said the local Multiple Listing Service has added about 300 single-family homes a week in recent weeks.

"Unless we see a downward change in those growing numbers, that will start to be concerning," Hamrick said.

In addition, Murphy said, the market may have yet to see the worst of the pricing fallout from rising inventory.

Builders are offering steep incentives that include lower closing costs, free upgrades, waived lot premiums and credits at design centers. Those inducements can range from $10,000 to $100,000 in value, Murphy said. A handful of local builders is preparing to drop prices on homes as well, he added. And once new-home builders begin slashing prices, sellers of resale homes may have to follow with price breaks of their own, he said.

But the financial hits some builders and homeowners are taking could cap further increases in housing inventory.

Homeowners who don't have to sell now could pull their homes off the market or avoid listing altogether to wait for a tighter, more seller-friendly environment.

Rheinberger did just that herself, delisting an investment property this spring and repositioning it as a rental property. She said she's advised clients who don't absolutely have to sell to wait at least three months, when she believes local inventory will begin to drop.

Among builders, Murphy predicted that companies doling out incentives will slow their pace of construction as the market absorbs the properties they've already completed.

"Builders are aware of the inventory amount we have and the problems we have moving it," Murphy said. "They don't drop prices and say, 'Let's start another 500 homes.' They'll want to hold off on starts while they get rid of what they've got.

"The market will take care of itself. We're probably at the peak of inventory. It's just going to take six months to run through it and get back to levels builders feel good about."

Murphy predicts that by the end of 2006, the market will see significant declines in inventory. And 2007 will bring even bigger reductions in housing availability.

"If you want to define 10,000 (resales on the Multiple Listing Service) as normal, then I think we'll be there 12 months from now," Murphy said.

Rheinberger agreed with Murphy's forecast.

"I really believe this (inventory) is a short-term phenomenon. I believe we have peaked," she said. "I believe there are some short-term opportunities if you're a buyer. All our indicators point to inventory levels going down in two to three months, even as demand doesn't go down."

Local real estate brokers and agents say they're already noticing signs of a reviving market.

Rita Trujillo, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Premier, said her three most recent listings, all priced around $300,000, sold in warp speed, snapped up in five days, nine days and 14 days, respectively. All three landed their list price as well, she said.

"When prices and interest rates rise, there's always an adjustment in sales," Trujillo said. "We're reaching that adjustment now. If interest rates maintain (at about 7 percent), we're still going to be in good shape. Sales tend to slow down a bit when interest rates rise, because buyers want to wait until they come down. But overall, rates are still great. We are coming back to the reality that this (inventory) will be the norm for our market."

At Realty Executives, a 615-agent brokerage in Las Vegas, sales jumped more than 15 percent from March to April, said Fafie Moore, the agency's broker-owner.

"Pricing is critical (to moving properties)," Moore said. "Everything sells -- it's just a matter of price and time."

Homeowners who want to sell quickly in today's market should set the list price on their home in the high-90 percent range as a share of value, she said.

Hamrick, of Coldwell Banker Premier, agreed.

"Properties are still selling, and the ones that are selling are the homes that are priced the way they need to be priced to respond to this market," Hamrick said.

But sellers sometimes have a hard time accepting the new inventory climate.

Said Hamrick: "If you told a seller who bought for $200,000 three years ago that his home would be worth $350,000 today, he would probably think that was fantastic. But if, instead, somewhere in that period, that house could have sold for $365,000, now the buyer is looking at that $15,000 difference, rather than the $150,000 in appreciation he really has."

Sellers who can wait to sell their properties should expect sustained population growth, job formation and a constrained land supply to aid the market's inventory outlook in the long term, real estate professionals said.

"I hate unjustified optimism, but there is true justification to feel confident that in the years to come our market is going to continue to be strong," Hamrick said. "This is not a bubble for our marketplace. Too many large corporations continue to make high-dollar, long-term commitments to Las Vegas, and when they're doing that, it causes us to feel a lot more confident."