Las Vegas home prices continue to rise

Local home prices rose again in March, while the local housing supply stayed tight, according to a report from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.

GLVAR reported this month that the median price for existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada during March through its Multiple Listing Service was $280,000. That’s up 1.8 percent from the previous month and up 15.7 percent from March 2017. The median price of local condos and town homes sold in March was $160,000, up 30.1 percent from the same time last year.

“Home prices and sales usually pick up in the spring, but prices for both homes and condos are going up faster so far this year than they usually do,” said 2018 GLVAR President Chris Bishop, a longtime local Realtor. “As for how many homes we’re selling, sales are fairly similar to this time last year and have begun to level off a bit. We attribute that, at least in part, to the fact that our local housing supply remains so tight, with about 30 percent fewer homes on the market now than we had one year ago.”

The total number of existing local homes, condos and town homes sold during March was 3,886. Compared with a year earlier, March sales were down 1.3 percent for homes but up 3.7 percent for condos and town homes.

By the end of March, GLVAR reported 3,835 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That’s down 30.1 percent from a year earlier. For condos and town homes, the 761 properties listed without offers in March represented a 6.4 percent increase from a year earlier.

Southern Nevada still has less than a two-month supply of existing homes available for sale. A six-month supply is considered a balanced market.

“We still need more homes to sell,” Bishop said. “But at least our inventory didn’t shrink any further between February and March.”

GLVAR reported that 25.2 percent of all local properties sold in March were purchased with cash. That’s down from 29.5 percent a year earlier. That’s well below the February 2013 peak of 59.5 percent, indicating that cash buyers and investors are still active but are playing a much smaller role in the local housing market than they were five years ago.

Meanwhile, the number of so-called distressed sales continues to decline. GLVAR reported that short sales and foreclosures combined accounted for 2.9 percent of all existing local home sales in March, compared to 9.8 percent of all sales in March 2017.

These GLVAR statistics include activity through the end of March 2018. GLVAR distributes statistics each month based on data collected through its MLS, which does not necessarily account for newly constructed homes sold by local builders or homes for sale by owners. Other highlights include:

■ The total value of local real estate transactions tracked through the MLS during March was more than $1 billion for homes and nearly $126 million for condos, high-rise condos and town homes. Compared to a year earlier, total sales volumes in March were up 14.9 percent for homes and up 33.5 percent for condos and town homes.

■ Homes and condos continued to sell faster than last year at this time. In March, 82.0 percent of all existing local homes and 89.0 percent of all existing local condos and town homes sold within 60 days. That compares to March 2017, when 75.9 percent of all existing local homes and 81.2 percent of all existing local condos and town homes sold within 60 days.

GLVAR was founded in 1947 and provides its more than 14,000 local members with education, training and political representation. The local representative of the National Association of Realtors, GLVAR is the largest professional organization in Southern Nevada. Each GLVAR member receives the highest level of professional training and must abide by a strict code of ethics. For more information, visit LasVegasRealtor.com. E-mail your real estate questions to ask@glvar.org.