Las Vegas homebuilders’ sales ‘underwhelm’ amid rising prices

Las Vegas’ homebuilding market kept its foot on the brakes last month as sales fell and builders dialed back their construction plans, a new report shows.

Builders logged 766 net sales — newly signed sales contracts minus cancellations — in April in Southern Nevada, down 29 percent from the same month last year, according to Las Vegas-based Home Builders Research.

The sharp drop occurred during what is typically the spring buying season.

“The market is steadily slowing week to week lately, unexpected for this time of year,” Home Builders Research President Andrew Smith wrote in the report.

He also wrote that weekly net sales this year “continue to underwhelm” compared to last year and that builders keep slowly raising their base asking prices.

With fewer buyers, builders are also pulling fewer permits.

Smith reported that 978 new-home permits were issued in April in Southern Nevada, down 19 percent from the same month last year.

Overall, builders closed 850 home sales last month, down 11 percent year-over-year, and sold them for a median price of $529,833, up 8.1 percent from a year earlier.

After a buyer signs a sales contract with a builder, it can take several months before construction of the house is finished and the sale closes.

All told, the data seems to point to a shrinking pool of buyers who, amid high mortgage rates and economic volatility, are able or willing to pay for increasingly expensive newly built homes in Southern Nevada.

Nationally, builders increased their pace of sales last month from a year ago as their prices ticked lower.

The rate of sales of new single-family houses in April rose 3.3 percent from the same month last year, while the median sales price last month, $407,200, was down 2 percent year-over-year, federal officials reported Friday.

Buddy Hughes, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders, said in a statement Friday that the April new-home sales figure “appears to be an anomaly” as builder sentiment moved “markedly lower” this month.

The association noted that builders and buyers continue to deal with economic uncertainty, elevated interest rates and rising costs of construction materials.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.