Home prices increase slightly after three-month holding pattern

Local home prices broke out of a three-month holding pattern to post a slight increase during June, according to a report released this week by the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.

GLVAR reported that the median price for existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada through its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) during June was $304,000. That’s up 4.8 percent from $290,000 in June 2018. Meanwhile, the median price of local condos and town homes sold in June was $177,900. That was up 6.5 percent from June 2018.

“It’s normal for home prices and sales to increase this time of year, though prices only went up slightly and we actually sold fewer homes this June than last June,” said 2019 GLVAR President Janet Carpenter, a longtime local Realtor. “Overall, I think the takeaway from this month’s GLVAR report is that the local housing market is surprisingly stable. In fact, this is probably as stable as the local housing market has been in nearly two decades.”

Before slowing down this year, local home prices had generally been rising since early 2012, climbing back toward their all-time peak. According to GLVAR, the median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada peaked at $315,000 in June 2006 before falling during the Great Recession. Local home prices hit a post-recession bottom of $118,000 in January 2012.

Just as prices have been appreciating more slowly, Carpenter said fewer homes have been selling this year compared with the previous few years. GLVAR reported a total of 42,876 local property sales in 2018, down from 45,388 in all of 2017. And she said 2019 is running behind last year’s sales pace.

The total number of existing local homes, condos and town homes sold during June was 3,626. Compared with one year ago, June sales were down 11.1 percent for homes and down 12 percent for condos and town homes.

At the current sales pace, Carpenter said Southern Nevada still has less than a three-month supply of homes available for sale. While the local housing supply is up from one year ago, she said, it’s still below what would normally be considered a balanced market.

By the end of June, GLVAR reported 7,815 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That’s up 80.3 percent from one year ago. For condos and town homes, the 1,937 properties listed without offers in June represented a 135.6 percent jump from one year ago.

GLVAR reported that 20.2 percent of all local properties sold in June were purchased with cash. That’s down from 22.9 percent one year ago. That’s also well below the February 2013 peak of 59.5 percent, suggesting that cash buyers and investors are still active in the local housing market, but have been playing a much smaller role than they were during and just after the recession.

The number of so-called distressed sales remains near historically low levels. GLVAR reported that short sales and foreclosures combined accounted for just 2.2 percent of all existing local property sales in June. That compares to 2.6 percent of all sales one year ago and 6.3 percent two years ago.

These GLVAR statistics include activity through the end of June 2019. 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 June was more than $1 billion for homes and nearly $137 million for condos, high-rise condos and town homes. Compared to one year ago, total sales values in June were down 6.9 percent for homes, and down 6.7 percent for condos and town homes.

Homes and condos are selling at a slower pace than last year at this time. In June, 78.8 percent of all existing local homes and 77.7 percent of all existing local condos and town homes sold within 60 days. That compares to one year ago, when 89.1 percent of all existing local homes and 91.2 percent of all existing local condos and town homes sold within 60 days.