Housing supply drops, prices on the rise
Q: I read your (recent) article and found it very informative. I have some questions.
What is robo-signing? Is this a real estate insider's term?
I understand there are only about 5,000 (local home) listings for sale. This is low. It was almost double that figure several months ago.
Given the forces of supply and demand, does this mean that home prices will start to increase? A low housing inventory usually means prices will increase, as they did several years ago.
- Larry N., Las Vegas
A: "Robo-signing" is a fairly recent term popularized by government, real estate, banking and media leaders to describe a practice where someone who does not have the legal authority to sign paperwork related to mortgage loans wrongfully or fraudulently signs large numbers of documents, usually those required during the foreclosure process.
This situation and term has made news in recent years, as some lenders have been accused of employing such tactics, allegedly to save them time and money in processing large numbers of foreclosures during the housing downturn.
You also may have heard this term used in connection with a Nevada law called Assembly Bill 284, which took effect Oct. 1.
State law requires the mortgage lien holder to sign an affidavit verifying the lender possesses or knows the location of the original mortgage loan documents, and that it is empowered to sign on behalf of the lien holder. Giving misinformation could result in felony penalties.
On a national level, this term and related issues have been connected to a national foreclosure settlement between 49 states, the federal government and five of the nation's largest mortgage lenders, which have earmarked as much as $1.5 billion from this legal settlement to help distressed homeowners here in Nevada.
Yes, housing inventory is low. Based on last month's statistics from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, the number of available homes in Southern Nevada listed for sale without any sort of pending or contingent offer was down from last year. By the end of July, GLVAR reported 4,293 single-family homes listed without any sort of offer. That's down 60.9 percent from one year ago.
We're also seeing a shortage of available condominiums and townhomes, with 1,224 such local properties listed without offers in July. That's a decrease of 50.9 percent from a year ago.
This decreasing supply of homes has contributed to an increase in sale prices for existing homes for six straight months, February through July.
GLVAR reported the median price of single-family homes sold here in July was $133,000. That was up 0.9 percent from $131,785 in June and up 9.0 percent from one year ago.
We are not seeing the big run-up in prices that we did during the housing boom of the past decade. Instead, this 2012 trend has been more of a slow uptick each month.
Helping to keep a lid on these increasing prices are the thousands of local properties that make up what experts call the "shadow inventory" of homes that should be on the market but aren't, mostly because banks have not yet foreclosed on borrowers who have not been paying their mortgage. Another factor is appraisers, who are still being very conservative in valuing local homes listed for sale.
Kolleen Kelley is the 2012 president of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. To ask her a question, email her at ask@glvar.org. For more information, visit www.lasvegasrealtor.com.
