THE ECONOMY:

Las Vegas home sales fall 20 percent in November

Sales see biggest month-to-month drop this year

Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2008 | 8:35 a.m.

Real Estate Crisis

The sale of homes tailed off in November compared to October and prices continued to fall, according to statistics released by the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.

There were 2,183 sales of single-family homes on the Multiple Listing Service in November, down 20 percent from 2,718 in October, the GLVAR reported.

Sales are traditionally slow at the end of the year, but this is the biggest month-to-month drop this year and could be a sign of the economic slowdown and credit crunch.

The bright spot is that the 2,183 sales in November were more than double the 968 sales in November 2007.

Home prices continued to get more affordable in November with the median price dropping 2.1 percent from October to $186,000. Median prices are 32 percent below where they were a year ago.

GLVAR President Patty Kelley warned that with the holiday being a slow time of the year, home sales will decline in December and January.

Lenders owned two of every three homes sold in November, Kelley said. That supply on the market continues to drive down home prices, she said.

The availability of homes at the end of November fell 3.1 percent from November 2007 to 22,700, the GLVAR reported. The number of new listings was down 17 percent from October to 4,577. The median price of new listings is 2.3 percent lower than October and 37 percent lower than November 2007.

The condominium market continues to show weakness. There were 392 sales in November, down 5 percent for October, but up 142 percent over November 2007.

The median price of units sold was $90,750, a 17 percent drop from October and down nearly 50 percent from November 2007.

Discussion: 1 comment so far…

By VegasRepos

12/10/08 at 9:33 a.m.

Suggest removal

Not only was there a seasonal drop in sales this month, but there was also a drop this month because the Nehemiah down payment assistance program ended October 31st. Thererfore, a lot of people bought in October in order to take advantage of this program. On the bright side, sales are up more than 100% from this time last year. With the median home price being below $190,000 it makes sense to buy and many people are doing that in spite of tougher financing standards. With many repo homes listed at under $65 per square foot and even some new homes selling from $75 per sq. foot ( see: http://www.VegasRepos.com for examples ) many mortgages are less than rents, and many homes are being sold for less than replacement cost. This is why sales are up over 100%.