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Tuesday, March 9, 2010 | 10:53 a.m.
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Southern Nevada home sales dipped for the second consecutive month as the supply continues to dwindle and foreclosures account for a lower percentage of sales, according to statistics released today by the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.
The 2,390 sales of single-family homes in February fell 8 percent from January. January’s sales fell 24 percent from December, according to the GLVAR, which tracks homes sold using the Multiple Listing Service.
Home sales traditionally slow during the holidays, but sales were up only 4.5 percent compared to February 2009. January’s sales were up 17 percent over the previous year and December’s sales were 37 percent higher than December 2008.
The decline in sales could be attributed to a decline in inventory, analysts said. The 20,262 homes listed at the end of February was 8.5 percent fewer than a year ago and the number of available units with no pending offers fell nearly 2 percent from January to 7,974.
The Southern Nevada housing market could benefit from an increased supply of homes to meet the demand, said GLVAR President Rick Shelton. The 4,087 new listings in February declined 5.5 percent from January and fell 17.5 percent from February 2009.
“Sales are relative to inventory,” Shelton said. “I think we need more selection to fuel more sales. If you look at the number of homes that are really available and our current sales pace, we really only have about a three-month supply of homes on the market. I think buyers want more selection.”
Fewer foreclosure properties are ending up on the market as more lenders continue to work with homeowners instead of foreclosing on them, Shelton said.
The GLVAR reported that 53 percent of the homes sold in February were foreclosures, down from 57.4 percent in January. A year ago, foreclosures accounted for about two-thirds of sales.
The percentage of short sales increased to 22 percent in February, up from 21 percent in January. Short sales are cases in which the lender allows the homeowner to sell the property for less than what is owed on the mortgage.
Investors continued their dominate presence in February with 48.7 percent of sales being all-cash deals. That was up from 45.5 percent in January. Nearly 47 percent of the homes were on the market for fewer than 30 days compared to 39.4 percent in February 2009.
With the declining inventory, the price of single-family homes rose slightly in February to $135,694, a 0.6 percent increase over January’s price of $134,925, according to the GLVAR. The February price is 12.8 percent lower than February 2009.
The drop in prices over the past year was reflected in transactions, which totaled $402.3 million in February. Despite more homes being sold than February 2009, the value fell 4.5 percent.
In the condominium and town home market, the 685 sales in February rose 4.1 percent over January and was 55 percent higher than February 2009. The median price of those units was $65,000, down 5.8 percent from the $69,000 price in January. That’s down 13.3 percent from $75,000 in February 2009.
"Sales are relative to inventory," Shelton said. "I think we need more selection to fuel more sales. If you look at the number of homes that are really available and our current sales pace, we really only have about a three-month supply of homes on the market. I think buyers want more selection."
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Who, in their right mind, is going to put their house up for sale right now to "increase" inventory when houses are selling at foreclosure prices???
NO ONE!!!
So until housing prices recover, you may eventually see NO houses on the market once forclosures and shorts have worked through the system
this is a result of the underwater market. The LV Valley is slowly moving to the point where everyone is hunkered down in their underwater home and if they try to sell it, someone want to pay less than it cost to build it in 1999 (pre boom).
Sorry Charlie, no more non foreclusre inventory until homeowners can actually sell their houses.
"Investors continued their dominate presence in February with 48.7 percent of sales being all-cash deals."
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Can anyone not see what is ahead? All this inventory is becoming rentals. I know a ton of residential buyers that want a house, but the banks only want cash from investors, thus setting up the next great housing crash in Vegas.
Oh yee ignorant banks and realtors.
Rick Shelton must be as dumb as they come. "market could benifit from an increased supply of homes". Get real. You have over 20,000 houses for sale and you have just over 2,000 buyers a month. That means each buyer has 10 homes to pick from. At this rate Las Vegas has 10 months of inventory, not 3. Let's not forget all the foreclosed homes that banks own that they have yet to bring to market too.
The problem is simple, the investors who have been doing all of the buying are out of money. The real buyers/home owners who want to buy can't because they don't have the cash to fix the homes once they buy it. The nice homes are not comming on the market because folks that are upside down can't sell without doing a short sale and killing their credit.
The best thing that can happen is for the inventory to go to ZERO. Vegas did not have a housing boom with 20,000 homes on the market. We had a housing boom with just 3,000 homes on the market. Vegas has to dump the inventory even if that casuses the median price to fall further. Once the inventory is lower than the demand prices will rise. Simple economics, supply and demand will set in and prices will jump back up. Maybe not to 2006/2007 levels but 2004/2005 prices might be nice.
Housing recovery will not happen with 20,000+ homes on the market. It certainly won't happen with even more inventory like Rick Shelton suggests.
Another way of looking at this: We've had inventories of upwards of 25,000 plus homes over the last two years. The only result has been a lowering of the median sales price and we still have inventory.
Okay like most everything printed in the news anymore this article is wrong on its numbers. Im a real estate appraiser(also have my real estate sales license and loan officer license) and have been doing this for 7 years in Vegas. Right now on the MLS their are 10,140 homes for sale in the valley of which only 8,196 are single family residences. Of those SFR's only 4,295 are non short sales. Right now the banks are creating a false market by completly controlling the supply in the market. Their are estimates that the banks are still holding onto at least 80,000 more homes and only releasing them slowly as to try to get the market value up by keeping the supply down. Now the next thing that the banks are going to do is to start to raise interest rates DRAMATICLY over the next year or 2. This will give the banks further future profits. I could go on and on for days about whats going on in the market now and what the future holds but i dont really have time but if anyone has a question they can feel free to post the question and i will get back to you with another comment.
"kevjandon" - actually the "peak" in the market occured in 2004/2005 not 06/07... the prices right now are reflecting price levels of at least 1999 levels and some areas are even lower than that and reflecting 1990 levels. if you have any questions i feel free to answer them to the best of my ability.
Home sales will NEVER recover until the job market does..
"kevjandon" - actually the "peak" in the market occured in 2004/2005 not 06/07...
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Im confused on that statement as all the resales in 06/07 of houses I knew in the area far outstripped what they were sold for in 2004/05.
I guess the first question you need to ask yourself is why would you trust somebody who heads the organization that stands to gain the most from an improved Vegas market? It is in his self-serving best interest to propogandize the current state and inflate expectations for the future.
Don't lose sight of the fact that the real estate agents, brokers and appraisers own the vast majority of blame for the bubble and its bursting, through sheer ignorance. Greed and easy money fueled them, and most are back to flipping burgers for a living.
Last year I challenged one of these real estate puppets on market-inflating comments made several years ago. His office claimed they were never said and declined to comment further. This was even after I included a link to the LVRJ article in my note.
And finally, IncognitoRebel, your statements are in direct conflict with the S&P/Case-Shiller price index. The December 2005 data point for Las Vegas was 229.42, with the peak coming 8 months later in August, at 234.78. Yet another reason to always check your resources, including your agents, brokers and appraisers.
IncognitoRebel, i guess you make some sense but one question: do all real estate appraisers in las vegas have grammar as poor as yours? how embarassing.
I'm sorry VegasBaby but you just made my point that Real Estate Peaked in 2005. Some neighborhoods peaked in 2004 and some in 2005. I saw certain homes in march of 2004 sell for $500,000 for a few weeks and then went back down to $450,000 and down to $400,000 in 2005. Not every area peaked at the same time. Every area of town was different depending upon the product. And no my statement your talking about is in no way in direct conflict with the price index your talking about because according to your price index the market did peak in august of 2005. the problem with that index is it's a nation-wide index and Las Vegas is not like the rest of the country. So like i said before the market in Las Vegas peaked in 2004/2005. Not every area peaked at the same time but almost all peaked within the 2004/2005 time period.
i am a realtor and nothing makes me more mad than when realtors or anyone in the industry tries to "predict" the market.
that's not our job.
that's why there is no "fortune telling" chapter in any real estate school, continuing education class, or any questions on the real estate exam about "guessing" the future value of a home.
and THAT'S why people jump on the "that realtor is the fault my home value went down" bandwagon.
and for real...when has MORE supply of something ever, ever, ever made prices of that item go up?
that defies 300 years of economic theory.
that was a stupid thing for him to say.
unless there is another building boom in vegas (like 2000 - 2005)that would bring in many new workers to fill all those empty homes, you will probably never, ever, see any kind of real increaase in home values in vegas.
i think if/when citycenter does that first round of layoffs, it will be a nuclear bomb for the housing market.
bam1969 i didnt realize i was getting graded on my grammer. i figured i could just type quickly and not really care about the grammer and punctuation. but like most people they seem to care more about proper grammer than the actual substance of the words. maybe cause most people have a hard time understanding things so they nit pick the actual grammer to hide the fact they really cant understand??? My question... does anyone know how to ask a question without being an a hole or trying to point out a stupid mistake to try to make themselves feel better???
I'm beginning to think that my wife and I bought at just the right time last month. We got a home on a short sale for $125k when other homes in surrounding area are at $160k. This house sold for a little over $300k 3 yrs. ago. It is a 4 bedrooms with 2450 sq/ft on a 7000 sq/ft lot in the 89032 zip code.
Even if we do get upside-down I don't think it will be for much and we expect the values to start rising again in about 5 years.
I think it's foolish for anyone to compare the discount they get now compared to 2004/2005 price. Those prices were artificially inflated by the lax lending and scams.
With the new lending guidelines and high chance of increasing interest rate, there's a long way to go before it ever gets back to that price. It could take a life time. So, don't bank on it.
Good luck
IncognitoRebel-don't pretend to be smart. you're not.
another problem is that for every foreclosure home and almost every short sale home = 1 person that is out of the real estate market for a few years. so that's 1 less person that is going to buy a home to get that inventory knocked down.
buy a house because you want to live in it, not make money off it.
Kinda of a foolish article, you DON'T need more supply - you need more demand. And you need retirees from other areas to move the LV Valley.
The lenders should have work with the home owner along time ago.The lenders thought they could resell those homes at a better price.Now they have to much debt on there books.
Once again someone from the GLVAR puts their foot in mouth. Rick Sheldon statement is just plan stupid.
i just read at article from channel 3 news from GLVAR said housing is looking up. u know and i know they full of S***. now u read this this article that home sale has dipped. people in the GLVAR office should get there fact str8. b 4 the open up there mouth.
what i been hearing and reading is that people can't get a loan from there financial institute like BoA and so on they are going to mortgage broker and i bet u we are going to be in a same situation couple year down the line. and u know these broker are up to there old tricks again.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4...
If you watch the first four minutes, then you will know all you need to know about real estate from August 2009 to August 2011.
This is data. Not opinion. Data. FACT.
3rd Quarter 2011 to 2nd Quarter 2012 are going to be total carnage in the real estate industry due to Option-Arm & Alt-A loans.
Guess what? We haven't even figured out what to do with the carnage left from the Subprime resets.
Boom goes the dynamite. Boom goes Wall Street.
I am looking forward to everything crashing again in 2011 & 2012.
I just pray I have a ton of cash to put down as the market will overcorrect itself on everything from real estate to stocks to you-name-it it will be 23-cents on the dollar.
Get liquid people, as fast as you can. The carnage is coming and no bank or political party is going to stop it. No one stopped Subprime from tearing up Real Estate & Wall Street, no one is going to stop Option-Arms & Alt-A loans from tearing up Real Estate & Wall Street again.
They MIGHT delay it at best, but they're going to let the overpopulated forest burn and correct itself. The bus is coming down the road, don't stand in front of the bus.
i just watch that 60 minute segment from LVDJLV blog it don't look good for housing. this is why bank are not lending money for housing or commercial banks know what going to happen in the next 3 to 4 years it going to be a disaster.this OPTION ARM and ALT A is going to ripped this city apart specifically real estate and wall street. i know when this happen they going to blame OBAMA. but no one to blame but greed. this is why he want change in financial institute he want this to stop this crazy crap that going on. these mortgage brokerage firm are spreading out garbage loan. may god help this city these next few years. it doesn't matter who get in office. we going to be in a s*** hole for a long time. and again i bet all these investor are going to be our next foreclosure these coming years
I have said it before and I will say it again. House prices will continue to drop until the average Joe Blow can afford a house. In the past, the average Joe Blow was helped by easy to get credit. Not so, anymore. Just watch these prices come slowly but steadily tumbling down, It does not matter what realtors or the news media says. It is simple economics.
"Sales are relative to inventory," Shelton said. "I think we need more selection to fuel more sales. If you look at the number of homes that are really available and our current sales pace, we really only have about a three-month supply of homes on the market. I think buyers want more selection."
wow, more selection?? dont worry, my home is going to be lost to the market so there goes my contribution
"...we really only have about a three-month supply of homes on the market. I think buyers want more selection."
I'm certainly not an expert and even I KNOW this is crap! A 3 month supply??? More of a selection? If buyers cannot find what they are looking for with what is currently available right now - they're not serious about buying!
"IncognitoRebel, i guess you make some sense but one question: do all real estate appraisers in las vegas have grammar as poor as yours? how embarassing"
bam1969
Would you like me to point out the errors in YOUR post?
then i heard the FEDS are not to buy bad loans at the end of month lets see what happen. but it doesn't look good. if this happen loans are goin to be harder to get. i think or some1 what to tell me some different please to tell
since we all know middle class jobs are declining.they will not increase.we sent the jobs overseas.the only way to get money to buy these houses is to have the people from overseas who now have the money americans used to have move here with their new found money and buy these houses.then we can send the present americans overseas and find their old jobs at new low wages.what a terrible economy naftra has created.