by Calculated Risk on 10/08/2014 04:04:00 PM

This is a key distressed market to follow since Las Vegas has seen the largest price decline of any of the Case-Shiller composite 20 cities.

The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported GLVAR reports local home prices inching up as fewer homes are selling

According to GLVAR, the total number of existing local homes, condominiums and townhomes sold in September was 2,982, down from 3,120 in August and down from 3,259 one year ago. [GLVAR President Heidi] Kasama said local home sales so far in 2014 are running about 12 percent behind last year’s pace. At the current pace, she said Southern Nevada has less than a four-month supply of available properties.
...
GLVAR said 34.3 percent of all local properties sold in September were purchased with cash. That’s up from 32.1 percent in August, but still near a five-year low and well short of the February 2013 peak of 59.5 percent, suggesting that fewer investors have been buying homes in Southern Nevada.
...
For nearly two years, GLVAR has reported fewer distressed sales and more traditional home sales, where lenders are not controlling the transaction. That trend continued in September, when GLVAR reported 10.4 of all sales were short sales – which occur when lenders allow borrowers to sell a home for less than what they owe on the mortgage. That’s down from 11.5 percent in August. Another 8.8 percent of all September sales were bank-owned properties, down from 8.9 percent in August.
...
The total number of single-family homes listed for sale on GLVAR’s Multiple Listing Service in September was 13,857, up 0.8 percent from 13,752 in August, but down 5.5 percent from one year ago. ...

By the end of September, GLVAR reported 8,196 single-family homes listed without any sort of offer. That’s up 5.2 percent from 7,788 such homes listed in August, and a 29.5 percent jump from one year ago.
emphasis added

There are several key trends that we've been following:

1) Overall sales were down about 8.5% year-over-year.

2) Conventional (equity, not distressed) sales were up 6% year-over-year.  In September 2013, only 69.6% of all sales were conventional equity.  This year, in September 2014, 80.8% were equity sales. 

3) The percent of cash sales has declined year-over-year from 47.2% in September 2013 to 34.3% in September 2014. (investor buying appears to be declining).

4) Non-contingent inventory is up 29.5% year-over-year. The table below shows the year-over-year change for non-contingent inventory in Las Vegas. Inventory declined sharply through early 2013, and then inventory started increasing sharply year-over-year. It appears the inventory build is slowing (an important change).

Las Vegas: Year-over-year Change in Non-contingent Inventory
Month	YoY
Jan-13	-58.3%
Feb-13	-53.4%
Mar-13	-42.1%
Apr-13	-24.1%
May-13	-13.2%
Jun-13	3.7%
Jul-13	9.0%
Aug-13	41.1%
Sep-13	60.5%
Oct-13	73.4%
Nov-13	77.4%
Dec-13	78.6%
Jan-14	96.2%
Feb-14	107.3%
Mar-14	127.9%
Apr-14	103.1%
May-14	100.6%
Jun-14	86.2%
Jul-14	55.2%
Aug-14	38.8%
Sep-14	29.5%