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Wednesday, November 08, 2017

Las Vegas Real Estate in October: Sales up 13% YoY, Inventory down 32%

by Calculated Risk on 11/08/2017 09:20:00 AM

This is a key distressed market to follow since Las Vegas saw the largest price decline, following the housing bubble, of any of the Case-Shiller composite 20 cities.

The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported Local Home Prices Cool Down in October, Still Well Up from One Year Ago, GLVAR Housing Statistics for October 2017

The Greater Las Vegas Association of REALTORS® (GLVAR) reported today that local home prices cooled down a bit in October, though home prices and sales are still well up from one year ago.
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By the end of October, GLVAR reported 4,795 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That’s down 32.3 percent from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 770 properties listed without offers in October represented a 32.0 percent drop from one year ago.

The total number of existing local homes, condos and townhomes sold during October was 3,633, up from 3,225 in October 2016. Compared to one year ago, sales were up 13.3 percent for homes and up 16.1 percent for condos and townhomes.

According to GLVAR, home sales so far in 2017 continue to run about 10 percent ahead of the pace from 2016, when 41,720 total properties were sold in Southern Nevada. At this rate, GLVAR statistics show that 2017 is on pace to be the best year for local home sales since at least 2012.
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In recent years, GLVAR has been reporting fewer distressed sales and more traditional home sales, where lenders are not controlling the transaction. That trend continued in October, when 2.9 percent of all local 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 5.1 percent of all sales in October 2016. Another 2.3 percent of all October sales were bank-owned, down from 5.6 percent one year ago.

  As these declining percentages indicate, [GLVAR President David] Tina said “distressed sales now make up such a small share of the local housing market that they’ve really become a non-issue.”
emphasis added
1) Overall sales were up about 13% year-over-year.

2) Active inventory (single-family and condos) is down sharply from a year ago.

3) Fewer distressed sales.