Las Vegas home prices cool down

The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors is reporting this week that local home prices continued to cool down heading into the holidays, though home prices and sales are still up from one year ago. GLVAR reported that the median price of existing single-family homes sold during November through its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) was $261,150. That's down slightly from October, but up 8.8 percent from November 2016. The median price of local condos and townhomes sold in November was $141,500, up slightly from October and up 19.0 percent from the same time last year. GLVAR President David J. Tina, said home prices are following seasonal trends and reiterated that they have been appreciating at roughly the same rate for the past few years. "Like most years, we're seeing prices level off heading into the winter months," Tina said. "This is normal. Overall, the local housing market has been steady and strong, with sales going up and prices appreciating, but not going up too quickly." As for headwinds in the housing market, Tina said demand continues to exceed the shrinking supply of homes available for sale. This tight housing supply has been presenting challenges for many buyers, especially those seeking lower-priced homes and condos. At the current sales pace, he said Southern Nevada still has less than a two-month supply of existing homes available for sale. A six-month supply is considered to be a balanced market. "We have a growing population and an undersupply of homes on the market," Tina said, adding that the housing supply is tight nationwide, with no relief in sight. "So regardless of what happens here over the next five years or so, we're still going to need more houses for all the people moving here." By the end of November, GLVAR reported 4,538 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That's down 33.1 percent from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 735 properties listed without offers in November represented a 29.1 percent drop from one year ago. The total number of existing local homes, condos and townhomes sold during November was 3,202, a slight increase from November 2016. Compared to one year ago, sales were unchanged for homes and up 5.2 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. GLVAR reported that 28.5 percent of all local properties sold in November were purchased with cash, up from 26.9 percent one year ago. That's still less than half of the February 2013 peak of 59.5 percent, indicating that cash buyers and investors are still active, but playing a smaller role in the local housing market. In recent years, GLVAR has been reporting fewer distressed sales and more traditional home sales, where lenders are not controlling the transaction. Tina said foreclosures and short sales now make up such a small share of the local housing market that "they've really become a non-issue." For instance, he said short sales and foreclosures combined accounted for fewer than 5 percent of all existing home sales during November, compared to 10.5 percent of all sales one year ago. These GLVAR statistics include activity through the end of November 2017. GLVAR distributes statistics each month based on data collected through its MLS, which does not necessarily account for newly constructed homes sold by local builders or homes for sale by owners.