Las Vegas Traditional Home Sales Outpace Distressed Sales

This month, SalesTraq (based in Las Vegas) announced that traditional home sales in the Las Vegas valley exceeded foreclosures in January for the first time since June 2008. The majority of homes sales are "distressed," including short sales (homes sold for less than the mortgage balance), which will keep prices down, but overall it is good news for the market that existing sales are up. From January 2009, existing home sales totaled 3,429, representing a 24/1% increase from a year previous.

According to the data, about 47% of existing sales were bank-owned homes, with a median price of $115,000. The remaining 53% were "traditional" sales (not distressed), with a median price of $125,000. Overall, the existing median price dropped 20% from a year ago to $120,000, but has been around that level since April. The median new-home price fell 14.3% to $200,716, a decrease of $33,457 from a year ago.

In Las Vegas, the resale segment has been the driver of the residential housing market for the past 12 months. There were 3,111 resales in January, compared with 2,536 a year ago. In contrast, new-home sales accounted for 10.5% of all escrow closings in 2009, compared with 41% in 2000.

Experts are reporting that banks are making positive strides in the area of short sales, which is helping them to avoid having to sell these properties in foreclosure - they hope. SalesTraq reported 1,351 real estate-owned, or bank-owned, acquisitions in January, compared with 2,367 in January 2009. REO dispositions totaled 1,628 in January, compared with 1,789 a year ago, bringing REO inventory down to 10,264 from more than 16,000 a year ago.

What does this mean for prospective home buyers? Prices are likely to stay low for much of 2010, according to the experts. However, interest rates are likely to begin rising soon, and federal tax incentives ($8000 for first-time buyers, and $6500 for repeat buyers) are set to expire April 30, which means the time is now to get the best deals on Las Vegas area homes! Call me, Yonas Woldu, and I'll assist you with all of your real estate needs. And, don't forget to visit my Vegas Real Property website and the new AskYonas website.