Homebuyers face ‘double whammy’

Record January for sales comes with downside

Las Vegas homebuilders started the year with their best January sales tally in a decade, a new report says.

Builders closed 704 new-home sales in Clark County last month, up 35 percent from January 2017, according to Home Builders Research.

The median sales price of January’s closings was $352,984, up 7 percent year over year.

Builders also pulled 907 newhome permits last month, up 45 percent from a year earlier.

The sales tally was the highest for a January in the past 10 years, and the permit total was the largest firstmonth tally in the past 11 years.

Home Builders Research founder Dennis Smith and President Andrew Smith wrote that prices “backed off a little” from the prior four months’ increases.

But, they added, they “have little doubt that this will be a short respite” from the market’s overall rising prices, which reached record levels last year.

They said many people believe that rising mortgage rates are a key reason for the early-year sales jump, as “fence sitters” are buying to avoid further rate hikes. Higher rates boost borrowing costs, creating larger, potentially unaffordable monthly payments.

But home prices also are climbing, the Smiths noted, so the market “is experiencing a double whammy to the affordability issue.”