Local home prices set record while supply shrinks

Median price of resale home at $355,000

A recent report by Las Vegas Realtors shows local home prices hitting a record high while sales are increasing and the housing supply keeps shrinking.

LVR — formerly known as the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors — reported the median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada through its Multiple Listing Service during February

was $355,000. That breaks the all-time record set in November and tied in December and again in January. February’s median home price is up 12.3 percent from $316,000 during the same month last year.

Local condos and town homes also posted double-digit gains compared with one year ago, selling for a median price of $197,500 in February. That’s up 12.9 percent from $175,000 in February of 2020.

“As we’ve been saying for months, our housing market continues to perform better than most people expected when this pandemic started,” LVR President Aldo Martinez said. “Still, we’re looking forward to getting through this, to stabilizing the economy and increasing consumer confidence so people feel more comfortable buying and selling homes and moving when the need arises.”

Martinez, a longtime local Realtor who became LVR president on Jan. 1, said the number of local homes available for sale remains well below the six-month supply considered to be a balanced market. He said the sales pace in February equates to less than a one-month supply of existing homes available for sale.

While that creates challenges for potential buyers, he said it also “presents a rare opportunity for home sellers, who have never seen a better time to sell their home for top dollar.”

By the end of February, LVR reported 1,677 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That is down 60.4 percent from one year ago. For condos and town homes, the 675 properties listed without offers in February represent a 44.4 percent drop from one year ago.

LVR reported a total of 3,489 existing local homes, condos and town homes were sold during February. Compared with the same time last year, February sales were up 12 percent for homes and up 16.8 percent for condos and town homes.

According to LVR, the total number of existing local homes, condos, town homes and other residential properties sold in Southern Nevada during 2020 was 41,617. That was up from 41,269 total sales in 2019. By comparison, LVR reported 42,876 total sales in 2018 and 45,388 in 2017.

For years, Southern Nevada made headlines for riding a real estate roller-coaster, with pre-recession home prices soaring to record highs and then falling faster than almost anywhere else in the U.S. during the Great Recession. Since the pandemic started last year, the local housing market has been more in line with national trends, with a shortage of homes available for sale and historically low mortgage interest rates contributing to increasing sales and record prices.

During February, LVR reported that 26 percent of all local property sales were purchased with cash. That compares with 25.1 percent one year ago. That’s well below the February 2013 peak of 59.5 percent, suggesting that cash buyers and investors have been less active in the local housing market than in past years.

Despite the coronavirus crisis and economic downturn, the number of distressed sales remains near historically low levels. LVR reported that short sales and foreclosures combined accounted for 0.6 percent of all existing local property sales in February. That compares with 2.5 percent of all sales one year ago, 2.6 percent two years ago, 3.8 percent three years ago and 10.6 percent four years ago.

The LVR statistics include activity through the end of February. LVR 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. Other highlights include:

The total value of local real estate transactions tracked through the MLS during February was more than $1.2 billion for homes and more than $158 million for condos, high-rise condos and town homes. Compared with one year ago, total sales values in February were up 33 percent for homes and up 36.5 percent for condos and town homes.

Homes have been selling faster than they were one year earlier. In February, 81.9 percent of all existing local homes and 77.4 percent of all existing local condos and town homes sold within 60 days. That compares with one year ago, when 68.5 percent of all existing local homes and 66.9 percent of all existing local condos and town homes sold within 60 days.