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July 2, 2010
Welcome to Friday Figures! And a very special welcome to all the new readers at the Living in Las Vegas Podcast & Blog! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. Friday Figures is real information on the Las Vegas real estate market, and the no-nonsense numbers you and your Realtor need to know before touring, listing, or making a purchase offer on a home this weekend. As always, the first Friday of the month I share month-over-month numbers to give you an idea of where the trends lie.
Summary: Available inventory rose again to 12038, almost 20% from the 10888 we had at the beginning of June. As promised, I crunched numbers and unfortunately from a strict chart standpoint I saw signs that available units might go as high as 15000 in the coming months. Between that and the end of the home buyer tax credit, that means buyers will have more options and less competition. There are more low-priced units available, but many of them cannot be financed for various reasons. Pending and contingent properties dropped, mostly due to properties closing before the end of the month to take advantage of the home buyer tax credit. However, we still have over 10,000 short sales waiting for bank approval before they can close; some may never close and some may be taken back by the bank. This number is down, but still alarming. As expected, we had a rush of closings in the last week; don’t expect another 1200+ sales completed any week soon!
Other Information: President Obama signed the extension of the home buyer tax credit this morning, but remember it only helps you if your contract was signed by the end of April! As usual, Calculated Risk is on top of all the national real estate figures, including the fact that even though banks only have a half million foreclosures on the books, there are ten times that number of seriously delinquent loans waiting for short sales, loan modifications, or foreclosure. BondDad has the latest Case-Shiller numbers; Las Vegas house prices were up 0.2% in April, but down 8.5% year over year. I am willing to take the good news where we find it! Nobody is surprised that one in three home sales in the first quarter of this year was a foreclosed home (it’s a bit higher locally). And finally with 2 major fires and legal fireworks, air quality may be a bit lower than average this weekend; take it easy and remember things like water and sunscreen.
