Home prices in Southern Nevada have been going up for 18 straight months and are now 35.3% higher than they were one year ago, data from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors revealed.
Showing no signs of slowing down, the median price of an existing single-family home sold in Southern Nevada during July was $180,000, a 2.9% increase from $175,000 in June. July’s number was also up 35.3% from $133,000 one year ago.
“Local home prices have been going up since February of 2012 and are now rising faster than anyplace else in the country,” said GLVAR President Dave Tina.
“Looking back, the median price of an existing single-family home sold here in Southern Nevada bottomed out at $118,000 in January of 2012. Now it’s up to $180,000. We keep expecting these price increases to slow down at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet,” Tina added.
However, even with this recent appreciation, home prices still have a long way to go to catch up to their peak point. In 2006, the median local home price hit $315,000 in June 2006.
The median price of local condominiums and townhomes in July was $91,500, a 6.4% jump from $86,000 in June and up 37.6% from $66,500 one year ago.
While supply has started to level out in the Southern Nevada market, inventory is still too tight to meet demand. According to GLVAR, there is an increased number of homes being sold by “traditional” sellers as opposed to lenders, who are responsible for the short sales and foreclosures that dominated the market just a few months back.
In July, traditional sales made up 64% of all local home sales. GLVAR has also reported fewer foreclosures and short sales in the past few months.
Dropping from 31% in June, 28% of all existing-home sales were short sales in July. Another 8% of all July sales were bank-owned properties, down from 9% of all sales in June. Traditional sales made up the remaining 64% of all sales, up from 60% in June.
According to Tina, short sales will likely continue to be a factor in the local housing market throughout this year, mostly because the federal Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2013. Any amount of money a bank writes off in agreeing to sell a home as part of a short sale starting in 2014 may become taxable when sellers file their income taxes, barring any further extensions.
The total number of existing local homes, condominiums and townhomes sold in July was 3,633, according to GLVAR. That’s a slight dip from 3,642 in June, but ultimately up from 3,572 total sales in July 2012.
According to GLVAR, the total number of properties listed for sale on its MLS increased in July, with 14,133 single-family homes listed for sale at the end of the month. This number is up 2.8% from June’s 13,750 single-family homes.
