Real estate by the numbers in Southern Nevada
Recently I attended a breakfast meeting where a realtor with a couple dozen years of experience recounted from his vantage point how the Las Vegas housing market is doing.
The picture wasn’t necessarily optimistic.
Some of his stats:
- 9,200 foreclosures so far this year
- No more building permits will be pulled until October
- Builders are building only for qualified buyers under contract with a three to six month wait time for a new home
- 23,000 new homes are on the books, including condos and townhomes
- 25,338 resales are on the market; the average is 12 to 24,000, which usually represents a 9-month inventory
- 1,400 single family homes were sold last month, which is down from 7,000 last year
- The median single family home price has declined to around $305,000 and ‘experts’ think it will go down another 40% before the market turns around
- Experts say we have another 18 to 24 months of decline before a turn-around
- Growth in the community remains strong; we still have 5,000 to 6,000 new move-ins each month
- High-rises and custom homes, $2 million and up, are doing well; about 20 to 30 sales each month
- Commercial rental rates are steady at around 2.50 to 2.70 per square foot
While I find it difficult to believe we’ll see another 40% decline in median home prices, there’s no mistaking that we’re on a downward trend. The question remains, when will the market bottom out and begin its recovery.
From these stats it appears that only the uber-rich are moving to Vegas. I suspect there are more blue-collar move-ins, and I guess they must be renting, not buying.
I thought we’d see a turnaround by this summer, but it looks like it may take some more time. Perhaps six months, perhaps a year. With continual growth in the community in terms of move-ins and a low unemployment rate, one could surmise a shorter, rather than longer time period for recovery.
Perhaps the best thing that could happen is for the Fed to raise interest rates and force a sort of further falling out in the sub-prime market. Maybe that would help bolster the market and coax a turnaround.
