Las Vegas home prices bounce back a bit while sales slow

A recent Las Vegas Realtors report shows local home prices rebounded a bit after stalling for months, while sales continued to slide.

LVR reported the median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada through its Multiple Listing Service during April was $430,000. That’s up 1.2 percent from $425,000 in March but down 9.5 percent from $475,000 in April 2022. It’s also down from the all-time record home price of $482,000 in May 2022.

The median price of local condos and townhomes sold in April was $270,000. That’s up 3.8 percent from the previous month but down 1.8 percent from $275,000 in April 2022. It’s also down from the all-time record condo and townhome price of $285,000 set in May 2022.

LVR President Lee Barrett, a longtime local Realtor, said Southern Nevada has been showing signs of nearing the bottom of the most recent downturn in the local and national housing markets.

“With local home and condo prices rising slightly from the previous month, this may be another indication that we are either at or maybe even past the bottom of this cycle,” Barrett said. “Until April, local home prices hadn’t really changed since December. It had been more than four years since local home prices stayed flat for that long.”

By the end of April, LVR reported 3,737 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That is up 53.1 percent from the same time last year. Likewise, the 964 condos and townhomes listed without offers in April represent an 89.8 percent jump from one year earlier.

Meanwhile, fewer homes are changing hands. LVR reported a total of 2,497 existing local homes, condos and townhomes sold in April. Compared with April 2022, sales were down 34.6 percent for homes and down 31.1 percent for condos and townhomes.

The sales pace in April equates to less than a two-month supply of properties available for sale. Last year at this time, Barrett said Southern Nevada was facing a housing shortage and had less than a one-month supply.

Local home sales are on pace to be lower than they were in 2022, when LVR reported 35,584 total sales. That followed a record year for existing local home sales in 2021, when LVR reported 50,010 homes, condos, townhomes and other residential properties were sold. That was the first time LVR reported more than 50,000 local properties selling in a year. It topped the previous record set in 2011 by nearly 2,000 sales.

During April, LVR found that 22.3 percent of all local property sales were purchased with cash. That is down from 32 percent one year ago. It’s also well below the April 2013 cash buyer peak of 59.5 percent a decade ago.

The number of distressed sales remains near historically low levels. LVR reported that short sales and foreclosures combined accounted for 0.8 percent of all existing local property sales in April. That compares with 0.5 percent one year ago, 0.9 percent two years ago, 1.5 percent three years ago, 3 percent of all sales four years ago and 2.5 percent five years ago.

The LVR statistics include activity through the end of April. LVR distributes statistics each month based on data collected through its MLS, which does not account for all 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 April was more than $1 billion for homes and more than $150 million for condos, high-rise condos and townhomes. Compared with one year ago, total sales values in April were down 41.2 percent for homes and down 34.9 percent for condos and townhomes.

■ In April, 71.5 percent of all existing local homes and 75.7 percent of all existing local condos and townhomes sold within 60 days. That’s down from one year earlier, when 94 percent of all existing local homes and 96.1 percent of all existing local condos and townhomes sold within 60 days.

Las Vegas Realtors (formerly known as GLVAR) was founded in 1947 and provides its nearly 17,000 local members with education, training and political representation. The local representative of the National Association of Realtors, LVR is the largest professional organization in Southern Nevada. For more information, visit LasVegasRealtor.com.