April Las Vegas Home Sale Press Release

Las Vegas Region April Home Sales

Las Vegas-area April home sales dipped more than usual from March and fell year-over-year as sales of lender-repossessed properties continued to wane and buyers faced a slimmer inventory of homes for sale. With foreclosure resales hitting a more-than-four-year low, the overall median sale price rose above a year earlier – albeit slightly – for the first time in 22 months, a real estate information service reported.

In April, 4,409 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the Las Vegas-Paradise metro area (Clark County). That was down 12.2 percent from the month before and down 1.8 percent from a year earlier, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. The firm tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records. It was the first time in 10 months that total sales had dropped on a year-over-year basis.

On average, sales between March and April have fallen 5.0 percent since 1994, when DataQuick’s complete Las Vegas region statistics begin. April sales were 4.9 percent below the average number sold during that month since 1994, and were the lowest for an April since 2008, when 3,266 homes sold.

In April, 3,912 homes resold (excludes newly built homes), down 11.9 percent from the prior month and down 4.4 percent year-over-year. Resales have fallen for the past two months, following 14 consecutive months of year-over-year gains.

April’s 497 sales of newly-built homes represented a 24.6 percent year-over-year gain, marking the 10th consecutive month to post an annual increase. It was the highest new-home total for an April since April 2008, when 958 new homes closed escrow.

The total number of homes that sold for less than $100,000 rose a scant .1 percent last month compared with a year earlier – a sign sub-$100,000 deals are getting harder to come by. The number of homes that sold for less than $200,000 last month fell 4.7 percent from a year earlier, while the number that sold between $200,000 and $500,000 rose 16.0 percent. The number of sales above $500,000 fell 18.1 percent compared with a year earlier.

The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos sold in the Las Vegas metro area in April was $119,900, up 4.3 percent from $115,000 the prior month and up 2.5 percent from $117,000 a year earlier. April was the third consecutive month to post a month-to-month gain in the median, and it was the first month since June 2010 in which the median rose year-over-year.

Last month’s modest year-over-year gain in the median sale price was largely a reflection of the substantial drop in the share of all resales that were foreclosed properties, which tend to carry significant discounts and be concentrated in lower-cost areas. Other price measures, such as the median price paid per square foot for resale single-family detached houses, continued to show small declines compared with a year ago.

Last month’s $119,900 overall median price was 61.6 percent below the November 2006 peak of $312,000. In recent months the median has been rising off a cyclical low point of $110,000 this January – the lowest level since the median was also $110,000 in April 1994.

The median’s recent decline to levels not seen since the mid 1990s can be attributed to several factors: home price depreciation; robust sales of low-cost foreclosures; robust sales to investors, who mainly target low-cost properties; historically low new-home sales (new homes tend to sell for more than resale homes); and higher-than-usual condo resales (condos tend to be the least expensive homes).

April's new-home sales represented 11.3 percent of all transactions, compared with a monthly average of about 28 percent of all sales over the last decade. April’s condo sales represented 17.8 percent of total Las Vegas sales, compared with a 10-year monthly average of about 14 percent.

An alternative home-price gauge – the median paid per square foot for resale single-family detached houses – was $67 in April, up 3.1 percent from $65 the month before but down 4.3 percent from $70 a year earlier. (This January’s $64 median per square foot was the lowest since at least 1994.) The April figure was 65.8 percent lower than the peak $190 paid per square foot in May and June 2006.

Absentee buyers – mainly investors and vacation-home buyers – purchased a near-record 50.6 percent of all Las Vegas-area homes sold last month. That compares with a record 51.2 percent the month before and 47.4 percent a year earlier. Absentee buyers paid a median $97,450 last month, up from $95,000 the prior month and down from $99,900 a year earlier. Absentee buyers are those who indicated at the time of sale that the property tax bill will go to a different address.

Cash buyers purchased 53.5 percent of the Las Vegas-area homes that sold last month. That was down from a cash-buyer share of 54.4 percent of total sales the month before and 54.0 percent a year earlier. The peak was 56.7 percent in February 2011. Cash purchases are where there is no sign of a corresponding purchase mortgage in the public record. Last month’s cash buyers paid a median $90,000, up from $87,000 the prior month and the same as a year earlier.

Distressed property sales – the combination of foreclosure resales and “short sales” – continued to trend downward last month, representing about 59 percent of the resale market. That was down from about 63 percent the month before and down from nearly 69 percent a year earlier.

Foreclosure resales – homes that had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months – accounted for 44.0 percent of Las Vegas resale activity in April. That compares with 49.0 percent the month before and 55.7 percent a year earlier. Foreclosure resales peaked at 73.7 percent of the resale market in April 2009. Last month’s figure was the lowest for any month since January 2008, when foreclosure resales were 43.3 percent of all resales.

Short sales – transactions where the sale price fell short of what was owed on the property – made up an estimated 14.6 percent of the resale market last month. That compares with an estimated 13.6 percent the prior month and 12.8 percent a year ago.

In the wake of a new Nevada law that creates additional requirements for lenders trying to foreclose on properties, the number of notices of default (“NODs”) filed in Clark County has plummeted in recent months. In April, lenders filed 1,182 NODs, down 6.3 percent from the prior month and down 69.4 percent from a year earlier. The notice of default is the first step in the formal foreclosure process.

Lenders foreclosed on 1,237 homes in the Las Vegas region in April, down 11.3 percent from the month before and down 65.9 percent from a year earlier. Between January and April this year, lenders foreclosed on 6,315 single-family house and condo units, down 47.2 percent from the same period last year.

A form of low-down-payment financing that’s popular with first-time home buyers – government-insured FHA loans – accounted for 36.5 percent of all home purchase loans last month. That was the lowest level since it was also 36.5 percent in June 2008. Last month’s figure was down from 39.5 percent the prior month and 41.2 percent a year earlier. The current cycle’s peak for FHA use was 55.1 percent of all purchase loans in September 2008.
See the full home sale chart at DQNews.com.