Las Vegas Real Estate Market August 2008
Aug 11th, 2008 by Forrest
The Greater Las Vegas real estate market has sustained the momentum that we have witnessed these past several months! We continue to purge this market of a great deal of bank owned property. Bank owned REO sales accounted for nearly seventy percent (70%) of all residential closings. The number of available listings is holding steady and again July closings were close to 20% above the June numbers.
Great, so let’s dive right into the positive news and numbers this month . . . but first download and take a look at: July 2008 Resale Market Snapshot.
We still see many more properties listed “in the selling zone” and selling in a relative short timeframe while those “out of the selling zone” continue to age in MLS without selling. Approximately 40% of July 2008 closings (those in the selling zone at listing) were under 90 days on the market with an average of 60 Days on Market. The remaining 60% suffered an average of 230 Days on Market (that’s nearly 8 months … definitely out of the selling zone).
Listing prices have now dropped 23% since September 2007 while closed sales are up 194% since their low in December. June closed sales represent another 18% improvement over June; more importantly, this is the third month since August 2006 that we have witnessed more than 2000 single family home closings. Closed sales prices dropped another 5% in the past month; that means that closed sales prices continue to decline faster than listing prices . At the same time overall inventory generally held constant. The average Cumulative Days on Market is still 163 days and this market continues to carry a high number of overpriced listings in inventory. Yet the very best news is that July closings represents a seventeen percent (17%) 30-day absorbtion rate; compare that to 4.9% in December 2007!
The current momentum has certainly set a good tone for the balance of 2008. (See SFR Sales Trends 2004 - 2008). In fact, it’s looking like that the remainder of 2008 may trend above the same period for 2006, even with a normal seasonal downturn in closings. This may be far from a full recovery, but we’re now moving in the right direction!
But let’s stay Focused on Price Reductions and assist even more sellers by getting their listings in “The Selling Zone”!
Based on your report the numbers for July show that we are now down to a little under 6 months of inventory! Is that not historically a “Normal” market? Looks like we may be lots closer to a “Normal” market than most people think! Even with all of the bad news coming from the national media and the slow down of construction on the Strip. Now we just need another 10% increase in closings and a 10% decrease in inventory an we will be full steam ahead!!