Greater Las Vegas Home Prices Continue to Rise in March

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According to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, local home prices rose again in March 2018 while the local housing supply stayed tight.

GLVAR reported that the median price for existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada during March through its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) was $280,000. That's up 1.8 percent from the previous month and up 15.7 percent from March of 2017. The median price of local condos and townhomes sold in March was $160,000, up 30.1 percent from the same time last year.

"Home prices and sales usually pick up in the spring, but prices for both homes and condos are going up faster so far this year than they usually do," said 2018 GLVAR President. "As for how many homes we're selling, sales are fairly similar to this time last year and have begun to level off a bit. We attribute that, at least in part, to the fact that our local housing supply remains so tight, with about 30 percent fewer homes on the market now than we had one year ago."

The total number of existing local homes, condos and townhomes sold during March was 3,886. Compared to one year ago, March sales were down 1.3 percent for homes, but up 3.7 percent for condos and townhomes.

By the end of March, GLVAR reported 3,835 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That's down 30.1 percent from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 761 properties listed without offers in March represented a 6.4 percent increase from one year ago.

Southern Nevada still has less than a two-month supply of existing homes available for sale when a six-month supply is considered a balanced market.

"We still need more homes to sell," Bishop said. "But at least our inventory didn't shrink any further between February and March."

GLVAR reported that 25.2 percent of all local properties sold in March were purchased with cash. That's down from 29.5 percent one year ago. That's well below the February 2013 peak of 59.5 percent, indicating that cash buyers and investors are still active, but are playing a much smaller role in the local housing market than they were five years ago.

Meanwhile, the number of so-called distressed sales continues to decline. GLVAR reported that short sales and foreclosures combined accounted for 2.9 percent of all existing local home sales in March, compared to 9.8 percent of all sales one year ago.

These GLVAR statistics include activity through the end of March 2018. GLVAR distributes statistics each month based on data collected through its MLS, which does not necessarily account for newly constructed homes sold by local builders or homes for sale by owners.

Other Las Vegas highlights include:

• The total value of local real estate transactions tracked through the MLS during March was more than $1 billion for homes and nearly $126 million for condos, high-rise condos and townhomes. Compared to one year ago, total sales volumes in March were up 14.9 percent for homes and up 33.5 percent for condos and townhomes.

• Homes and condos continued to sell faster than last year at this time. In March, 82.0 percent of all existing local homes and 89.0 percent of all existing local condos and townhomes sold within 60 days. That compares to one year ago, when 75.9 percent of all existing local homes and 81.2 percent of all existing local condos and townhomes sold within 60 days.