Las Vegas Home Prices Climb in April as Supply Shrinks

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According to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, local home prices kept climbing through April 2018 as the local housing supply continued contracting.

GLVAR reported that the median price for existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada during April through its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) was $289,000. That's up 3.2 percent from the previous month and up 16.1 percent from April of 2017.

"That's a pretty big jump when you think about a typical marketplace," said 2018 GLVAR President Chris Bishop. "And condo and townhome prices are up even more than that over the past year."

The median price of local condos and townhomes sold in April was $155,000, up 19.2 percent from the same time last year.

One factor pushing up prices is the increasingly tight housing supply. Bishop said Southern Nevada has about a month and a half supply of existing homes available for sale when a six-month supply is considered a balanced market.

"The biggest challenge we have in this market is available inventory, finding properties out there that people are willing to sell," Bishop explained. "We just don't have enough inventory to meet demand."

By the end of April, GLVAR reported 3,816 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That's down 24.9 percent from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 790 properties listed without offers in April represented a 23.6 percent increase from one year ago.

Bishop suspects more homeowners would consider selling if there were more homes on the market for them to buy. He cited recent surveys by the National Association of Realtors showing more than 70 percent of U.S. homeowners think it's a good to time to sell.

The low supply may also be slowing down local home sales, which have been running roughly even with last year's sales pace so far this year after increasing in recent years. The total number of existing local homes, condos and townhomes sold during April was 3,571. Compared to one year ago, April sales were up 0.4 percent for homes and up 4.5 percent for condos and townhomes.

GLVAR reported that 27.3 percent of all local properties sold in April were purchased with cash. That compares to 27.5 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 in the local housing market, but have been playing a much smaller role 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 2.5 percent of all existing local home sales in April, down from 8.4 percent of all sales one year ago.

These GLVAR statistics include activity through the end of April 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 Greater Las Vegas Area highlights include:

• The total value of local real estate transactions tracked through the MLS during April was more than $960 million for homes and nearly $117 million for condos, high-rise condos and townhomes. Compared to one year ago, total sales volumes in April were up 17.0 percent for homes and 25.4 percent for condos and townhomes.

• Homes and condos continued to sell faster than last year at this time. In April, 86.5 percent of all existing local homes and 91.5 percent of all existing local condos and townhomes sold within 60 days. That compares to one year ago, when 79.0 percent of all existing local homes and 86.4 percent of all existing local condos and townhomes sold within 60 days.