LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The valley's hot housing market may be cooling off.
One Las Vegas realtor say prices are dropping and inventory has doubled!
But challenges for first-time home buyers remain a tough sell.
It's a concern many first-time home buyers like Sarah Pritchard have.
Pritchard says buying a home in this current housing market is nerve-racking "We don't want to pay $4,000 a month."
Interest rates going up more than 2% in a few months.
"We have actually started to look outside of our desired area that's only about 5 to 10 minutes outside of it, but you get more bang for your buck," Pritchard said.
The Pritchard family has a baby on the way and both work full time.
They want to stop renting and would rather see that hefty cost go to a mortgage, and an increase in available properties may work in their favor.
Coldwell Banker realtor, Jennifer Graff, says right now we have almost 5,600 resale homes on the market which is double what we had this last year.
Graff says this week there has been 1,300 price reductions on homes.
"Homes are not selling as quickly as they were that means there is more opportunity and the fact that sellers are coming down from the prices in the marketplace means that there is more opportunity to negotiate price."
Graff says if you are looking to buy a home at our area's median home price of around $480,000 to secure a fairly priced interest rate on a mortgage loan you would have to put down a 20% down payment which is nearly $100,000 making the monthly payment roughly $2,600.
"Money is still more expensive, and it is probably not going to go down anytime soon if anything rates might go up again before the end of the year."
Graff those planning to buy now will have to set a budget for costs and cut back on other expenses, something Sarah says she is willing to do.
"How often are we going to go out to eat, when are we going to travel, we are both from out of state, it's a big deal to budget in and see when we will see our family."
The Pritchard's say they're just happy to see less competition, especially from out of state, giving them hope they will find the right home.
