The Southern Nevada housing market may be cooling off.
The Greater Las Vegas Association of REALTORS says the median price for existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada through its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) during December was $295,250, nearly the same as November, but still up 10.2 percent from $267,900 in December of 2017.
The median price of local condos and townhomes sold in December was $163,500. That was down slightly from November, but still up 14.3 percent from $143,000 in December of 2017.
“The local housing market has been slowing down over the past few months,” said newly installed 2019 GLVAR President Janet Carpenter, a longtime local REALTOR®. “Home prices are still up by double digits from one year ago, but our prices haven’t changed much since the fall. Some of this slowdown is normal for this time of year. Only time will tell how much of this cooling trend is seasonal.”
Until recent months, local home prices had generally been rising since early 2012, inching closer to their all-time peak. According to GLVAR, the median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada peaked at $315,000 in June of 2006. Local home prices hit a post-recession bottom of $118,000 in January of 2012.
By the end of December, GLVAR reported 6,615 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That’s up 72.9 percent from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 1,528 properties listed without offers in December represented a 132.9 percent jump from one year ago.
Compared to one year ago, December sales were down 18.2 percent for homes and down 11.8 percent for condos and townhomes. GLVAR reported a total of 42,876 property sales in 2018, down from 45,388 in all of 2017.
The number of so-called distressed sales continues to drop each year. GLVAR reported that short sales and foreclosures combined accounted for just 2.9 percent of all existing local property sales in December, compared to 3.6 percent of all sales one year ago and 11 percent two years ago.
