April Las Vegas Metro Area Home Sales

Las Vegas region April home sales dipped a bit more than usual from March and eked out only a tiny gain from a year earlier as buyers found fewer foreclosed properties to choose from. The median sale price inched above the year-ago level for the first time in more than three years – the result of declining foreclosure resales, fewer sub-$100,000 deals and widening price stability as first-time buyers and investors continue to compete, a real estate information service reported.

Foreclosure resales – homes that had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months – fell to 51.9 percent of all resales in April, down from 53.5 percent in March and down from a record-high 73.7 percent in April 2009, according to MDA DataQuick of San Diego. The firm tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records.

Foreclosure resales have declined each month since the year-ago peak. Last month’s figure was the lowest since foreclosure resales were 48.1 percent of the resale market in March 2008.

A total of 4,462 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the Las Vegas-Paradise metro area (Clark County) last month, down 8.5 percent from March but up 0.2 percent from a year earlier. A decline in sales between March and April is not unusual, with the decrease averaging 4.3 percent since 1994, when DataQuick’s complete Las Vegas region stats begin.

April’s sales total was the highest for that month since April 2006, when 6,663 homes sold, but it was 4.2 percent below the average April sales tally back to 1994. Last month marked the 20th in a row in which sales have risen on a year-over-year basis, although last month’s increase was the smallest yet.

Although the federal home buyer tax credit didn’t appear to have had a large impact on April sales, it’s difficult to know how much weaker sales might have been without that incentive. Most buyers who rushed last month to meet the April 30 federal tax credit deadline to sign a sales contract wouldn’t close escrow until May or June.

Last month’s sales of homes priced below $100,000 fell to 29.5 percent of all transactions, down from 32.4 percent in March and 31.9 percent in April 2009.

The number of houses and condos that resold (excludes new homes) in April fell to 3,982, down 8.1 percent from March and down 3.6 percent from a year earlier. Until April, resales had risen on a year-over-year basis for 23 straight months.

Sales of newly built houses and condos totaled 480 in April, down 11.6 percent from March but up 48.1 percent from a year earlier. It was still the second-slowest April, behind last year, for new-home sales since at least 1994.

The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos sold in the Las Vegas metro area in April was $133,955, up 3.0 percent from $130,000 in March and up 0.7 percent from $133,000 a year earlier. The year-over-year increase was the first since February 2007, when the median rose 2.2 percent from a year earlier, to $300,000.

Last month’s median was still 57.1 percent below the peak $312,000 median in November 2006.

The median price paid for resale single-family detached houses – by far the region’s largest home-type category – was $140,000, up from $135,000 in March but still down 1.4 percent from $142,000 a year ago. It was the smallest annual decline since the resale house median began falling year-over-year in May 2007. The April median was 55.2 percent lower than the peak $312,250 resale house median in June 2006.

The median price paid last month for resale condos was $75,000, up from $68,500 in March and up 13.6 percent from $66,000 a year earlier, marking the first annual gain for existing condos in three years. The resale condo median had been hovering a bit above or below $70,000 for nearly a year. April’s resale condo median was 63.1 percent below its $203,000 peak in July 2006.

An alternative price gauge – the median paid per square foot for resale single-family detached houses – rose slightly in April, to $78, up from $77 in March and the same as a year earlier. Last month marked the first time that price measure didn’t fall year-over-year since November 2006, when the median paid per square foot rose 1 percent, to $186. April’s figure was still 59.0 percent below the June 2006 peak of $190 per square foot.

Meantime, foreclosures rose last month. In April, 3,264 single-family house and condo units were foreclosed on in the Las Vegas region, up 29.2 percent from March and up 88.0 percent from a year ago. The peak month was February 2009, when 3,718 homes were foreclosed on. The figures are based on the number of Trustees Deeds filed at the Clark County recorder’s office.

The foreclosure totals can include units that the county assessor has designated condos, but are currently used as apartments (e.g. a 100-unit complex designated as condos but used as apartments could be foreclosed on and those units would be reflected in the foreclosure total for that month). For this reason and others, the number of foreclosure filings has seesawed over the past year, and a single month’s increase or decline doesn’t necessarily indicate the beginning of a lasting trend.

Between January and April this year, 8,875 house and condo units were foreclosed on, down 15.9 percent from the same period last year.

In April, a popular form of financing among first-time home buyers – government-insured FHA loans – accounted for 52.2 percent of all home purchase loans.

Absentee buyers purchased 42.0 percent of all Las Vegas–area homes sold in April, paying a median $117,000, which was up from a median of $110,000 in March and $101,000 a year earlier. Absentee buyers bought 41.5 percent of the homes sold in March and 36.1 percent in April 2009. Absentee buyers are often investors, but can include second-home buyers and others who, for various reasons, indicate at the time of sale that the property tax bill will go to a different address.

Buyers who appear to have used cash to purchase their homes accounted for 48.0 percent of all April sales, up from 47.9 percent in March and up from 43.4 percent a year earlier, based on an analysis of public property records. The median price paid in these seemingly all-cash deals in April was $112,000, up from $103,750 in March and $88,000 a year ago.

Specifically, these all-cash deals were transactions where there was no indication of a purchase mortgage recorded at the time of sale. Some of these “cash” buyers could have used alternative financing arrangements outside of a typical, recorded purchase mortgage, and in some cases they might be taking out mortgages after their purchases. All-cash deals have become popular in many Western markets where prices have dropped sharply, luring investor buyers who can’t always qualify for traditional mortgages. Moreover, sellers favor the relative speed and certainty of all-cash transactions.

Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA

Number of sales	Apr-09	Apr-10	%Chng
Resale houses	3,335	3,098	-7.1%
Resale condos	794	884	11.3%
New homes	324	480	48.1%
All homes	4,453	4,462	0.2%

Median sale price	Apr-09	Apr-10	%Chng
Resale houses	$142,000	$140,000	-1.4%
Resale condos	$66,000	$75,000	13.6%
New homes	$218,000	$195,949	-10.1%
All homes	$133,000	$133,955	0.7%