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Home sales continue to improve as prices decline
By Stephen Roberts | October 14, 2008
Southern Nevada existing home sales have continued to climb over the past several months as the areas home prices have progressively fallen. Sales have risen year over year for the past 5 consecutive months to a high of 3218 existing home sales in August. This figure showed an increase of 60.9% from August 2007. July’s figures were 3173 sales with an increase of 56.5% from a year ago.
These existing home sale increases are being helped along by the decrease in area home prices to a low of $200,000 in August, which is a drop of 27% from the prior year.
The number of foreclosures on our market is the main reason for the decrease in home prices. Foreclosures reached a new high of 2839 in the Valley which represents an increase of 195% from August 2007. In August 2008, the percentage of closings that were foreclosures was 60%. These foreclosed homes had a median sales price of $189,000, while the other 40% of the closed sales had a median price of $220,000.
Other key housing figures show some positive news as well including; a decrease of almost 7,000 homes on the MLS system, this represents approximately a 7 months supply which shows much better stability than the previous year when there were well over a one year supply. Also, the amount of time that homes are remaining on the market has dropped considerably from the beginning of the year from an average of 93 days in January to an average of 62 days in August.
So while the Las Vegas and Henderson Real Estate outlook is not completely rosy, there are some positive signs that we could soon be in a recovery mode. It is widely acknowledged that the final piece of the equation will be when we begin to see prices stabilize.
Topics: Henderson Nevada Homes, Las Vegas Nevada Real Estate | No Comments »