Welcome to Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. This is what you need to know if you are touring, making offers, or listing property this weekend in the Las Vegas Valley.

Summary: Available units continue to edge down to 11014 — a far cry from the 20581 we had available in October of 2008. The truly optimistic thing is that both distressed and non-distressed units are down. It’s no surprise that pending and contingent listings are up, now over 15,000 — over twice last year’s levels. It is still of great concern that over half the pending/contingent sales are short sale: what percentage of them will close at all? At current close rates, it would take well over a year to close all the currently contingent short sales.

Other Information: I can’t honestly say I am shocked that the Nevada foreclosure mediation program has troubles. The Mortgage Banking Association says it’s slowing things down, while mediators claim mortgage companies are giving them the runaround. It’s more or less what I expected, since many of these same institutions lied and tried to cover up their involvement in the sub-prime crisis. Elsewhere, the nice people at Calculated Risk point out that supply has been artificially reduced by various foreclosure delays and modifications while supply is artificially high because of the first time buyer tax credit (and truth be told, amateur investors lured by low prices). Another complicating factor in the long term outlook is that wages are at an 18 year low in inflation adjusted dollars. One more thing: Tim Kuptz has been through the local September closings and found that indeed, “cash is king”; cash transactions accounted for 43.2% of sales.

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