by Bridget Magnus — published on March 12th, 2010
Thank you for reading Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. This is critical data for anyone touring, making an offer, or listing a home in the Las Vegas Valley this weekend.
Summary: Available listings dropped slightly to 10763, while prices remain stable and time on market dropped slightly. The early bird is clearly catching the worm when it comes to the “best” listings — median time on market for homes sold in the last 30 days was just over a month. We also have 14958 contingent and pending units! Will we break through 15,000 next week? Will some of the 9400+ contingent short sales get approval and eventually close? Only time will tell. As it stands, only about 700 short sales per month are closing, so it will be a long time to get through all of them!
Other Information: There’s a lot of real estate news out this week, and a lot of it has to do with short sales. Remember, that’s when the mortgage company will be “short” money at the end. A lot of the current buzz is about the Treasury Department “program encouraging owners and banks” to do a short sale that begins next month. It is important to remember that this is a program, not a law or a regulation! I seriously question how many lenders will actually participate, particularly those who hold second mortgages. Meanwhile, we have very conflicting signals about future foreclosures. Remember, a lot of those short sales will eventually turn into foreclosures if nothing is done. On one hand, foreclosure activity declined 2% in February. On the other hand, the Washington Post estimates that there are 5,000,000 to 7,000,000 foreclosures waiting to happen nationwide. One last item, our local unemployment rate has risen to 13.8%. Wow.
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by Bridget Magnus — published on March 5th, 2010
It’s time once again for Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. This is critical data for anyone touring, making an offer, or listing a home in the Las Vegas Valley this weekend.
Summary: Available listings are under the 11,000 mark at 10859, almost 200 less than at the beginning of last month, but the interesting part is that time on market is down quite a bit from last week. Median prices are unchanged, but that won’t last long if inventory and time on market are both decreasing. Interestingly enough, there has been a notable drop in the number of million dollar plus homes available. Contingent units edged up to 14,629, but my concerns over how many of those will actually close remain. We did have over 800 closings in the last week, a level we haven’t seen in months. All things considered, our current market conditions are slowly improving, and much better than it was 2 years ago in every way except price. However, continued improvement is all in the hands of the big mortgage players and banks: they alone will determine how many short sales succeed and how many foreclosed homes hit the market — and at what prices.
Other Information: It’s hard to talk about the housing situation without remembering that unemployment is still high at 9.7% and the economy is losing jobs — it’s hard to pay the mortgage without a paycheck. Here’s an interesting item on housing prices and job creation. At least a jobs bill has been passed by the House, even if it’s too small to count for much by some estimates. There is pressure to break up “too big to fail” banks, and that would include big mortgage players like Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
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by Bridget Magnus — published on February 26th, 2010
Happy Friday! I’m glad you could join me for Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. Are you planning on touring, making an offer, or listing a home in the Las Vegas Valley this weekend? This is what you need to be aware of first!
Summary: Available units remain just under 11,000 at 10887. Contingent and pending units rose slightly to roughly 14,600, but the real question is how many of the 9800+ short sales in that number will ever close? The number of short sales that actually close has been inching up, but it will still be a long time before we work through currently contingent properties. Our rental market is still going strong, with available units continuing to decline. It’s a great time to be an investor with cash and plenty of patience in Las Vegas.
Other Information: There’s a lot going on in the housing market nationally, so please bear with me on these rather economics heavy items. Rental prices suggest that housing prices are a little high, but still closer to the bottom than the top nationally (this probably does not apply locally). The same author points out that the number of available rental units has surged, depressing rental prices (locally we have a divergence between available apartments and available rental homes/condos). The Case-Shiller index shows “mixed” results, which is no surprise to me. While sales of existing homes is brisk due to artificially low prices driven by the foreclosure market, the sale of new homes is hitting record lows. The CEO of Freddie Mac does expect a new wave of foreclosures, but President Obama wants to prevent that by requiring HAMP review before foreclosing — an already overwhelmed system. This of course will only be helpful if principal cramdown is on the table as a modification. The Review-Journal told us what my readers already know: that investors with cash are the driving force in our market right now. Mortgage rates are inching up, but I am having a hard time panicking over rates at 5.05%.
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by Bridget Magnus — published on February 21st, 2010
This morning, the Las Vegas Review Journal was kind enough to point out that prices of sold homes in every Vegas area Zip code declined in 2009. Some areas only declined 10-11%, while others saw drops of 57-60%. On average, prices dropped 23%. Be sure to click on the map insert for a detailed view of every Zip code. One thing worth noting is that “ZIP code 89146, south of Charleston Boulevard between Rainbow and Decatur boulevards, was the only area with positive appreciation (3 percent) in 2008. The median price dropped 57 percent last year to $110,000.”
However, Larry Murphy, President of the company that provided the data, sees some signs for optimism. First, there are positive technical indicators if you were to put prices on a chart. Second, new homes simply can’t be built for what existing homes sell for in Vegas right now — if your home burned to the ground, you would be better off financially buying a new place and bulldozing the old place than trying to rebuild! And finally, there is tremendous opportunity for investors to purchase property and having positive “cash flow” — bringing in more money in rent than the property costs to maintain. While Mr. Murphy does think prices will stay near current levels for the rest of the year, he sees our market as “undervalued.”
by Bridget Magnus — published on February 19th, 2010
It’s time for Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system, which now finally supports access by Macintosh users. Touring, making an offer, or listing a home in the Las Vegas Valley this weekend? Read this first!
Summary: Below, I am including year-over-year figures to show just how far our local real estate market has come. We’re not out of the woods yet, but it is better than it was! Available units are steady at 10902, still just under 11,000. Distressed sales are fairly steady, but down sharply year over year. Contingent and pending units continue to trend upwards; will they break through 15,000 in a few weeks, or will they stay steady around 14,000? Actual sold units seem to be settling in to a “new normal” of roughly 5oo per week. It doesn’t take a lot of math to see that we will be working through those 14,000 contingent units for some time, and many will never close — particularly short sales. The number of rentals available continues to decline and median rent per square foot is edging up, which is great news for investors.
Other Information: More distressed sales are expected in the next few years — Standard and Poor thinks it will take almost 3 years to clear “shadow” inventory — but can banks prove they actually hold the mortgage? At least short sales are (slowly) starting to move. Many homeowners have become pessimistic, and some Baby Boomers have decided to just stay put until property values rise again (assuming unforeseen circumstances do not force a move). The President is in town today, where he plans to unveil yet another housing help initiative to the tune of $1.5 billion in TARP funds. (and n all likelihood say nice things about Harry Reid). And just for fun, top 10 versions of “Viva Las Vegas.”
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by Bridget Magnus — published on February 12th, 2010
Happy Lincoln’s Birthday and welcome to Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. Here’s what you and your Realtor need to know before touring, making an offer, or listing a home in the Las Vegas Valley this weekend.
Summary: Available units dropped ever so slightly to 10927. Prices of available units are in a tight range not really reflected by the week-to-week change. I am concerned by the jump in available condos under $50,000, but many of these are just price drops from the $50,000-$100,000 range, and the median price is only down by $100. Pending and contingent sales rose over 14,000 again; it seems likely that this number will remain in a tight range just like the number of available units. It is worth noticing that over 9500 of those units are short sales and many are at risk of foreclosing before closing! More short sales are closing as a percentage of total closings, but it will still take well over a year to clear out the current contingent short sales alone, let alone any currently available short sales. Thanks to a surge in signed leases, the number of available rentals has dropped below 5000.
Other Information: The Review-Journal points out that January sales were up 17% year over year, and that 21% of existing homes sold were short sales. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make a dent in available short sales. Zillow does think we are putting in a bottom for prices this year after a further “correction,” but I think that’s only with the cooperation of the banks and the appraisers! After all, even though foreclosures were down in January month over month, they were still up year over year and a “surge” is expected. Average monthly apartment rent has declined to $766 due to a higher vacancy rate, but rental houses are still moving fast at a median rent of $1095. Those of you who are new to the area should be aware that we are in the process of rolling out Real ID compliant drivers licenses; this article tells you what you need to know and what you need to bring with you to the DMV. I wonder how many women will have a hard time producing a marriage certificate.
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by Bridget Magnus — published on February 5th, 2010
I’m so glad you stopped by for Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. Make no mistake, this is what you and your Realtor need to know before touring, making an offer, or listing a home in the Las Vegas Valley this weekend.
Summary: Available listings are rock-steady at 11025, although the percentage of short sales is slightly up. Contingent and pending sales are up slightly too. Closings are returning to a level we saw in most of 2009. Prices appear to be fairly solid — a trend I hope continues.
Other Information: The fact that our local number of listings is stable is even better when you consider that nationwide, the number of listings grew in January. Nationwide, we are also experiencing a decline in the percentage of families that own a home and a mortgage delinquency rate that has reached 10%. Locally, we have a rising rate of short sales (still not getting them approved fast enough, but it’s progress), declining apartment rent prices (rental homes and condos have pretty much remained stable since I’ve been tracking the data), and a loss of 15,000 jobs. Just for fun, here’s a look at the CityCenter project.
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by Bridget Magnus — published on January 29th, 2010
Once again it’s time for Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. It’s critical market data you and your Realtor need to know before touring, making an offer, or listing a home in the Las Vegas Valley this weekend.
Summary: At the risk of sounding boring, available units remain just over 11,000. All things considered, that is really good news. We have fewer than 2000 bank owned homes in the MLS (our MLS does require bank owned listings to be noted as such, unlike some area MLS systems), which is great considering what you’ll read in the next paragraph! Contingent and pending units continue to trend slightly upwards, which hopefully means more closes in the future. The it is still worrisome that over 9000 of those listings are short sales — how many will actually close is anyone’s guess. The number of closed sales this week climbed over 700 for the first time this year, which is more good news.
Other Information: Wow is there a lot of negative news out there this week! Vegas was ranked highest in foreclosures for 2009 with 1 in 8 homes having some sort of filing (this figure includes all foreclosures from Notice of Default to Bank Owned). This certainly contributes to the fact that we have the most undervalued housing market in the country. New home and existing home sales were down substantially in December nationwide, and my readers know that actual closings have been down locally in January. Let’s close with something relatively happy: what not to eat in Vegas.
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by Bridget Magnus — published on January 25th, 2010
When you see someone write something like this, you start to worry about our real estate market:
Las Vegas foreclosures are expected to rise further this year with the planned release into the Nevada market of about 6,000 foreclosure homes by Bank of America over the next several months. According to a BofA executive, the foreclosures could be released at about 500 units a month.
The properties make up part of the so-called shadow inventory held by banks while they negotiate short sales or loan modifications with borrowers or while they wait for more favorable pricing trends.
But let’s look at that more closely. An additional 500 available units per month isn’t a big deal when average time on market is low, as we currently have. Whether Bank of America actually has 6000 foreclosed homes to put on the market is another issue. I suspect that at least half of those are currently already available as short sales; changing the status from short sale to REO does not change the amount of available inventory. More interestingly, this means they are admitting that a lot of short sale applications will be declined.
But here’s where they go astray, and why I know they are wrong:
Concord [Group of California] said that currently, Las Vegas has a supply of 16,215 residential units for sale, 8,845 units of which are bank-owned homes, HUD homes and other types of foreclosures.
It’s been a long time since we had 16,000 available units, let alone 8800 bank owned homes available. Regular readers know that last Friday we had just over 11,000 available units, only 2100 of which were bank owned. You can’t even explain the 16,000 figure they used by adding in contingent sales or short sales. We haven’t had that many available units since February of last year, and even then we didn’t have 8800 bank owned units!
Once more, you can’t believe everything you read about “shadow inventory” and how terrible the real estate market is in Vegas.
by Bridget Magnus — published on January 22nd, 2010
Thanks for dropping by to read Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. Here is what you and your Realtor need to know before touring, making an offer, or listing a home in the Las Vegas Valley this weekend.
Summary: Available units remain over 11,000, a nice stable sign. It is encouraging to see that the number of non-distressed sales is rising and the number of bank-owned properties is declining, even if the market is still dominated by distressed sales. I am concerned by the sudden jump in availability for condos priced under $50,000. Hopefully this is just a blip rather than a trend. Speaking of trends, contingent and pending listings rose again this week to about 13,500. Not surprisingly, the number of contingent short sales is also up; in order to return to a normal market, these short sales must be worked through one way or the other.
Other Information: The one biggest thing you should remember if you are out looking at property this weekend is that this week we have had a lot of rain! Please drive carefully, and be on the lookout for flooding. In some high elevation parts of Summerlin and Anthem, there may have been snow. Take this opportunity to inspect properties for signs of roof leaks or other water damage. A few local interest real estate items, few taking advantage of foreclosure mediation (and that is a shame), City Center’s anti-flip clause, and one analyst expects housing prices to remain around this level for a while. As for issues that will effect the housing market nationwide, banks accused of short sale fraud, why there will be another surge of foreclosures unless something drastic is done, why write-down on mortgage balances may yet have to happen, an item on the commercial market, and what Fair Housing Law means to you.
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