Las Vegas home prices stabilize; median price at $205,000

Local home prices continued to stabilize early in the year, even as sellers tried to push them higher.

The median price of single-family homes sold through the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service reached $205,000 in February, up 2.5 percent from January and 7.9 percent from February 2014, the association reported Monday.

The condo and town house median was $105,000, unchanged from January and up 2.1 percent from February 2014.

Association President Keith Lynam said “slight variations” in median prices reflect a stable housing market.

Median prices rose 10 percent in all of 2014, an appreciation rate that was less than half of the 24 percent increases the market saw in 2012 and 2013.

But even as single-family closing prices have hovered around $200,000 for several months, some sellers are trying to test the market, and that could be hurting sales numbers, Lynam said.

The market had 7,313 single-family homes on the market without offers, up 15.8 percent compared with February 2014. The 2,425 condos and town houses listed without offers was up 9.6 percent year over year.

The median asking price on single-family homes was $225,000, a 15.5 percent gain from a year earlier, while the median listing price on attached homes was up 11 percent to $119,000.

“We’d like to see more Nevada homeowners realistically pricing their homes at fair-market value,” Lynam said. “One of our challenges lately is too many would-be sellers have been watching home prices go up for the past few years and are now asking too much for their homes. We need to keep educating homeowners and our members about this to make sure homes are being listed at realistic prices. Certainly some of the blame should be squarely placed on our members, but the trend of homes on the market with no offers is rising, and that is troubling.”

Distressed sales continued to abate. In February, 9.3 percent of closings were short sales in which the owner owed more on the mortgage than the home was worth. That was down from 14 percent in February 2014. Bank-owned sales made up 9.7 percent, compared with 12 percent a year earlier.

Cash sales, which indicate investor activity, were 37.4 percent of the local market, down from 46.8 percent in February 2014, and well below a February 2013 peak of 59.5 percent.

At the current pace, the Las Vegas market has a four-month supply of available homes. Real estate experts consider a six-month supply a balanced market.

Contact Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com. Find her on Twitter: @J_Robison1 on Twitter.