Resale homes post strong sales increases

Resale homes eked out double-digit price gains and saw big sales increases in June.

The median price of existing single-family homes sold locally in June was $220,000, up 10.1 percent from $199,900 in June 2014, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported Tuesday.

The association’s members closed on 3,056 single-family homes in the month, up 14.2 percent year over year.

Among resale condominiums and townhomes, the median price was up 5.5 percent to $115,000, while closings were up 6.3 percent to 637 units.

Despite the improvements, the market is far from perfect, said association President Keith Lynam.

“It’s good for our local homeowners when prices are appreciating at a healthy pace like this and more homes are selling,” Lynam said. “Of course, we still have some challenges. We’ve been dealing with less than a three-month supply of homes available for sale. That’s less than half of what we’d like to have for a balanced market. We also realize there are too many abandoned homes throughout Southern Nevada, though we see signs that banks may finally be doing more to address this issue.”

Also, the number of available listings without offers increased in the month, growing 4.3 percent to 7,432 homes.

Still, there were indications of less distress in the market: Short sales fell to 6.7 percent of sales, compared with 10.8 percent a year ago. Bank-owned sales made up 7.6 percent of closings, down from 10.1 percent in June 2014.

Cash buyers, who are mostly investors, were 28.4 percent of buyers, down from 34.7 percent a year earlier and below a February 2013 high of 59.5 percent.

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