Housing continues torrid pace in June, July

Housing’s hot streak continued in June and July.

Two new reports showed double-digit gains in local existing and new homes as supplies remained tight.

The median price for a single-family resale topped out at $180,000 in July, up 35.5 percent from $133,000 a year earlier, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported today.

The median price for condos and townhomes was $91,500, a 37.6 percent gain from $66,500 in July 2012.

Since bottoming out at $118,000 in January 2012, housing prices have risen faster in Las Vegas than anywhere else in the country, noted Dave Tina, the association’s president.

“We keep expecting these price increases to slow down at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet,” he said.

Prices remain well off their 2006 peak of $315,000.

July also brought a “modest increase” in the number of homes for sale, but supply is still far too tight to meet demand, Tina added.

There also were signs that investor activity is easing. The number of cash buyers — most of whom are investors — continued to retreat from its February record of 59.5 percent. In July, 54.5 percent of local homes bought were purchased with cash.

Distressed sales also slowed. Twenty-eight percent of sales were short sales, down from 31 percent in June. And 8 percent were bank-owned properties, compared with 9 percent in June.

Marketwide, 64 percent of local home sales were traditional sales, unrelated to bank repossessions or write-downs.

Southern Nevada’s new-home sector also advanced, even as statistics pointed to potential future supply shortages.

The median new-home price jumped 37.6 percent in June, to $266,725, according to research firm SalesTraq. A rising number of high-rise condo sales in the expensive Strip market helped push up the median.

Both resale and new-home markets have “clearly moved beyond the bottom of the cycle in terms of pricing, but questions about sustainability have come to the forefront,” the report said.

Builders closed on 616 units in June, a 65.1 percent improvement over June 2012.

Through the first half of the year, the market sold 3,570 new homes, up nearly 80 percent from the same period in 2012.

But permits shrank to 606, down 6.5 percent compared with June 2012. Active subdivisions fell by 30.4 percent, to 151.

Builders pulling the most permits were D.R. Horton, Lennar, KB Home, Ryland Homes and American West Homes.

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@review
journal.com or 702-380-4512. Follow @J_Robison1 on Twitter.