Las Vegas homebuilders see jump in sales, prices in January

Las Vegas homebuilders started 2017 with a jump in sales and prices over the first month of last year.

Builders closed 527 new-home sales in Clark County last month, up 27 percent from January 2016, according to a recent report from Home Builders Research.

The median sales price of last month’s closings was $329,574, up 6.6 percent from a year earlier. Builders also pulled 624 new-home permits in January, up 22 percent.

Home Builders Research founder Dennis Smith called the sales total “a great start to 2017” and the permit tally “a positive indicator.”

Still, he said the “biggest question” about rising prices is: How high will they climb “before sales velocities take a big hit?”

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage had recently reached 4.35 percent, Smith reported. Higher rates boost borrowing costs, potentially scaring off possible buyers, and rates climbed nationally after Donald Trump won the presidential election in November.

As Smith sees it, the current rate is “bothersome” but would “probably not yet cause a notable softening of sales.”

If it gets closer to 4.5 percent, however, he said home sales could be “negatively affected” and that price growth would slow.

Overall last year, builders closed almost 8,000 new-home sales in Clark County, up 17 percent from 2015.