LAS VEGAS HOUSING NEWS
Buyers scooped up 1,703 single-family homes in May, down 13.6 percent from April and 48.1 percent from May 2019, according to trade association Las Vegas Realtors, or LVR.
The median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada through its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) during May was $315,000. That was down from an all-time record price of $319,000 in March, but still up 5.0% from a median price of $300,000 in May of 2019.
“This crisis has obviously had a big impact on home sales,” said 2020 LVR President Tom Blanchard, a longtime local REALTOR®. “At the same time, it’s encouraging to see home values remaining steady, even with sales activity dropping. The bright spot is the increased activity of homes being placed under contract, which has seen a steady and significant increase since mid-April, which appears to have been the bottom of this housing dip.”
By the end of May, LVR reported 5,799 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That’s down 26.2% from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 1,768 properties listed without offers in May represented a 5.8% drop from one year ago. LVR reported that 14.5% of all local properties sold in May were purchased with cash. That compares to 20.4% one year ago. That’s well below the February 2013 peak of 59.5%, indicating that cash buyers and investors have been less active in the local housing market.
Perhaps one of the largest challenges in May was the change in FHA underwriting that caused a number of home buyers to lose escrows due to the FICO score changes. While FHA financed closings dropped to 20% of the total closings, VA closings jumped to 16% of all closings and represented 20% of the closings in the $250-400K price range.
