by Calculated Risk on 10/08/2013 05:26:00 PM

This is a key distressed market to follow since Las Vegas has seen the largest price decline of any of the Case-Shiller composite 20 cities.

The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported GLVAR reports end to 19-month run of rising local home prices

GLVAR said the total number of existing local homes, condominiums and townhomes sold in September was 3,259. That’s down from 3,539 in August and down from 3,298 total sales in September 2012. Compared to August, single-family home sales during September decreased by 9.2 percent, while sales of condos and townhomes decreased by 1.5 percent. Compared to one year ago, single-family home sales were up 0.3 percent, while condo and townhome sales were down 7.3 percent. ...
...
Meanwhile, GLVAR continued to report fewer foreclosures and short sales – which occur when a lender agrees to sell a home for less than what the borrower owes on the mortgage. In September, 23 percent of all existing home sales were short sales, down from 25 percent in August. Another 7.4 percent of all September sales were bank-owned properties, down from 8 percent in August. The remaining 69.6 percent of all sales were the traditional type, up from 67 percent in August. Tina said it has been several years since the local housing market has seen so few transactions being controlled by banks.
...
The total number of properties listed for sale on GLVAR’s Multiple Listing Service increased in September, with 14,659 single-family homes listed for sale at the end of the month. That’s up 3.7 percent from 14,472 single-family homes listed for sale at the end of August, but down 12.6 percent from one year ago. ...

GLVAR also reported more available homes listed for sale without any sort of pending or contingent offer. By the end of September, GLVAR reported 6,330 single-family homes listed without any sort of offer. That’s up 12.8 percent from 5,612 such homes listed in August and up 60.5 percent from one year ago.
emphasis added

There are several key trends that we've been following:

1) Overall sales were down slightly from August, and down about 1% year-over-year.

2) Conventional sales are up sharply.  In September 2012, only 41.6% of all sales were conventional.  This year, in September 2013, 69.6% were conventional.  That is an increase in conventional sales of about 59% (of course there is heavy investor buying, but that is still quite an increase in non-distressed sales).

3)  Most distressed sales are short sales instead of foreclosures (over 3 to 1).  Both foreclosures and short sales are declining.

4) and most interesting right now is that non-contingent inventory (year-over-year) is now increasing quickly.  Non-contingent inventory is up 60.5% year-over-year!

This suggests inventory has bottomed in Las Vegas (A major theme for housing in 2013).  And this suggests price increases will slow.