by Calculated Risk on 11/08/2013 02:54:00 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 local home prices rising again

GLVAR said the total number of existing local homes, condominiums and townhomes sold in October was 3,192. That’s down from 3,259 in September and down from 3,651 total sales in October 2012. Compared to September, single-family home sales during October decreased by 1.7 percent, while sales of condos and townhomes decreased by 3.6 percent. Compared to one year ago, single-family home sales were down 11.9 percent, while condo and townhome sales were down 15.4 percent. ...
...
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 October, 21 percent of all existing home sales were short sales, down from 23 percent in September. Another 6 percent of all October sales were bank-owned properties, down from 7.4 percent in September. The remaining 73 percent of all sales were the traditional type, up from 69.6 percent in September.
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The total number of properties listed for sale on GLVAR’s Multiple Listing Service increased in October, with 15,011 single-family homes listed for sale at the end of the month. That’s up 6.2 percent from 14,659 single-family homes listed for sale at the end of September, but down 10.5 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 October, GLVAR reported 7,072 single-family homes listed without any sort of offer. That’s up 11.7 percent from 6,330 such homes listed in September and up 73.4 percent from one year ago.
emphasis added

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

1) Overall sales were down slightly from September, and down about 12% year-over-year.

2) Conventional sales are up sharply.  In October 2012, only 43.7% of all sales were conventional.  This year, in October 2013, 73.0% were conventional.  That is an increase in conventional sales of about 46% year-over-year (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 rapidly.  Non-contingent inventory is up 73.4% year-over-year!

Inventory has clearly bottomed in Las Vegas (A major theme for housing in 2013).  And fewer distressed sales and more inventory means price increases will slow.