by Calculated Risk on 3/07/2018 10:59:00 AM

This is a key distressed market to follow since Las Vegas saw the largest price decline, following the housing bubble, of any of the Case-Shiller composite 20 cities.

The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported Southern Nevada home prices warming up while sales cooling down; GLVAR housing statistics for February 2018

Local home prices rose again in February while sales slowed down amid a shrinking housing supply, according to a report released today by the Greater Las Vegas Association of REALTORS®(GLVAR).
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Meanwhile, the total number of existing local homes, condos and townhomes sold during February fell to 2,704. Compared to one year ago, February sales were down 5.4 percent for homes, but up 1.8 percent for condos and townhomes.

“Our shrinking housing supply may finally be catching up to us and slowing down our home sales,” said 2018 GLVAR President Chris Bishop, a longtime local REALTOR®. “Sales have continued to go up over the last few years, even as our inventory has been going down. But with fewer homes on the market each month, it seems like it was only a matter of time before it started to affect sales.”

He said Southern Nevada still has less than a two-month supply of existing homes available for sale when a six-month supply is considered a balanced market.

By the end of February, GLVAR reported 3,653 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That’s down 34.3 percent from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 679 properties listed without offers in February represented a 10.4 percent drop from one year ago. The inventory of condos and townhomes listed for sale is as low as it has been since 2004, Bishop added.
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GLVAR reported that 32.4 percent of all local properties sold in February were purchased with cash, compared to 31.4 percent one year ago. That’s well below the February 2013 peak of 59.5 percent, indicating that cash buyers and investors are still active, but are playing a much smaller role in the local housing market than they were five years ago.

At the same time, the number of so-called distressed sales continues to decline. GLVAR reported that short sales and foreclosures combined accounted for 3.8 percent of all existing local home sales in February, compared to 10.6 percent of all sales one year ago.
emphasis added

1) Overall sales were down 4% year-over-year from 2,815 in February 2017 to 2,704 in February 2018.

2) Active inventory (single-family and condos) is down sharply from a year ago, from a total of 6,322 in February 2017 to 4,352 in February 2018.

3) Fewer distressed sales.