Number of Las Vegas Homes Sales rising, Prices Declining

According to the report done by Home Builders Research released last Wednesday, the
number of sales of Las Vegas homes
rose last month. Home values, however, are still going down.

In March 2011, there were almost 300 new-home sales and more
than 4000 re-sales, according to the Las Vegas-based housing research
firm. These figures do not include the
trustee deeds that were recorded by lenders which number an estimated two thousand
in total.

Dennis Smith, the president of the Home Builders Research,
said that the key to the housing recovery is the resale segment, and that to eat through
the existing home inventory, it is important that the resale closings stay
strong.

The median price of new homes saw a decline of 5.2% a year ago, and in March, this drop was an even $200,000. The current median home price
decreased 6.2% to $113,000, which is the lowest since 1995, according to Home
Builders Research.

The gap between the new and existing home prices is too
large to expect a short-term pricing recovery, Smith stated. Smith defined it as four to six months of
upward price movement.

He also added that the new-home market today, which is
continuously struggling, will most likely not match the total sales of last
year. It would be great to see sales of
Las Vegas homes increase together
with the prices, but that would probably take time.

When the other half of the market gets better, the prices
will improve but not until the economy and the employment rate also recovers.

In some areas of the Las Vegas Valley, the market is
actually improving and there were pent-up demands for home sales, only to be
quashed by low appraisals. There are
some cases where buyers of Las Vegas homes were willing to pay a certain amount but because of low appraisals, the deals got
killed.