The trend of more sales and lower prices in the Las Vegas housing market showed no signs of change last month.

The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors said 2,783 single-family homes were sold by a Realtor in September. That’s an increase of more than 9 percent from a month earlier and up 181 percent from September 2007.

Despite the increase in sales, prices are headed in the opposite direction.

The Realtor association said the median price of a single-family home last month was $195,000. That’s down 7 percent from a month earlier and down 32 percent from last September.

The Las Vegas area had 22,784 homes on the market last month, which is down about 6 percent from last year.

The trend also is evident in the condo and townhouse market.

Sales are up about 81 percent in the past year (386 sales last month), although the price has dropped to $119,450 — a fall of 32 percent since September 2007

“As home prices keep getting lower, sales keep going up. This month’s statistics show the greatest increase in year-over-year sales that we’ve seen in many years,” GLVAR President Patty Kelley said in a statement. “This tells us that qualified buyers are recognizing that now is a great time to buy a home, especially here in Southern Nevada.”

At last month’s sales pace, the Las Vegas area has an eight-month supply of homes on the market.

Credits: Las Vegas Sun

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Home sales in the valley took their first downturn in 2008 in August but remained relatively strong as the price of existing homes continued downward, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported.

New and existing home sales in the Silverado area increased last month from July as did the median price, according to statistics from the Realtors’ association. The Silverado area had 151 new and existing homes sold in August at a median price of $225,000. The median price is up from $211,000 on 148 properties sold in July compared to $248,000 on 62 homes sold in January.

Bank-owned properties continue to drag down the prices and accounted for about two-thirds of all homes and condos sold valleywide in August, association President Patty Kelley said in a statement.

In Southern Nevada, sales were down 1.8 percent from July, after seven consecutive months of increased home sales.

The number of homes sold last month increased 93.4 percent from August of 2007. The median price of a single-family home sold in the Las Vegas area decreased by 4.5 percent from $220,000 in July to $210,000 in August. That’s down 30 percent from August 2007.

It’s not clear if the local housing market has hit the bottom, but Kelley said history shows these prices won’t last forever. And the number of available homes declined 3 percent in August. The inventory of homes is down 6.7 percent from last August.

“What we do know is that, once we sell off this inventory of homes in or nearing foreclosure, home prices will begin to increase,” she said.

Credits: Las Vegas Sun

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Home sales in the valley took their first downturn in 2008 in August but remained relatively strong as the price of existing homes continued downward, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported.

New and existing home sales in the Summerlin area dropped last month from July as the median price remained the same, according to statistics from the Realtors’ association. The Summerlin area had 294 new and existing homes sold in August at a median price of $270,000, compared to 322 homes sold in July. The median price is down from $330,000 on 146 homes sold in January.

Bank-owned properties continue to drag down the prices and accounted for about two-thirds of all homes and condos sold valleywide in August, association President Patty Kelley said in a statement.

In Southern Nevada, sales were down 1.8 percent from July, after seventh consecutive months of increased home sales.

The number of homes sold last month increased 93.4 percent from August of 2007. The median price of a single-family home sold in the Las Vegas area decreased by 4.5 percent from $220,000 in July to $210,000 in August. That’s down 30 percent from August 2007.

It’s not clear if the local housing market has hit the bottom, but Kelley said history shows these prices won’t last forever. And the number of available homes declined 3 percent in August. That inventory of homes is down 6.7 percent from last August.

“What we do know is that, once we sell off this inventory of homes in or nearing foreclosure, home prices will begin to increase,” she said.

Credits: Las Vegas Sun

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The dramatic federal takeover of two mortgage giants has already made it cheaper to borrow money for buying a home.

What it has not done is guarantee that you can persuade a banker to loan you any money.

Lower rates are good for sales, but nowhere near enough to turn around real estate, said economist Roger Tutterow of Mercer University. “This is one piece of the puzzle. But by itself, it doesn’t solve all the challenges.”

News that the government has taken control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — returning them from the private sector to their original status — sent mortgage rates down Monday: The average 30-year, fixed-rate loan Monday was 6.08 percent compared with 6.26 percent last week, according to Bankrate.com.

After a loan is made, a lender generally sells the right to collect on it. With so many loans going bad — and investors unsure which ones are toxic — many buyers have stepped out of the market.

Not Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have come to own or guarantee about one-half of the nation’s $12 trillion in home loans.

Mortgage rates have been rising, further chilling an already sagging real estate market.

Rates typically run parallel to the yields on 10-year bonds. But the spread between the two has been higher for the past year because of fears about the risk in buying those loans.

“The risk was priced in,” said economist Michael Reksulak of Georgia Southern University.

Now, with the government promising to make good on any bonds sold by Fannie and Freddie, the spreads should narrow, and mortgage rates will fall — just not dramatically, he said. “This should have a lasting effect, but not a large effect.”

But for the slumping real estate market, any help is welcome.

Real estate, the engine of expansion after the 2001 recession, has seen construction nearly grind to a halt. Lists of unsold homes have piled up, thousands of homes have plunged into foreclosure, and prices have slid.

The woes are worse in some places than others — with the sharpest pain coming in areas that had the steepest climb in prices.

Atlanta’s market has been weaker, but nowhere near as traumatized as Southern California, Las Vegas or Florida.

But nationally, an industry that added millions to the work force is now shedding jobs from lawyering to decorating, from accounting to construction. Further damaging the economy, falling home values are hammering consumers. Resale prices of metro Atlanta homes were down 8.1 percent in the second quarter versus a year earlier, the eighth-best performance out of 20 metro areas, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index.

Cutbacks in spending, in turn, spur layoffs in retail, hospitality and other sectors.

Although the economy overall has continued to grow, payrolls have lost about 600,000 jobs this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Against that backdrop, lower rates offer help but not salvation.

“On the margins, changes in mortgage rates are important, and bigger swings in mortgage rates are more important,” said economist Tim Duy of the University of Oregon. “It’s not going to change the overall picture.”

Lower rates in general tend to nudge home values up because it means a buyer can get a little more house for the same monthly payment. It also helps some first-time buyers get into the market — another boost to prices.

But economists don’t expect that push to overpower the mismatch between supply and demand.

Moreover, the credit crisis that started more than a year ago with a surge of delinquencies in the subprime market goes on. Lenders, afraid of more delinquencies, have become selective about what loans they make.

“I don’t think subprime borrowers will be buying a house in this market,” said Yildiray Yildirim, a Syracuse University finance professor. “We are going to see activity in the prime market.”

Lower rates do not mean looser standards, and that limits demand, which means that housing’s revival will be slow, Duy said. “It’s more about the availability of credit. Can you get the loan to buy the house, given your income and your credit scores?”

The frenzy of buying depended on adding millions of mortgage holders who were only marginally able to make payments and — in too many cases — not able at all.

Lenders have stopped lending to people like that.

Lowering mortgage rates will only change part of the equation, said Sandra Dunn, president and chief executive of Five Star Mortgage in Duluth.

Rates did fall a quarter point within a couple hours — and that is welcome news, she said. “It certainly will put a shot in the arm to refinance.

But at least thus far, there is no reason to expect lower rates to also mean more approved loans.

“The guidelines are still the same,” Dunn said. “There’s no new leniency as far as people qualifying.”

Credits: AJC

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