BluefoxToday blog : Southern Nevada June home sales up - median price lower

Las Vegas homeowners and real estate observers have been looking for clear direction the local housing market could be happy about but it's refusing to cooperate. It seems to have settled on a typically erratic path that markets display when they reach the bottom on a downward cycle - or are very near it -  and just can't decide how to shake the gloominess off and embark on a climb out for better days. Last month's real estate statistics reflect that rather well.

GLVAR, or Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, recounts for its rapt audience that 3,360 resale homes were closed in June, a nice 16.5% uptick from May. That reverses two consecutive months of modest declines. However, it's about an 11% drop from June of 2009, a cause for some concern.

Las Vegas homeowners are carefully monitoring price movement that has been so negatively aggressive in the valley, dragging scores of them underwater, an occasion where property value dips below the underlying mortgage balance. The median price in June parked at $140,000, a $2,000 retreat from May, and the same as it was in May of 2009. For now it appears that prices have stabilized, giving the disappointed Sin City homeowners some hope of sunnier days ahead.

The worrisome trend now is the single-family house inventory. It has been on a constant, although gradual, ascent for several months, topping off at 21,361 in June. It could well be that this will go on another few months as mortgage lenders release more foreclosed homes on the market, or agree to do short sales.

Talking about mortgage foreclosures, their share of total sales in Southern Nevada has steadily declined in recent months to 38%. Gone down, but still a scary figure. On the other hand, short sales have grabbed an ever larger chunk of closings, reaching 34% in June, reports GLVAR, indicating that mortgage lender preference is shifting over to the short sale. So, 72% of all existing home sales are labeled distressed, an unheard of situation that obviously will take some time to untangle. It simply points out how out of balance the once-booming residential real estate arena in Vegas nowadays is.