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Southern Nevada home sales fell sharply in April and the median price of homes sold held steady, according to statistics released this morning by the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.
The 3,084 sales of single-family homes in April were 9 percent fewer than March. The median price of those sales was $125,000, $950 lower than March and 12 percent lower than April 2010.
GLVAR officials said the drop off in sales in April isn’t an ominous sign for the Southern Nevada’s housing market.
April’s sales were 4.5 percent higher than April 2010. In addition, officials attribute the decline to a combination of a late Easter, the tax deadline and spring break. Sales picked up by the end of April, they said.
GLVAR officials sounded optimistic about sales continuing to be strong and cited that since January 2008, more than 107,000 homes have been sold, or about 24 percent of the 447,000 single-family homes available in Southern Nevada.
“If current sales trends continue, nearly 30 percent of our inventory will have turned over by the end of this year and 35 percent by mid-2012,” said GLVAR President Paul Bell, arguing that sales rate will eventually put pressure on prices to increase.
Other analysts, however, said they expect prices to continue to decline and saw no signs of an increase coming soon.
The GLVAR reported 51.9 percent of existing homes sold in Southern Nevada during April were purchased with cash. That’s up from 51.4 percent in March.
In April, 23.8 percent of sales were short sales in which the bank agrees to sell a home for less than is owed on the mortgage. That’s up from 23.6 percent in March.
Bank-owned homes accounted for 46.3 percent of existing home sales, down from 47.6 percent in March.
Sales of town homes and condominiums rose 8 percent from March to 1,277. That was down 3.8 percent from April 2010. The median price of those units was $60,000, 1.6 percent lower than March and 14.3 percent lower than April 2010.
The number of single-family homes listed for sales on the Multiple Listing Service was 22,443, up 1.2 percent from 22,184 at the end of March. The listings are 7.5 percent higher than April 2010.
Some 11,366 single-family homes are available without an offer on them.
The GLVAR reported 4,875 listings with the median price of those new listings at $129,999, 1.5 percent lower than March.
The GLVAR tracks sales of those listing on the MLS, which could include some new homes. It covers Clark, Nye, Lincoln and White Pine counties.