Dreary conditions continue in the Las Vegas-area residential real estate market, two new reports show.
Home Builders Research Inc. on Friday said it counted 381 new home sales locally in August, lifting the total for 2011 to 2,383 — a decline of 38 percent from the same period in 2010.
The median price of $198,605 in August was almost unchanged from July but was down 9.7 percent from August 2010.
Applied Analysis, in the meantime, noted a slight improvement in one component of the local residential resale market: the inventory level.
Applied Analysis said the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service inventory declined in August — the first time this year the inventory count fell below prior-year levels.
Total for-sale inventory locally was 14,268 by the end of August, down 3.9 percent vs. August 2010, Applied Analysis said.
Still, Applied Analysis noted, distressed properties (bank owned and short sales) accounted for 67.2 percent of total inventory in August, up from 64.8 percent in August 2010.
Last week, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported home sales locally in August — mostly of existing homes — yielded a median price of $120,000. That’s a decline of $2,000 or 1.6 percent from July and 14 percent or $18,000 from August 2010.
With low prices and lots of sales to investors, the combined 4,693 sales of homes, condominiums and town homes listed on the Multiple Listing Service was just nine short of the record set in June 2009.