Las Vegas Home Buying Frenzy

May Las Vegas housing data suggests that we possibly reached the bottom of the residential recession in the 2nd quarter of this year. I haven’t seen a home buying frenzy like this since 2004.

Foreclosures have dominated the housing market with more than 60 percent of the sales each month being bank-owned properties.

With sales at their highest level since June 2006 the first-time homebuyers and investors snatching up Las Vegas inventory, say realtor Stuart Shienfeld.

There were 5,276 bank-owned single-family homes listed for sale in the valley and of those 2,623 had contingent offers, Smith says. That leaves an inventory of 2,653. About half of those homes don’t have offers.

The downturn in the stock market combined with the growing affordability of purchasing a home has prompted increased interest in using IRAs and 401K’s to help fund the purchase.

The number of resale homes on the market as listed by real estate agents continues to decline. During the past year, the number has dipped 36.7 percent or 8,109 units, lowering the inventory to less than 19,000 homes. The inventory has dropped for 13 consecutive weeks with 6,700 fewer properties listed during that time. The number of vacant homes is just under 7,500, a drop of 49 percent.

The number of foreclosures in May was 1,769, a 26% decrease from last year.  This was the third month that foreclosure purchases surpassed the number of new foreclosures coming on the market.

New listings are down 18.1% from April 2009 and the number of units sold, are up 1.8% from last month.  The average days on the market for homes are hovering for less than 60 days. That is an average of almost 65%.

There are very few REO homes that are currently available without offers to buy. You really need to move quickly to get your offer in. When you do you should offer you’re highest & best offer. Some banks will do a multiple offer sheet and some don’t, so I wouldn’t take the chance of losing the property.