Home sales staying sluggish
Mar. 09, 2007
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Townhomes, condos biggest culprit with 42.8 percent drop from 2006
By HUBBLE SMITH
REVIEW-JOURNAL
 The interior of a KB Home model is shown Thursday at La Vita at Seven Hills, a luxury community with prices from $1.4 million to $2 million. Photos by Samantha Clemens.
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The inventory of single-family homes, condos and townhouses listed for sale in Las Vegas increased again in February after easing off in late 2006, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported Thursday.
There are 19,639 single-family homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service, up 4.6 percent from 18,774 in January and up 11 percent from 17,675 in February 2006. Condos and townhomes for sale increased to 5,524, up 8 percent from 5,116 in January and up 34 percent from 5,212 last February.
Single-family sales slumped to 1,407 in February, a 21.3 percent decrease from the same month a year ago, but 10 more homes than were sold in January.
The condo and townhouse segment was worse. The 277 sales in February were off 12.9 percent from the previous month and 42.8 percent from a year ago.
The median price of a single-family home in Las Vegas inched up to $310,000 in February after declining in recent months. It increased 2.6 percent from January and 0.3 percent from last year.
The median condo price of $204,000 is down slightly from January and up 3.8 percent from February 2006.
Devin Reiss, president of the Realtors association, said it’s typical to see minor variations in the numbers from month to month.
“We seem to be a couple months up, a couple months down. Last month looked good for condos and townhome prices and now this month they’re back down and we see single-family prices going up,” he said.
Total listings top 25,000, but the number of new listings have come down over the past few months, which is good news, Home Builders Research President Dennis Smith said.
“We’re seeing more signs of leveling off,” Smith said. “It’s still a soft market. Prices year to year and month to month are still pretty flat.”
Along with huge declines in single-family and condo sales, resale prices have dropped $5,000 from a year ago to $280,000, another sign of a soft market, he said.
Total dollar value for February’s sales was $537 million, a 3.3 percent increase from January, the association said.
“We look at the market week to week,” KB Home Executive Vice President Shelly Stewart said, “and for the past three to four weeks, we’ve been around 40 to 50 net sales a week, so we’re feeling pretty good about the market.”
KB opened two models at La Vita at Seven Hills, its first luxury estates community in the nation with prices from $1.4 million to $2 million.
Stewart said KB doesn’t have many homes that are completely built and unsold as the company builds to order and not on speculation. Of 30 new home communities in Las Vegas, KB has 16 homes completed and available for sale, probably the result of somebody’s cancellation, she said.