Vegas Realty Check
Join host Trish Williams, one of the Top 25 Women in Real Estate, and co-host, Courtney Bohm, a seasoned loan officer from JFK Financial, as they dive into the ever-evolving world of Las Vegas real estate. With Trish's extensive experience in selling homes and Courtney's mortgage expertise, they break down the latest market trends, mortgage tips , rate updates ,insider tips, and real estate news. Whether you’re buying, selling, or just curious, Vegas Realty Check is your go-to source for insightful discussions on navigating the Las Vegas property market.
Trish Williams
Keller Williams Realty The Marketplace 702-308-2878 S.0175530
@trishlv www.trishwilliamsteam.com
Each Office Is Independently Owned and Operated
Courtney Bohm
JFK Financial , Inc. NMLS#:2008418
cbohm@jfkfinancial.com (702) 416-6918
https://www.jfkfinancial.com/loan-officers/courtney-bohm/
Vegas Realty Check
Navigating the Las Vegas Real Estate Market: Trends, Strategies, and Insights with Trish Williams & Mike Cruz
Discover the secrets to navigating the Las Vegas real estate market with our special guest Mike Cruz from Reside ,LLC, as we break down the latest trends and shifts in housing inventory. Prepare to gain a deeper understanding of how the holiday season and the political climate have uniquely shaped this dynamic market. With expert insights , we unravel the complexities between Fed rate changes and mortgage rates, and why they matter to prospective buyers and sellers. Get ready to explore strategies for making the most of current interest rates as we anticipate a more competitive market environment.
In this episode, we take you behind the curtain of the Las Vegas housing scene, analyzing the nuances of selling vacant versus occupied homes and why cash purchases are on the rise. Learn how VA loans are becoming a powerful tool in a seller-motivated market and why new construction is driving a shift toward a buyer's market, especially for condos and townhomes. We also highlight the increasing availability of single-family homes and share valuable tips for crafting competitive offers in a resilient market. From new construction incentives to pricing trends, this episode offers a comprehensive update on the Las Vegas real estate market, ensuring you’re equipped to make informed decisions amidst uncertainty.
Todays Guest : Mike Kruse
Reside , LLC
B.0146101
Welcome to Vegas Realty Check, the informative podcast that dives deep into the world of Las Vegas real estate.
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Hey Las Vegas, welcome back here to Vegas Realty. Check your local Las Vegas real estate news show. I am Trish Williams.
Speaker 1:And I'm Mike Cruz.
Speaker 2:We have our guest, mike Cruz, with us today. I'm so sorry for the choppy introduction, mike. Mike's a returning guest broker of Reside Real Estate and Mike is here to do our market reports with us today, so we're excited for the show today. Talk about everything that happened last month.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good, it's a great day to be here the market. I'm excited about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm excited about too.
Speaker 2:We're starting to see some movement again, which is phenomenal because we had a couple weeks of silence right, but we're seeing it already in the numbers and before we open up with our market numbers today, I do want to give you a little show update. Tiana, the co-host, has been here with me for the past couple of years. She is sadly and happily moving on. She has taken an executive administrative assistant position with one of the top teams here in Vegas and we are very excited for her. It was a great opportunity. We'll be having a clip air later today. That's her goodbye video out to our listeners.
Speaker 2:We are going to be having a new co-host join us in the coming weeks. She is Courtney Baum with JFK Financial, very versed in loans and she's a loan officer, and she is going to be also in addition to our weekly market inventory and real estate update. She's going to be providing us updates on what's going on in mortgages. So I think it's going to bring a lot of value to the show. We're excited about that, but we are sadly saying goodbye to Tiana and wish her the best. It's just scheduling conflicts couldn't make it happen and we are happy for her and her new journey. So if you guys are listening, shoot a comment. We'll make sure it gets to her and I'm sure she will appreciate that. Yeah, so, mike, let's get into our market numbers. All right, yeah, you ready for it?
Speaker 1:I'm ready.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, so our market numbers for the week.
Speaker 1:Let's start off with inventory For inventory, this week we have 5,495 single-family homes on the market. That's a little bit low from last week. Yeah, it's gone down a little bit, which is good to see. After the couple weeks before and as we head into the holiday season, I think we're probably going to stay around that number.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it is. I think that definitely elections had people holding off on all of their real estate plans regardless of what side that you're on.
Speaker 2:It's not a political statement, it's just a fact. People were holding off on moving forward with any of their plans because they wanted to see what's going on, and just the uncertainty of everything just had people halted. Now that that's behind us. We are seeing people move forward. They're moving on with whatever their plans are, but there's still some sellers that are saying maybe I should wait till the beginning of the year to list.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, definitely. And as we hit this time of year fourth quarter, elections or not there's always those people. People have things going on this time of year. They don't want to take the time to get the house ready right now. They want to wait. So I think we will see inventory rise a little bit, in January and February probably, but unfortunately interest rates are what they are. The good news is is it looks like people are starting to accept it and they're willing to make the move. People that have been waiting to buy a house. They've been waiting to buy a house for a couple of years now and they're really getting antsy and I think they've decided. In a lot of cases I know conversations I've had, especially in just the last three or four days they're ready to make that move.
Speaker 2:Yes, and the rates are definitely a factor. And what's going on now? Fed did another quarter percent decrease, so over the last couple months we have had 0.75% decrease in the Fed rate. But what's been going on is the stock market's been kind of looking great. So people are taking money out of bonds, putting them in stocks and that is making it to where the bond market is. What's really going to affect those mortgage rates changing from the Fed rate?
Speaker 1:And that's what the consumers need to understand. Yes, the Fed's dropping the rates, but the mortgage rates don't actually work off the Fed. It works off the bond market, which, in conjunction, works off the stock market. So that's why rates are up from what they were even six weeks ago, almost a full point. It's kind of sad.
Speaker 2:And this morning I seen the stock market had dropped a little bit. So I'm hoping that that does well for the bond market and we'll start to see those rates come down a little bit. Eventually these Fed cuts will pour over into mortgage rates yes, at some point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just don't really have a crystal ball to know when, right. So that's you know we're all waiting. But I do agree with you. There's been so many buyers that are on the sideline for the past two years that once those rates are attractive and gives them the opportunity to buy, we're going to see a market like no other.
Speaker 1:I believe so.
Speaker 2:It's going to be crazy out there, so there will be competition galore. I'm kind of not excited about the frenzy that will come up when that happens, because all of these buyers that have been sidelined are going to jump in the market.
Speaker 1:And if people are waiting for interest rates to drop, don't there's ways to get the interest rates lower than what they are for you? I actually just did a video on it two days ago. It's on my business YouTube. So have a discussion with your agent. That's the bottom line.
Speaker 2:What's your business YouTube channel? Do you know it? It is.
Speaker 1:Actually my business YouTube channel is LV Real Estate.
Speaker 2:Okay, now that's easy to remember. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And LV Homes by Mike on TikTok and Instagram.
Speaker 2:All right, so check out those videos. See what he posted in his analysis on that. That'd be great. So we just reported single-family homes, townhouses and condos have 1,787 homes on the market right now.
Speaker 1:It's high, yeah, however, the condos in particular have been very high and I'm not really understanding why. But those condos and townhomes, they are a first-time homebuyer's best-case scenario. Yeah, because that is affordable homes here in the Las Vegas Valley.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what I'm seeing with a lot of older condos and townhomes is their HOA dues are just astronomical and I feel like that is definitely with the rates. That's huge deterrence and in some cases affects qualification. But that's usually the older units and the reason why in a lot of cases is the roofs. They cover the roofs, they cover all these things and they're hitting that age of needing to be replaced and those are adding into the assessment.
Speaker 1:With that inventory number it seems a little bit high. But it also includes a lot of new construction. There's a lot of standing inventory on townhomes right now with new construction. The home builders, All the builders, are in the townhouse game right now. So I think that's also why that number seems a little inflated.
Speaker 2:Yes, and the builders are doing rate incentives. Still, we locked someone in at a 3.99 FHA.
Speaker 1:I did also a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome, so you are able to get some really good rates with those builders. So for the week we have, new listings are 836. That hit the market this week.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's across everything. Back on the market we have 154. So those are homes that fell out of escrow and are trying again.
Speaker 1:Right, and it happens. There's a little bit of flux in the general economy at the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And when that happens people get cold feet. They change jobs, they buy a car. It happens, they buy a car and they can no longer buy a house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or I'm seeing a lot of just our market is very. I don't know if we're specifically in a buyer's market by numbers or by the data that they say is buyer's or seller's market, but we have the feel of a buyer's market. So buyers are very finicky and sometimes it's just negotiations on that repairs request. You know that the seller may have taken a lower offer, offered them a lot of concessions and then digs their heels in the sand when it comes to the repairs request and the buyers like Fine, I'll go find something else because it's too easy to find something else right now. So price decreases are a 98. Is that a correct number?
Speaker 1:I think you're probably missing a zero on the end there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know what that number is. We'll have to look at that again next week. Under contract we have 275 that are under contract as still able to show and 428 that are under contract no showings. So that means the ones that are under contract as show are a lot of times contingent upon sale or some kind of like strong contingency where the seller is not feeling too confident in them.
Speaker 1:Right, but those two numbers combined almost 700, that's a good, healthy number. That means for the month we're trending about 2,800 homes under contract. Yeah, that's actually a little bit higher than what we've seen over the last month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's encouraging. I'm sorry that was. A price increase was 98, not a price decrease. See, I don't have my glasses on, I can't see well, price increase was 98, not a price decrease. See, I don't have my glasses on, I can't see well, price increase was 98. The price decreases are 814.
Speaker 2:That sounds like a more realistic number, I was like what is going on here? So 814. So the price decreases are up. So what I think is happening there is the people that are like once the elections have passed and they're starting to see the buyer activity increase and I'm having these conversations with sellers too Now they're ready to do an adjustment that they may have put off for a little bit, to motivate and encourage buyers too.
Speaker 1:We all knew it was a little slow going into the election, so they held off on the price decrease until afterwards.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, and that was definitely the conversations amongst many sellers during that time is don't even bother adjusting because there's nobody really out there.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Not many people out there at least Sold. We have 510 sold for the week, which is a pretty good number. Right that I mean essentially that would come up to 2000,.
Speaker 1:a little over 2000 for the month which is pretty good.
Speaker 2:My favorite number for sold in a month is 3000. Just uh, always been my favorite number. That's a really good market. Um 73 expired. Um 197 withdrawn. Um, they just uh, pulled their, pulled their home off the market. So that is our weekly numbers. Now let's get into our monthly market report. A couple things I jotted down here for our monthly market report before we go into the actual number. I want to just highlight on a couple things there. Sold For the sold homes for the month. 57.1% of them are vacant, so that's a little over half of them, that is, homes that were a lot of times.
Speaker 1:Homes that are vacant are easier to sell than homes that are occupied, and it's simply because of access and a lot of home buyers they don't like touring homes when there's somebody still living in the home. I know most of the time it can't be avoided that you have to live in your home until you sell. But so many times the buyers are apprehensive. They don't want to open closet doors, stuff like that, and they just have a hard time picturing themselves in the home and it's much easier to do when it's vacant.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and sometimes they do staging on vacant homes, things like that, so those do make them more attractive. Also on that point, 2.4% were tenant occupied that were sold. That's a very small percentage. We've seen it a lot higher during stronger markets, but the same thing.
Speaker 1:A lot of times those tenants are still living in the home at the time that we're selling it and, as difficult as it is to show an owner-occupied home, it's way worse for a tenant-occupied home.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. The tenants do not have as much care about getting the home sold as the owner does.
Speaker 1:Well, and in many situations they prefer it didn't.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, everybody. You know it's always a thing. I got asked even the other day are foreclosures rising? And I did a search. I think there were 28 on the market not a lot of foreclosures on the market, and that was across every price point. 0.07% of the homes sold last month were foreclosures and even less on short sales which was 0.04%.
Speaker 1:So we're just not in a market where we're seeing a lot of those People still have plenty of equity in their homes. It hasn't been ripe for HELOCs or even refinances due to the higher rates, so people are just sticking with what they have where they are.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, 40.5% of the homes that sold were owner-occupied and of all of those transactions, cash was at 20.8%, which was up from the month before.
Speaker 1:That's a good, healthy number, in my opinion, for cash buyers. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And that's maybe people moving on with their plans cashing out equity in another home, putting the cash down on a new home and investors they're still very prevalent in this market Conventional homes that sold with a conventional loan. That number surprised me because conventional rates are higher than FHA rates, right now they are.
Speaker 1:but when you look at the average price, we're almost right at $500,000. An FHA can only go to 510. When the homes are a higher price, the conventional is really what they're stuck with.
Speaker 2:And conventional raised their loan limits over the last couple of months. So that is 49.5% sold conventional, which was up, 17.6% were FHA, which was down a little bit, and 9.7% were VA buyers.
Speaker 1:Homebuyers. If you are former military and you qualify for a VA loan, use it. Yes, absolutely. That is the best deal in the marketplace right now.
Speaker 2:Especially in this market right now because the VA loan is zero down Right and a lot of sellers are open to paying closing costs or paying a lot of closing costs, and it's an item of negotiation, but a lot of sellers are open to the idea of it right now in this market. They're motivated enough to get it going and that means you can literally walk in with almost nothing out of pocket, and that is I mean to get a home you can't even get a rental with that low of an amount.
Speaker 1:It's an amazing deal yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. So if you are a veteran, take advantage of that. Okay, so our unit sold for the month of October. We have 19. 1,918 sold, that's up 12.9%.
Speaker 1:That's good. That shows the market's going in the right direction. That's still a low number, in my opinion. Anytime it gets below 2,000, I do kind of freak out a little bit, not going to lie, but it's going in the right direction. So I'm feeling good about it.
Speaker 2:And yeah, the buyers are out there right now, especially the last week yeah, and our median price point of homes sold is up 5.9% $475,531.
Speaker 1:So indication prices aren't coming down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I've got over the idea that prices are going would come down, because we haven't seen that happen. New listings hitting the market 2,867. In the month of October that was up 22.9%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the conversations I had with people. It was do I wait to sell after the first of the year or do I hurry up and list now and sell before we really get into the full holiday season? And I think really a lot of people chose to just go for it now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And it also depends on your motivation or your plans for selling Right, because if you're most sellers, the majority of sellers are selling and buying again Right. It's very seldom we see someone just sell a home and you know that's it. They turn into renters. It's not really common. So, again, you want to sell your home while the buying market's still attractive.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. And a lot of these people selling and buying they're going into new construction and they want to take advantage of those incentives that the builders are offering.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. A lot of the move-up homes right now are new homes because those rate buy-downs are very attractive. And so 4.9,. I'm sorry, the median price point for new listings is $499,999. Let's just say $500. Easier, yeah. So that's at 5.9%. So that is just our median price and, as you see, the sold price is a little bit under, I would say, $25. That's kind of what when buyers are saying like, where should we make our offer or whatever, I'm telling them around 20 to 25,000 seems to be the magic number that's getting it in contract these days.
Speaker 2:Units available those are up 37.3%. They ended off in October in single family at 5,784.
Speaker 1:That's a good, healthy number and, as you alluded to earlier, is it technically a buyer's market? Probably not, but it's very close.
Speaker 2:Well, they say over three months as a buyer's market and we're in a three-month of units available inventory. So we're there, we're on the borderline of a buyer's market. So condos and townhomes, units sold were 540. So those were up 13.9% Probably, as you mentioned earlier, a lot of those are new construction. Yeah, and median price home of those condos and townhome units. Median price range of the condos and townhome units. Median price range of the condos and townhome units sold were $315,000, up 14.3% $315,000, that is a great.
Speaker 1:it's expensive, I know when you think about it for a condo or a townhouse, but you're owning a piece of property for $315,000 here in 2024. And in a lot of places you couldn't even piece of property for $315,000 here in 2024.
Speaker 2:And in a lot of places you couldn't even think of doing that. Still, yeah, I mean California yeah. That's why we get all the California buyers here. New listings we have 830, which is up. That's up 5.9%, and median price range of those new listings is $301,500. I am surprised that number is. The median price range of new listings is lower than the units sold.
Speaker 1:I think why is the units selling are townhomes and the units coming on the market are condos?
Speaker 2:Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense and I would say the condo and townhome market is officially in October in a buyer's market because it's 3.3 months. So it's a little over that three months.
Speaker 1:No, as I mentioned, the builders have a lot of standing inventory on townhomes and there's a few even that are classified as condos.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even better, classified as condos. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, and that's it. We do see a lot of those townhomes right now that have the garage, or they say they're condos but they have garages. Some of them even have driveways and everything. It's basically a townhome. I have no idea what justifies the difference between a condo and a townhome. I've heard it's lot square footage.
Speaker 1:I've heard varying factors. I sold one a couple months ago. To me it was a townhouse. It had an attached two-car garage and to me, if it has an attached garage and there's nobody above you or below you, to me that's a townhouse. But it was classified as a condo and the only reason I could think is all the living space was on the second floor. So yeah, I don't know what really separates them.
Speaker 2:I think I asked an assessor or somebody at the county one time and they said it was lots for footage, because we're selling a home in a community which there's a lot of those out there that have. Half of them say that they're townhomes and half say they're condos and they like recorded the Ds wrong. So it's confusing. But I just usually tell people when we're doing a search for condos or townhomes with a garage and they say, oh, I just want a townhome because they want the garage, I say let's just put condos in there and add the garage filter, because they're pretty much the same. So our days on the market less than 30 days sold In October we were at. I'm sorry, mike, you have to read the number. It's a little too small for me.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, seven days was 58.9%. I thought that was a five 58.9%.
Speaker 2:That was sold in 30 days or less, and then our 30 days or more. Those were at 20.9%.
Speaker 1:So that's increased and I think we're going to continue to see that increase, especially if inventory continues to go up a bit.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then we have 10.4%. Those were between the 60 and 90 days we're still seeing the majority of the homes have been selling in less than 30 days, so that's good there. And then it gets even lower. Going to 120 days was 5.3% and 4.8% at 120 or more. So there's still buyers. There's still buyers out there, and October was slower than most months have been, so that's good. And then we're almost the same where it comes to condos and townhomes. That's 58.4%. We're sold in less than 30 days.
Speaker 1:That's a great number actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 20.8 at 30 to 60 days and 9.6 at 60 to 90 days, and the up to 120 days was 5.7%. So very consistent with the single family numbers there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And then number of closings they were down. They were up 7.1% from what was the month before October, september, september, oh my gosh, I drew a blank. Those were up 7.1% from September and they were up 12.9% from last year. So that's in the single family home market that was 1,918 units closed at the end of the month and those numbers were both up.
Speaker 1:And that's encouraging the markets absorbing the increase in inventory.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Median closed price that was again at $4.75, $5.31. That was only up 0.9% from September and it was up 5.9% from last year. Okay, so that's definitely showing that it's doing better and we're performing better this year than we were last year at this time. Definitely yeah, even with it being an election season.
Speaker 1:Right, that surprises me. I felt it was totally dead for a couple weeks and I was looking at the numbers every day. It wasn't really totally dead. We say that, but homes were still going into contract, homes were still closing escrow. But, yes, it did feel dead.
Speaker 2:It felt dead.
Speaker 1:My phone was not ringing, except for election calls and surveys, and the text messages.
Speaker 2:And the text messages. Oh my gosh, I was like please just stop. So a number of new listings. Those were up 1.3% from September. We closed out in October at 28.67%, Up 22.9% from the year before. Of that of new listings hitting the market.
Speaker 1:That's A good number in my opinion, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Okay. And then the availability at the end of October we closed out at 5,784 units. That was up 6% from September and that was up 37.3% from the year before. So that's the listings that were on the market, the availability and we've seen that Right.
Speaker 1:A year ago, we were complaining, though, that inventory was still too low. Yeah, so my personal favorite number on available units is right around that 4,000 mark.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:To me that's a real sweet spot. Your buyer can go in, get a little bit of a deal, but yet everything is still selling real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's one of the things I do prefer about this market is the buyers still have the opportunity to get some concessions and things like that, when that goes away, it makes it tough.
Speaker 1:Right, don't let the interest rates scare. You Go in ask for an incentive to buy your rate down Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And those sellers are a lot of times open to those incentives, open to things. They're pretty motivated out there on getting things moving. So the effective availability at the end of the month we closed out at three months of effective availability in single-family homes, which was up 1% from September and 21.6% from the prior year and you had mentioned that we had a very big shortage in inventory last year and then the time on the market of 30 days or less.
Speaker 2:That was up 61.5%. I changed page 61.5% from the prior month in September and 67.2 percent from the prior year. And the reason why the time on the market of 30 days or less is up this year is rates were looking a little more attractive in the beginning of October.
Speaker 1:Yes, they were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did have a little bit of a rate drop, or seen a drop in mortgage rates at the beginning and then towards the end of October they went back up again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's a full explanation. Yeah, and that might be why it was really quiet a couple of weeks before the election is rates started really going back up at a much more of a rapid pace than I preferred. Yeah, yeah, it was like they were in the fives and then all of a rapid pace than I preferred.
Speaker 2:Yeah so. Yeah, it was like they were in the fives and then all of a sudden, we were almost at sevens, almost overnight. Yeah, so it was celebration. And then, no, don't too too soon to celebrate. Um, yeah so, um, mike, if anybody does want to get ahold of you and talk more about market inventory, things like that, and you're a broker, yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:Give me a call 702-286-3434. Also, if you're an agent and you're looking for a change in your business, you want somebody that's going to give you full broker support seven days a week. Agents get paid within 24 hours of closing. Give me a call.
Speaker 2:That's always a good thing. We want to get paid, yes, and we want to get paid quickly, yes. And if you are watching our show, please like, share, subscribe, tell your friends about the show Tune in. Next week we're going to have a new co-host joining us, so we're looking forward to having her on, and I am Trish Williams. If you guys want to reach me, you can contact me at 702-308-2878. And we will see you next week, vegas. Thank you.
