Existing home prices in Southern Nevada continued their downward trend last month, according to a report released Tuesday.
The median price for a home in the Las Vegas Valley in October was $440,000, down 2% from September, according to the Las Vegas Realtors trade group.
In August and September, the median price held steady at $450,000, though it reached a record high of $482,000 in May.
When compared to October 2021, last month’s median price was still up 7%.
One of the biggest factors that has led to downward pressure is mortgage rates, which have skyrocketed this year.
As of this month, mortgage rates for a fixed 30-year loan, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, hovered at close to 7%.
Last year at this time, that same rate was close to 3%. Just a couple of percentage points of a change can mean the difference of hundreds of dollars per month on a home loan for consumers.
“Ever since mortgage interest rates started rising this summer, we’ve seen the housing market cool down,” said Brandon Roberts, president of Las Vegas Realtors, in a statement. We’re seeing more homes on the market, and fewer homes are selling.”
In fact, Roberts pointed out, local home sales are down about 22% from the same time last year.
As for local condominiums and townhomes, the median price for units sold last month was $266,000, a slight decrease from September, but still up about 13% from October 2021.
The record for median price of a condo or townhome here was set in May at $285,000.
At the end of last month, more than 7,900 homes were listed in Southern Nevada without any type of offer.
That was up 141% from this time last year, according to Las Vegas Realtors.
On the condo and townhome side, nearly 1,800 were listed last month without any sort of offer, a jump of 205% from a year ago.
The price of a home in Southern Nevada is still close to four times what it was when the market bottomed out in early 2012.
Then, the median price of a home was just $118,000.
The trade group said the Las Vegas market now has about a four-month supply of homes on the market.
Formerly called the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, the trade group has over 17,000 members. It was founded in 1947.