August 2019 Las Vegas/Henderson Real Estate Market Update

Hey everybody, it's Corey Toushin over at the Corey Toushin Group at Life Realty. It's already September and I hope everyone had a great summer. So we're here to recap the market for the month of August 2019 and then I'm going to dispel some rumors and myths about some things that I'm hearing out in the media and people talking about regularly and make sure I clear all that stuff up. So without further ado, let's jump into August, 2019.

 The number of active listings (single family detached homes) that we have at the end of August was 7,766. That number is down about a half a percent from July this year, which is great. The number of new listings that hit the market in August was 4,113. That's also down just a tiny bit from July of this year.  The number of homes sold in the month of August was 3,168, a very healthy number for August and a summer month. And that was up 0.3% from July, the previous month. The median price of a home sold in August was $305,000, up just under 1% from the previous month, and still up over about 3.5% from this same time last year. And then the median price of a home sitting on the market right now with no offers is about $349,000 and that's down a little bit under 1%, and also down about 4.4% from this time last year. 

 The biggest adjustment I'm seeing in the market right now is the number of days it's taking homes to sell. We know from the stats that I just read that homes are still selling, and inventory is actually going down, which is a great thing. Jumping into the statistics on speed of sale, the percentage of homes selling in August between 0 and 30 days was 52.4%. That number was at 57.6% in July. So less homes are selling within 0 to 30 days. 22.2% of homes are selling within 31 to 60 days where that number was at 20.4% in July. And 11.8% of homes are selling between 61 and 90 days when that number was at 10.8% in July of 2019. So you can see less homes selling within 0 to 30 days and more homes selling within 31 to 90 days.

 So again, pricing your home correctly, enhancing curb appeal, doing touch ups and really making not just the home attractive but the price attractive and compelling is so important to make sure you're getting your home sold if you're in that time of your life. 

 Another thing I wanted to go over today is something I'm hearing in conversation between agents, people out in the public, the media,  is this talk about a recession. Are we currently in a recession? Are we coming into a recession? And how does that really correlate with the way the real estate market performs? Over the last five recessions since 1980 only twice did it actually reflect poorly in real estate values. In 1980, 1981 and 2001 home values actually rose. You have 6.1% in 1980, 3.5% in 1981 and 6.6% in 2001. So even if we are coming into a recession, which is probably expected sometime in the next year, just based on a historical cycle, that doesn't necessarily mean that home values will go down. It's actually very likely that they'll go up because in recessions, mortgage rates actually come down historically, which drives more people into the real estate market and triggers more home sales. So that's about the recession.

 So now that clarified a little bit about how home values are connected to potential recessions. Let's talk about mortgage rates. Right now. Mortgage rates are super attractive. Personally, I just locked in a refinance on one of my homes at 3.55% with no discount points on a 30 year fixed conventional loan. And that's pretty much the average that we're seeing right now. Whereas even four to five months ago, rates were about 4%, floating on average around four and a quarter.

So if you're thinking about refinancing and restructuring your finances or potentially trading up into a larger home or even downsizing, it's really the perfect climate to do it right now. So I hope all this was helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me anytime and I'll be guys, have a great September and I'll see you next month. Thanks.