Las Vegas home sales increase in March as prices drop

Home buyers continued to find bargains in the Las Vegas area in March as prices fell, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported Friday.

The Realtors said the median existing single-family home price during March was $125,950, down 1.6 percent from $128,000 in February and down 7.4 percent from one year ago.

The median price of local condominiums and townhomes in March was $61,000, down 2 percent from $62,250 in February and down 10.6 percent from one year ago.

The number of local homes, condominiums and townhomes sold in March was 4,316 -- up from 3,371 in February and up from 3,989 in March 2010.

These statistics generally are for properties on the Realtors' Multiple Listing Service and don't account for many new-home sales or existing homes sold by owners without the help of an agent.

"Local homes were already selling at a strong pace, but sales increased significantly in March," GLVAR President Paul Bell said in a statement. "As for the slight decrease in median home prices last month, I think real estate investors are influencing that statistic because they tend to buy lower-priced homes, which are generally owned by banks."

The GLVAR said 51.4 percent of all existing homes sold in Southern Nevada during March were purchased with cash -- with investors typically putting up cash. That’s down from 53.8 percent in February.

Despite the decline in cash buyers, Bell said "this is still a very high percentage of people paying cash for homes."

As long as local home prices remain low and lending standards remain relatively stringent, Bell said in the statement he expects this percentage to hover near record levels as investors play a dominant role in the local housing market.

In March, 23.6 percent of existing homes sold in Southern Nevada were short sales -- when a bank agrees to the sale of a home for less than what the borrower owes on the mortgage. That’s down from 26.6 percent in February and from a peak of 34 percent in June 2010.

The GLVAR found that bank-owned homes accounted for 47.6 percent of all existing home sales in March, down from 51.6 percent in February.

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