Las Vegas market continues its soft ways

If anything, the Southern Nevada real estate market is staying on the same path from last month. It's on a slow and steady downward slide. Hopefully not too long, though.

Home Builders Research reports for July that sales at the resale sector declined over 40% from a year ago and for new homes the number is almost 40%. As you can see, the distress is pretty evenly divided. The news are a bit better on the price side. Existing home values gave up only 4.3% from last year to $276,500, while new homes held the drop to 2.6%, down to $327,790.

How far does the market have to go before the recovery starts? No one knows, of course, but when the inventory stops growing and prices level off, then we are about to turn the corner for a new day. Clearly, we are not there yet.

The present mortgage industry upheaval isn't helping any, either. Qualifying for a mortgage has become more burdensome, especially for borrowers at the lower end of the credit scale. That is effectively removing some hopeful buyers from the mix and adding to the market's weakness.

As I've said before, it sure smells like a buyer's market. And those with a lot of cash to put down are the real kings of the hill.

Photo by kadanwa.