General Overview of the March 2009 Multiple Listing Service data:

March showed some outstanding sales figures with 2,903 single family transactions sales increased nearly 30% over February (2,236) and a whopping 87% over March 2008 (1,554). This highlights just how dismal 2008 was in terms of resale activity.

For the week ended 4/5/2009[1] there are 22,890 single family (14,568 or 63.6% vacant); 4,304 condominiums (3,059 or 71.1% vacant); and 1,723 townhomes (1,208 or 70.1% vacant) actively listed on the Multiple Listing Service. That represents a 11.9 month supply for all unit types based upon a 4-week moving average of closings; and an 8.8 month supply of single family homes based on a the 2,255 closings that occurred from during the preceding four weeks. This week with the end of the month falling on Tuesday saw 653 closed transactions – one of the better weeks this year.

Of the 28,917 listings in all categories: 11,457 (40%) are bank-owned and 9,823 (34%) are short sales. Of the bank-owned properties – 47.2% are under contract. Of the short sales 31.1% are under contract. Both percentages are quite a bit higher than were under contract at the end of February. Short sale listings are continuing to increase slightly from a, apparently temporary, plateau while bank-owned listings seem to have reached, at least temporarily, their plateau for the first time – most likely due to the moratorium that Fannie & Freddie and certain banks put on foreclosures.

Bank owned properties account for 40% of all listings but slightly less than eighty percent (78.8%) of all closings during March; short sale properties account for 34% of all listings and 6.9% of all March closings through the MLS system.

While the nominal prices of properties sold along with the price per square foot continues to decline the increased sales overall and greater percentage of REOs and Short Sales under contract seem to be positive indicators for the market. Especially considering the hammering the local economy appears to be taking on jobs and the other leading indicators as published by Center for Business & Economic Research at UNLV (http://cber.unlv.edu/publications.html).

We slice & dice the data every month and compare it to the previous year as well as the prior month and there are many interesting insights we find in various submarkets. We are finding that the percentage of transactions involving homes built prior to 1990 is increasing and when you remove those transactions from the ‘mix’ the averages do not look quite so bleak.

Average sales price 2008:                                                         Median sales price:

January $308,843                                                                     $250,600

June      $267,298        -13.5% change                                     $225,000         -10.2% change

August  $248,660         - 7.0%             (-19.5 YTD)                            $210,000         -  6.7% change (-16.2% year to date)

September $234,364   -5.75% (-24.2 YTD)                            $195,650         -  6.8% change (-21.7% year to date)

October $226,514       -3.34% (-26.7 YTD)                            $193,500         -  1.1% change (-22.8% year to date)

November $215,241   -4.97% (-30.3% YTD)             $186,000         -  3.9% change (-25.8% year to date)

December $208,507    -3.13% (-32.5% YTD)                        $175,000         -  5.9% change (-30.2% year to date)

January 2009 $187,371     -10.1% (-39.3% YoY)                   $161,000         - 8.0% change  (-35.8% YoY)

February 2009 $182,722  -2.4% (-38.8 YoY)                         $156,947         - 2.5% change (-36.7 YoY)

March 2009     $174,321  -4.6%                                             $149,900         -4.5% change (38.8% YoY)

Average size & Price per square foot:                           Median size & Price per square foot:

January 2,058 sq. ft. -- $143.89/s.f.                                          1,852 sq. ft.     $135.00/s.f.

June      2,122  sq. ft. -- $123.86/s.f.; -13.9% change               1,904 sq. ft.     $118.42/s.f.; -12.3%

August  2,118   sq. ft. -- $115.62/s.f.;  - 6.7% change               1,892 sq. ft.     $110.68/s.f.;  - 6.5%

September 2,056 sq. ft. -- $112.36/s.f.; -2.8% change             1,801 sq. ft.     $107.78/s.f.; - 2.6%

October 2,027 sq. ft. -- $107.81/s.f.;  -4.0% change                1,803 sq. ft      $104.33/s.f.; -3.2% change (-22.7 YTD)

November 2,053 sq. ft. -- $101.98/s.f.; -5.4% change  1,829 sq. ft.      $ 99.51/s.f.;  -4.6% change (-26.3% YTD)

December 2,039 sq. ft. -- $97.13 / s.f.; -4.8% change  1,820 sq. ft.      $95.73 / s.f.; -3.8 change (-29.1% YTD)

January 2009 1,994 sq. ft. – $90.37 / s.f.; -7.0 change  1,768 sq. ft.      $88.90 ./ s.f.; -7.1% change (-34.2% YoY)

February 1,968 sq. ft. - $87.70 / s.f.; -2.9 change                     1,755 sq. ft.      $86.29 / s.f.; -2.9% change

March 1,990 sq. ft. - $83.09 / s.f.                                            1,774 sq. ft.      $81.69 / s.f.; -5.3% change (-36.7% YoY)

The rate of decline rises and falls every month but continues its downward trend. As stated earlier though, older properties are having an affect on some of the averages.

And if it is any consolation to those following the (primarily) detached market which these statistics describe, you should see what it happening to the condominium market – it is getting the stuffings kicked out of i! The declines in attached product are absolutely unbelievable! We are in the process of analyzing the various attached segments of condominiums: High rise, Mid-rise & Resort, Garden Style (stacked flat), and Bulk Sales.

We are posting some of those findings at: http://www.residentialresources.com/My_Blog/page_1727238.html

This Month’s Graphs

We thought we would take a change of pace from analyzing the market by product levels and decided to look at the market in terms of those transactions that are ‘arm’s length’ (21% of March transactions were non-REO but include 201Short Sale transactions) versus the 2,288 distressed properties that closed escrow in March.

It should be noted that are definite differences, sometimes quite pronounced, between the REO and short sale transactions. For example the median sales price of the REO transactions was $139,900; for short sales $170,000 and for ‘normal’ transactions $210,000.

For non-REO:

Average Sales Price of $245,435 and an average of $107.14 per square foot while the median sales price was $196,000 and a median value ratio of $101.05. Prices ranged from $20,000! to $2,328,000 with sizes ranging from 692 square feet to 7,351 square feet. As the chart below indicates the number of REO transactions under $100,000 is skewing the average for the entire market. We changed the distribution table (for the first time in over a decade) to reflect the number of homes selling for under $100,000 – but to a lesser extent it still skews the chart.

The median Sales Price/List Price ratio was 96.5% ranging from as low as 39% to 118% with approximately 10% of the 615 transactions selling for greater than list price. Median lot size for these transactions was 6,098 square feet. Days on the market (before contract) ranged from 1 to 913 days with the median at 54 days.

There were nine closings of $1 million or more in February for non-REO transactions.

For REO homes:

Average Sales Price of $155,206 and an average of $76.63 per square foot while the median sales price was $139,900 and a median value ratio of $77.16 (there is the effect of the older properties again). Prices ranged from $14,700 to $2,375,000 with sizes ranging from 648 square feet to 8,679 square feet.

The median Sales Price/List Price ratio was 100% ranging from as low as 28.6% to 203% with approximately 10% of the 2,288 transactions selling for greater than list price (same as non-REO). Median lot size for these transactions was 5,917 square feet. Days on the market (before contract) ranged from 1 to 516 days with the median at 49 days.

Not surprisingly, none of the REO properties was occupied while only 31.4% of the short sale and non-REO properties was occupied. We believe that this occupancy percentage is an indicator to keep an eye on and are in the process of looking backwards to see how this has changed over time and the relationship between occupancy in sales transactions and occupancy in properties listed.

Seller Concessions[2]: seem to have stabilized in the $5,000 range for those transactions that involved any reported incentive. Slightly more than 56% (down slightly from February) of all transactions reported a seller concession, most notably on FHA transactions and more frequently on multi-story homes. Incentives ranged from $150 to $106,000.

Methodology: Data is downloaded from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors MLS website into a spreadsheet for analysis & graphing. During the course of the analysis errors are corrected that are discovered, e.g. in November 2008data a sales price of $326,000 was reported as $32,600,000 – enough to skew the median sales price for the month by 5% and skew the average by over 11%. While we do our best to cross-check information with Clark County assessor records and use a variety of statistical checks to discover errors Residential Resources, Inc. cannot guarantee the accuracy of the data. We do believe that given the meticulous ‘scrubbing’ we do that any undetected errors (including errors of omission) do not substantially affect the statistics presented.

There is usually a discrepancy between our total closing figures compared to other sources, such as GLVAR, since we eliminate closings that are actually condominium properties that end up in the single family residential category as well as sales reported as lease-options. Additionally, since MLS data is self-reported, it may take an agent/office a couple of weeks to accurately report a closing date for the previous month – they are subject to fines so the margin for error is not great. Since we generally download our data on the 5^th of the following month (depending upon the day of the week) there may be properties that show up after our download.

Conclusions and interpretations are solely those of Residential Resources, Inc.

You may download the entire report with the associated graphs by visiting:

http://www.residentialresources.com/blogs/frank_nason/archive/2009/04/05/las-vegas-metro-market-trends-march-2009.aspx

For further information on this or Northern Nevada (Reno/Sparks and Fernley/Fallon) or for a quote on custom analysis please contact:

Frank Nason, President

FrankNason@ResidentialResources.com

702-597-2855 Office or Toll-free 866-597-2855

5520 South Fort Apache Road

Las Vegas, Nevada 89148