Tuesday, May 12, 2009

General Overview of the Reno/Sparks Multiple Listing Service data:

As of 5/11/2009 there are 3,519 single family (1,677 or 48% vacant); 562 condominiums (327 or 58% vacant) actively listed on the Multiple Listing Service (including those 241 that are under contract). Percentage of vacant units remained steady in both product categories from the end of March and we interpret that as a positive sign. Those 4,081 housing units represents 9.8 months supply for all unit types based upon a 4-week moving average of closings; and slightly more than 9 ½  months supply of single family homes based on 366 closings over the last 4 weeks. There are a little over 11 months of condominium supply based upon current absorption.

 
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Of the 3,519 single family listings: 675 (19%) are bank-owned and 1,326 (38%) are short sales. Of the bank-owned properties – 13% are under contract. Of the short sales 2.3% are under contract. Compared to the southern Nevada market these percentages remain remarkably low (45% and 46% under contract, respectively). The low percentage under contract could be due to any number of factors: inferior location, uncertainty of purchasing a property without warranties or disclosures of any kind, banks unwillingness to negotiate or price the property, etc.

What seems odd is that REO properties account for 19% of all single family listings yet nearly 52% of all closings during April (down from 56% in March); short sale properties account for 38% of all listings and increased slightly to19% in April.  Hopefully, the percentage of REOs leveling out in April will hold as it puts tremendous downward pressure on pricing. While pricing appeared to have leveled out with the median staying at $200,000 for the first 3 months of the year April saw a 6% decline from March.

Our median sales price is figured strictly on what closes escrow in any given month and can reflect a bias in the sales data. The S&P Case-Shiller median price methodology is considered the best to reflect a more accurate picture of which direction prices are heading as it uses a ‘paired sales’ methodology of accounting for price changes month-to-month.

There were 408April MLS single family detached closings – up 15.6% from March and up 30% from March 2008.

This huge percentage in year-over-year sales just highlights how dismal 2008 was for the resale market in general.

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This Month’s Graphs

Last month our tables and graphs separated and compared the ‘normal’ transactions to the REO and Short Sale properties. After looking at the median prices for the three categories we have decided to include the short sale transactions with the normal transactions rather than with the REOs as we feel it provides a clearer picture of the market.

For April Closings:

For REO Only:

Average Sales Price of $175,772 and an average of $94.89 per square foot while the median sales price was $158,000 and a median value ratio of $93.73. Sales prices ranged from $30,000 to $799,900 with sizes ranging from 696 square feet to 5,657 square feet.

Of the 408 transactions for the month 212 were bank owned, 78 were short sale transactions and 2 fell into the Court Approval category.

For non-REO:

For the 196 non-REO/Short Sale transactions the Average Sales Price was $305,911 and an average of $129.54 per square foot while the median sales price was $225,000 and a median value ratio of $120.63. Prices ranged from $54,700 to $2,994,000 with sizes ranging from 728 square feet to 7,450 square feet.

Days On Market: Median Days on the MLS were 138 and 83 for non-REO and REO transactions respectively – This is quite a change from the 106/107 days reported last month but that is the result of placing the Short Sales transactions in with the normal transactions – it raises the DOM for normal transactions as it lowers the DOM for the RE properties.

Just for comparison the median DOM for the southern Nevada market (for April transactions) is currently 37 days for REO,  39 for non-REO and 101 days for Short Sale transactions that close.

Lot size preference: The median lot size for single story closings in March continued to remain nearly constant at 0.19 acre for non-REO and 0.16 acre for REO homes.

This report with additional graphs and tables are included with the downloadable .PDF file at www.ResidentialResources.com select the bottom tab and click on the link at the bottom of the blog.