KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasGloomy Outlook For Las Vegas Housing Slump
The news isn't good when it comes to Southern Nevada's housing slump.
Mike Fitzwilliams said, "There is a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress that goes along with it. You try to go from here on forward and maintain a positive perspective."
For people like Mike Fitzwilliams who bought two years ago and suddenly have to sell, it means big losses.The news isn't good when it comes to Southern Nevada's housing slump. Mortgage rates have now jumped to the highest level in ten months and a new economic report predicts it could be late next year before we see any improvement.
The University of Nevada Las Vegas conducted the mid-year economic report. Its authors make a couple of predictions. If you're trying to sell your home, it's pretty dire.
More and more people keep trying to sell and the prices keep going down. For people like Mike Fitzwilliams who bought two years ago and suddenly have to sell, it means big losses.
Nine months ago, he wasn't willing to take a $9,000 loss. Now, he's looking at offers $40,000 below what he paid for his home. Losses he may have to pay off with credit cards to try to avoid foreclosure.
Fitzwilliams said, "There is a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress that goes along with it. You try to go from here on forward and maintain a positive perspective."
Keith Schwer, of the UNLV Center for Economic Research, said, "There has been a housing bubble, a lot of excess supply. We think about 14-15,000 housing units more than we need and that is depressing home building and home building has slowed significantly."
UNLV's midyear economic outlook shows people are spending less, construction is falling and housing permits plummeting in Southern Nevada. Schwer says the housing downturn could last one to four years, and then start to climb. He hopes it's just one year. The strength of the Southern Nevada gaming and high-rise building market support his hope, he says.
The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors said that people who are selling or thinking about selling need to look at what their homes were worth in 2004 and then start to go down from there.
With prices back to where they were before the housing boom in 2004, you would think that this is a good time to buy. The problem is sellers are reluctant to drop their price. The key is to put in low offers. While mortgage rates are at a 10-month high, 7-percent historically isn't really that bad.
Here's a look at the numbers:
The median price of a single-family home in Southern Nevada decreased in May.
According to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, the median sales price of a single-family home in Las Vegas was just over $301,000 in May. That's down one-percent from April and down nearly 3-percent from last year.
Also in May, the number of homes listed for sale increased by more than three-percent from April.
