More than nine out of 10 local REALTORS® expect local home prices to keep going up in the next year.
That’s one of the highlights from the latest Quarterly Sentiment Indexreleased this week by UNLV’s Lied Institute for Real Estate Studies in partnership with the Greater Las Vegas Association of REALTORS®(GLVAR).
Each quarter, Lied Institute researchers survey a select group of GLVAR members about their expectations for home prices, sales and construction over the next quarter and next year.
“Like past versions of these quarterly surveys, this is another indication that our local REALTORS® are getting more optimistic and see our housing market continuing to get better,” said GLVAR President David J. Tina, a longtime local REALTOR®. “That makes sense, especially since we’re heading into the time of year when home prices and sales usually increase the most.”
Tina said his experience supports these sentiments, as he’s seeing increased activity in his own real estate business.
When asked where they thought local home prices were going in the next year, more than 90 percent of those who responded said they expected prices to go up. Less than 10 percent expected prices to stay about the same. None of the local REALTORS® who responded to the survey expected prices to go down over the course of the next year.
When asked where they thought local home prices were going over the next 90 days, nearly 84 percent expected prices to rise, while nearly 13 percent thought they’d stay about the same. Only one person (about 3 percent of those surveyed) expected prices to go down during the coming quarter.
REALTORS® were less bullish on short-term sales volume, with nearly 55 percent expecting sales to go up over the next 90 days and about 45 percent expecting sales to stay about the same. They were more optimistic when projecting sales over the next year, with nearly 81 percent saying sales should go up, while just over 19 percent think they’ll stay about the same. None of the respondents predicted that sales will decline over the next 90 days or during the next year.
Peter Counts, a data analyst at the Lied Institute who oversaw the survey, said these latest results show that the 31 GLVAR members who responded to the survey were even more optimistic than they were during previous quarters. In fact, Counts said this represents the fifth consecutive quarterly increase in the short-run, 90-day forecast. He added that this current survey shows the highest level of overall confidence in the local housing market since the survey started in early 2016.
When asked for their overall assessment of the real estate market in the Las Vegas area over the next year, nearly 81 percent of local REALTORS®surveyed said it’s getting better, with just more than 19 percent saying it’s likely to stay about the same. REALTORS® were only slightly less optimistic about the coming quarter, with just over 74 percent predicting it will get better and nearly 26 percent expecting it to stay about the same. None predicted that the local housing market will get worse.
As for local home building, more than 77 percent of those surveyed expected new home building activity in the Las Vegas area to go up over the next 90 days, with nearly 23 percent expecting it to stay about the same. Over the next year, nearly 81 percent expect increased home building, while more than 19 percent expect more of the same.
As for challenges facing the local housing market, some REALTORS® who answered the survey cited an increasingly tight local housing supply. Others expressed concerns about home building not keeping up with demand and about rising mortgage interest rates, which could make it more difficult for first-time and entry-level buyers to find and afford a home.
These survey results are largely consistent with GLVAR’s most recent report on the local housing market. GLVAR reported that the median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada during February was $240,000. That was up 0.8 percent from January and up 8.9 percent from February 2016. Meanwhile, the median price of local condos and townhomes sold in February was $118,000, up 4.0 percent from January, but down 2.9 percent from February 2016.
Tina noted that the median home price in Southern Nevada one year ago at this time was $220,350. Two years ago, it was $205,000. Five years ago, in February of 2012, it was $121,000.
Despite dealing with less than a three-month supply of available homes when a six-month supply is considered ideal, GLVAR said more existing local homes were sold in 2016 than during 2015.
