Market for Las Vegas Valley Still Bleak, Says Report

According to recently released reports from the ""Nevada Title Company"":http://www.nevadatitle.com/login.asp?parentid=1&parentid2=1, the closing price for homes in Las Vegas Valley was $135,000 in September, down $5,000 from the closing price in August and down $3,000 from the closing price in September 2009.

Las Vegas Valley is a 600 square mile portion of the Las Vegas metropolitan area in the southern part of Nevada, and contains the largest concentration of people in the state.

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Last month, 984 REO homes and 734 short sales were closed, making up 40 percent and 31 percent of all closings in the Valley, respectively.

This is a stark contrast from last year when the numbers were 2196 for REO, making up 67 percent of the market, and 482 for short sales, making up 15 percent.

Latest figures from Nevada Title suggest that REO inventory, although high, may begin to steady in coming months. The amount of homes that received notices of default (NOD) and notices of sale (NOS) in the past year (from July 2009 to July 2010) have fluctuated but have a downward trend overall.

Says the report, ""The incidence of NOD-NOS is highly erratic on a monthly basis. In general, activity has been slowing. This implies that the current rate of REO will remain stable in short and near term.""

But the absorption rate, which measures how much time it would take to clear the market of available REOs, has been rising, signaling a rise in supply that is faster than the rise in demand. The market speed, or rate of closing, is also slowing.

At press time, it would take 37 weeks to clear the market of all available homes. The company's data show that there are 5,962 short sales on the market and 2,504 REO homes on the market.