CUNA Mutual Group issued the following announcement on Dec. 17.
LAS VEGAS–Some of the nation’s hottest real estate markets are cooling off. A slowdown in sales is being seen in markets that include Las Vegas and Phoenix, where prices still haven’t reclaimed their pre-housing crisis peaks.
After home values rose sharply this year, the market has shifted in recent weeks, reported the Wall Street Journal in its analysis. Prices fell slightly in November while the inventory of unsold homes in the Las Vegas region has roughly doubled compared with a year earlier, according to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. Existing home sales slowed nearly 12% in November compared with a year earlier, the Journal reported.
As CUToday.info reported earlier, Las Vegas has joined other markets, including several in Texas, where price cuts and other perks are being dangled in order to spur sales.
The share of Las Vegas-area listings with price cuts rose sharply to 23% in October from 11% a year earlier, according to Zillow.
Other markets seeing slowdowns include Seattle and Denver, where prices in these markets are still 30% to 70% above their previous peaks.
What’s Driving Market
“The recent weakness in these markets is driven less by lack of affordability, as it has been in places like Seattle and Denver, but rather by a sense of panic among buyers and sellers for whom the memory of the last crash is still fresh, real-estate brokers and housing analysts say,” the Wall Street Journal reported. “The deceleration in these less expensive markets suggests that the housing slowdown isn’t a temporary blip but could become a longer-term shift to a more sluggish national housing market in the months to come.”
Original source can be found here.
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