Hello from Las Vegas!
New home sales are making somewhat of a comeback. The information below the graph is courtesy of Salestraq. They represent at 42.1% increase in new home sales in 2012 from the previous year. Even more recent information shows that for free-standing homes, the prices have increased from January to January 27.1% The medain price of a free-standing home in January 2011 was $118,000. The median price in January 2012 was $150,000. With 52,543 resale closings in 2012 new homes sales still have much ground to make up. Just a few years ago new home sales accounted for around 50% of the market.
Below is a graph that gives you a visual representation of the price fluctuations since mid 2006 for free-standing homes. I have updated it to include the last quarter of 2012.
Existing (Resale) Home Pricing: The price in the resale market reached $130,000 by the month of December, which represented a 23.9 percent jump from just one year ago. Per-square-foot pricing also jumped to $84, which was up 24.9 percent from the close of 2011.
Resale Availability (MLS Listings): The effective availability in the multiple listing service (MLS) remained relatively low at 1.3 months. A modest 4,500 single family and multifamily units are listed as available.
Bank Foreclosures (Repossessions): The number of foreclosures remains negligible relative to past due mortgage levels with 213 units returning to banks during the month. For the year, 4,400 units were foreclosed upon, a remarkable decline of 75.2 percent from the prior year
New Home Pricing: Pricing continued to move north as asking prices edged up in response to tight availabilities and a feverish sales pace in the resale market. The median new home price reached $219,963 during the month of December 2012 (+4.1 percent year-over-year). On a per-square-foot basis, pricing reached approximately $108 (+16.1 percent). With new home developers (e.g., Harmony Homes) continuing to edge up pricing, expect price points to continue to escalate through the first half of 2013.
New Home Closings: New home closings of 605 in the final month of 2012 contributed to an annual total of 5,389, a 42.1 percent increase from the prior year. While sales volumes remain relatively sluggish relative to overall population growth, builders and consumers are responding to new market dynamics. While ahead of the prior total, sales volumes in 2012 represent the second lowest tally since SalesTraq began tracking the data in the late 1980s
