January’s Median Prices

Good News: The number of houses for sale continues to decline.  Down 1.3% from last month.  Also, the median For Sale price continues to decline Down 0.57% from last month.  While the median Sold price increased almost 4% over last month.

Bad News:  Only 171 houses were sold during the month of January.  This is a sharp decrease from the prior month (a 30% drop from December’s 244 Solds).  As Solds continue to decrease; months supply of inventory will continue to climb.

Here are the latest numbers: 

Month and Year # Homes For Sale Median Asking $ # Homes Sold Median Sold $

Jan 2008

4,229 $328,000 171 $280,000

Dec 2007

4,286 $329,898 244 $269,450

Nov 2007

4,665 $329,900 231 $288,195
Oct 2007 5,044 $329,900 266 $288,000
Sept 2007 5,188 $330,000 269 $285,000
Aug 2007 5,646 $336,400 348 $295,000
July 2007 5,597 $339,900 351 $295,995
June 2007 5,539 $340,000 345 $300,000
May 2007 5,293 $345,000 412 $295,250
April 2007 5,008 $349,250 378 $296,000
Mar 2007 4,745 $349,000 373 $294,900
Feb 2007 4,488 $345,000 312 $285,000
Jan 2007 4,892 $347,000 324 $280,000
Dec 2006 4,727 $348,900 337 $290,000
Nov 2006 5,350 $349,900 318 $300,000
Oct 2006 5,765 $349,900 409 $299,900
Sept 2006 6,077 $352,000 385 $299,900
Aug 2006 6,350 $355,000 372 $306,650
July 2006 6,408 $359,900 411 $322,900
June 2006 6,440 $359,900 463 $325,000
May 2006 5,955 $364,900 425 $316,000
April 2006 5,202 $363,700 412 $316,000
Mar 2006 4,899 $365,000 434 $328,000
Feb 2006 4,401 $369,900 321 $317,000
Jan 2006 4,245 $370,000 325 $325,000
Dec 2005 4,040 $375,000 385 $319,900
Nov 2005 4,432 $376,448 443 $331,000
Oct 2005 4,694 $376,700 559 $335,000
Sept 2005 4,567 $380,000 603 $336,500
Aug 2005 4,370 $385,700 695 $334,950
July 2005 3,860 $387,000 677 $345,000
June 2005 3,411 $384,500 607 $335,000
May 2005 3,113 $375,000 717 $326,000
April 2005 2,808 $365,000 650 $315,000
Mar 2005 2,611 $350,000 660 $309,000
Feb 2005 2,198 $348,250 411 $301,000
Jan 2005 2,078 $349,000 381 $295,000

Note: The median table above is updated on a monthly basis. The median home price data reported covers the cities of Reno, NV and Sparks, NV. Residential data includes Site/Stick Built and Condo/Townhouse. Data excludes Manufactured/Modular. Data courtesy of the Northern Nevada Regional MLS – February 2008.

4 comments

  1. smarten

    Again the most important statistic provided is the number of monthly sales. Although more of a decline [at least in my mind] than from November and December, the trend remains down.

    How much lower can the number [of monthly sales] drop until there’s essentially no more room to drop? To me the figure’s like unemployment. Once unemployment drops to 3%, there’s essentially no unemployment even though we have a positive number.

    I say that at about 125-150 sales/month, we’ve hit bottom even though the numbers are positive. Does that mean the recovery begins from there? Not necessarily because we may go sideways for some period of time. But it probably represents the bottom.

    And watch the median sales price to hold firm – again, a meaningless statistic!

    And I reiterate – when the number of monthly sales is so low, the median sales price becomes meaningless – just as this month’s median sales price increase is meaningless.

  2. MikeZ

    24.7 mos of inventory!

  3. Reno Ignoramus

    Indeed 24.7 months of inventory. Folks, that ranks Reno right up there with some of the Florida markets as the worst in the country.

    As I have been commenting on for quite a while now, we are now down to 4% of listings that are selling. At least we have abandoned the hype that 10% of listings are selling through.

    As for the median, as Smarten points out, at some point the number of houses selling drops so low that the median starts to lose its significance. The median for January 2008 is the same as the median for January 2007. $280,000. But only a person who has been living in a cave would not recognize that one’s dollars today buys one a whole lot more house than the same number of dollars did a year ago. For $280,000 one can buy today a much bigger, nicer house than he could have a year ago for the same money. And that is true at pretty much every price point. The notion of a “holding steady” median belies the significant market deterioration that has occured over the past year. And that continues to occur.

  4. GreenNV

    Check out the latest numbers from UNV at http://www.nsbdc.org/what/data_statistics/gis/data_downloads/ for the quarter. You can buy a much smaller, nicer house than you could a year ago. The median $/SF for homes sold is down, but not as much as the median SF of homes sold.

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