What a month March was for the Reno-Sparks real estate market!
The median home sales price increased another 1.9 percent for the month to come in at $270,000. What’s significant about the number? Other than home prices are up 18.4 percent over this time last year, it’s that $270,000 represents a doubling of home prices since bottoming after the housing bubble burst.
That’s correct, housing prices in Reno and Sparks hit an all-time low of $135,000 in January 2012. Today’s median home price is twice that figure — or put another way home prices have increased 100%. Not a bad return in a little over three years.
Not only did the median sales price increase, but March saw the number of units sold jump by a sizable increase as well. The 532 houses sold in March represents a whopping 35 percent increase over the 394 houses sold in February. Sure, March has more days in the month than February, but not 35 percent more days. Incidentally, 483 houses sold in March 2014.
March’s median sold price per square foot (ppsf) came in at $149.58/sq.ft. — a whopping 4.2 percent one-month increase over the $143.55/sq.ft. seen in February; and a 15.2 percent increase over the ppsf seen last March.
March’s median days on market (DOM) dropped to 58 days — shaving off more than two weeks from February’s median DOM of 74 days.
After having declined every month since August 2014 available inventory in the Sparks and Reno real estate market finally turned the corner in March. Currently, 715 houses are available for sale. Available inventory is up 13.5 percent over the 630 houses that were available this time last month.
March sales by type break out as follows:
- REO sales: 8% – up slightly from February’s 7%
- Short sales: 5% – down from February’s 7%
- Equity sales: 85% – up slightly from February’s 84%
March sales by price band break out as follows in the table below…
| sales price ($000’s) | units sold | cumulative % of sales |
| 0 – 99 | 5 | 1.0% |
| 100 – 199 | 92 | 18.2% |
| 200 – 299 | 238 | 63.0% |
| 300 – 399 | 113 | 84.2% |
| 400 – 499 | 37 | 91.2% |
| 500 – 599 | 12 | 93.4% |
| 600 – 699 | 13 | 95.6% |
| 700 – 799 | 8 | 97.4% |
| 800 – 899 | 6 | 98.5% |
| 900 – 999 | 1 | 98.7% |
| 1M+ | 7 | 100% |
| total | 532 |
March saw seven homes sell for over a million dollars. 8.6 percent of the homes sold in March sold for more than $500,000 — compare that to February when only 6.9 percent of sales were for more than $500,000.
March’s median sold price for houses and condos combined was $259,250 — a 3.7 percent increase over February’s median sold price of $250,000 for combined sales of houses and condos.
The table below contains the past 13 months of data…
| Month Year | # Sold | Median Sold Price | Sold Price per Sq Ft | Median DOM | # of Actives | # of Pendings |
| Mar 2015 | 532 | $270,000 | $149.58 | 58 | 715 | 1,027 |
| Feb 2015 | 394 | $265,000 | $143.55 | 74 | 630 | 1,044 |
| Jan 2015 | 363 | $252,000 | $140.12 | 84 | 706 | 933 |
| Dec 2014 | 518 | $261,995 | $140.22 | 77 | 806 | 789 |
| Nov 2014 | 474 | $260,000 | $138.36 | 70 | 940 | 977 |
| Oct 2014 | 490 | $260,000 | $140.04 | 73 | 1,083 | 1,075 |
| Sep 2014 | 507 | $239,000 | $136.90 | 70 | 1,325 | 999 |
| Aug 2014 | 578 | $250,000 | $138.38 | 60 | 1,390 | 1,015 |
| Jul 2014 | 530 | $249,950 | $140.26 | 61 | 1,365 | 1,117 |
| Jun 2014 | 564 | $250,000 | $135.97 | 61 | 1,234 | 1,098 |
| May 2014 | 546 | $240,000 | $134.60 | 65 | 1,076 | 1,190 |
| Apr 2014 | 535 | $230,000 | $130.37 | 65 | 945 | 1,198 |
| Mar 2014 | 483 | $227,999 | $129.87 | 64 | 837 | 1,249 |
Note: The medians table above is updated on a monthly basis. The median home price data reported covers the cities of Reno, Nevada and Sparks, Nevada [NNRMLS Area #100]. Residential data includes Site/Stick Built properties only. Data excludes Condo/Townhouse, Manufactured/Modular and Shared Ownership properties. Data courtesy of the Northern Nevada Regional MLS – April 2015. Note: This information is deemed reliable, but not guaranteed.
Click here for historical data back to 1998.
Related post: February median sales price, units sold, DOM and inventory
March median sales price, units sold, DOM and inventory | bestreno241
[…] What a month March was for the Reno-Sparks real estate market! The median home sales price increased another 1.9 percent for the month to come in at $270,000. What’s significant about the number? Other than home prices are up 18.4 … Continue reading → […]
Tiffany Brown
Love your blog posts, Guy! Do you think we’ll see a return to the average median home price that the market witnessed back in mid-2005 (as I understand that was the height of the market before the downturn)?
Guy Johnson
Hi Tiffany. Thank you for your comment and thank you for reading the blog. Regarding your question, housing prices in our area peaked at $365,000 in January 2006. I don’t believe we’ll see a return to those prices anytime soon. …unless the median household income increases to a level that can support such home prices.
BanteringBear
“…I don’t believe we’ll see a return to those prices anytime soon. …unless the median household income increases to a level that can support such home prices…”
They don’t even come close to supporting the $270,000, so why aren’t you calling for a massive correction to the downside?
Guy Johnson
Thank you for your comment, BanteringBear. Out of curiosity, what might be a triggering event for such a correction? Escalating interest rates?
It is the current demand for houses relative to current supply that is driving home prices. I don’t see that demand subsiding anytime soon. A substantial increase in supply would help to stabilize pricing, but not sure how quickly supply can increase either.
BanteringBear
My point was, Guy, that fundamentals aren’t what is driving this market, it’s speculators and nothing more, so the idea that incomes matter is absurd. Prices are also buoyed by an artificial restriction in inventory. AB 284 took NOD’s from 750 per month to less than 20. What HAPPENED to all of those houses (easily more than 20,000 by now)? Where did they go? I can tell you with 100% certainty that the loans didn’t all of a sudden magically become current. The truth is they’re all still out there, waiting to come to market, or perhaps rot into the ground they stand upon, carried on the Fed’s balance sheet in perpetuity. As long as there is no audit of the Fed, they don’t ever have to do anything with them. But I can drive you around the area and show you vacant house after vacant house after vacant house. It’s the biggest sham I’ve ever seen in my life. Free market capitalism my ass.
Jack
Like guy said,
Without a substantial increase in inventory prices WILL remain elevated and continue to increase from even $270k.
Bantering bear, the markets can remain out of whack longer than you can remain sane. You , yourself said it! They can hold those vacant houses on the books forever if they so wish to. Look for the median to hit $300k+in the next 12-16 months
Zen
So it seems like most here are saying that the banks are holding on to a big inventory of foreclosures. If that is true, I assume they are doing that because prices are going up and they want their money back, so they are waiting for prices to increase even more. My question is this though, what happens if the bottom falls out? If the economy turns for whatever reason, i.e.. global economic slowdown, interest rate hikes, banking crisis, stock market crash, whatever, then these fools will be left holding the bag? If they are really holding on to so much inventory, (empty, rotting, older by the minute inventory) wouldn’t you think now would be the time to unload, before builders ramp up inventory, and while prices are quite high?
market realist
jack, time to sell, if you have a property to sell. The drought is something no one wants to talk about, but its real. Property values in Reno have outrun wage growth, and its not like Cali where builders are restricted from building. Take your profits if you got ’em and if you can, very limited upside.
Tiffany Brown
How can property values have outrun wage growth if EDAWN is projecting 50,000 jobs through 2019? Also, the multi family vacancy rate is at historic lows and rental rate has hit the highest point in the market’s history due to extremely right supply (indicating strong demand).
market realist
you are talking about projected job growth, already baked into the run-up in prices. the best thing for reno housing prices that can happen, would be for tesla & co. to live up to the wild projections, and it serves to affirm the current housing premium, and slowly appreciate from here. on the other hand, maybe we won’t all be driving electric cars, and tesla’s impact on the area may be just ho-hum. combine that with a possible increase in mortgage rates, and also the investors that bought housing in this area during the downturn wanting out to cash out and keep a nice return on their investment, and you don’t have a risk-reward profile that appeals to me.