March has come and gone, and upon review it appears that March Madness has infiltrated the housing market. The median sales price for homes in Reno and Sparks, Nevada jumped 2.1 percent in March to come in at $377,121 — setting another all-time record for home prices.
March’s new record high of $377,121 eclipses the previous month’s record-setting median sales price of $369,399. Year-over-year, March’s median is up a whopping 18.2 percent over March 2017’s median sales price of $319,000.
March’s median sold price per square foot (PPSF) soared to $200.73/sq.ft. This number is 3.2 percent higher than February’s median sold PPSF of $194.31/sq.ft., and is 12.7 precent higher year over year.
What is driving these rising home prices? Lack of available inventory.
Home buyer demand greatly exceeds the number of homes available for purchase. Multiple offers, bidding wars, and homes selling above asking price are commonplace. Presently there are only 529 homes available for purchase in the Reno-Sparks market. That number is essentially the same as the 528 homes for sales this time last month, however it is down a whopping 37 percent from the 840 homes available for sale in March 2017.
The lack of available homes for sale not only drives home prices higher, but also impacts the overall number of homes sold, days on market, and future (pending) sales.
Take for example the number of homes in March. 479 homes sold in March. While this number was higher than the number of homes sold in February, year-over-year March’s units sold represented a 14.3 percent reduction compared to the 559 homes sold in March 2017.
Similarly, pending home sales, although slightly higher for the month, are substantially lower when looked at year-over-year. Presently there are 814 homes sales pending in the Reno-Sparks Market. That number is up 2.3 percent over the 796 homes pending sale this time last month. However, year-over-year, current pending sales are down 19.3 percent from March 2017.
March’s median days on market (DOM) came in at 50 days — subtracting 11 days from February’s median DOM. As an indicator of the velocity of the current market, compare March’s median 50 DOM with March 2017’s median DOM of 71 days. Current days on market is a full three weeks less than DOM this time last year.
March sales by type, break out as follows:
- REO sales: 1% – unchanged from February’s 1%
- Short sales: 1% – unchanged from February’s 1%
- Equity sales: 97% – unchanged from February’s 97%
March sales by price band, break out as follows in the table below…
| sales price ($000’s) | units sold | cumulative % of sales |
| 0 – 99 | 1 | 0.0% |
| 100 – 199 | 11 | 2.5% |
| 200 – 299 | 95 | 22.3% |
| 300 – 399 | 170 | 57.8% |
| 400 – 499 | 105 | 79.7% |
| 500 – 599 | 29 | 85.8% |
| 600 – 699 | 19 | 89.8% |
| 700 – 799 | 20 | 93.9% |
| 800 – 899 | 6 | 95.2% |
| 900 – 999 | 7 | 96.7% |
| 1M+ | 16 | 100% |
| total | 479 |
16 homes sold for over $1,000,000 in March. Last year a total of 143 homes sold for over $1,000,000 — for an average of 12 per month. Thus far, year-to-date, 51 $1M+ homes sales have occurred. If this pace continues, 2018 will see over 200 sales of $1M+ homes.
March’s median sold price for houses and condos combined was $350,000 — unchanged from February’s median sold price 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 2018 | 479 | $377,121 | $200.73 | 50 | 529 | 814 |
| Feb 2018 | 443 | $369,399 | $194.31 | 61 | 528 | 796 |
| Jan 2018 | 405 | $360,000 | $191.42 | 68 | 514 | 782 |
| Dec 2017 | 494 | $345,000 | $194.36 | 69 | 605 | 578 |
| Nov 2017 | 534 | $353,000 | $197.03 | 61 | 767 | 713 |
| Oct 2017 | 555 | $345,000 | $191.48 | 64 | 851 | 843 |
| Sep 2017 | 613 | $336,900 | $194.62 | 59 | 925 | 889 |
| Aug 2017 | 721 | $347,900 | $190.53 | 61 | 952 | 1,032 |
| Jul 2017 | 641 | $355,000 | $192.15 | 57 | 1,002 | 1,034 |
| Jun 2017 | 763 | $340,000 | $188.82 | 56 | 963 | 1,127 |
| May 2017 | 680 | $334,950 | $182.46 | 60 | 903 | 1,240 |
| Apr 2017 | 518 | $324,287 | $183.03 | 60 | 896 | 1,149 |
| Mar 2017 | 559 | $319,000 | $177.99 | 71 | 840 | 1,009 |
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 1, 2018. Note: This information is deemed reliable, but not guaranteed.
Related post: February median sales price and other market metrics
Jeff Parker
Thanks, an Easter egg we can all enjoy for now! I would be curious to see the breakout for Reno only zipcodes?? As a realtor, is there a realistic difference in customer preception between the two cities, or is it just the same one generic market as far as you’re concerned?
Guy Johnson
Hello Jeff. Thank you for your question, and thank you for reading the Reno Realty Blog.
Yes, there are differences between customer perception of Reno and Sparks, as well as differences in median home prices. For the purposes of reporting housing market overall trends, I typically report on the housing metrics for the entire Reno-Sparks area. Within our MLS, that area is referred to as “Area 100 — All Reno/Sparks”. However, it is also very easy to split out Reno’s numbers from Sparks’ numbers, or vice versa. Our MLS provides the following subsets for doing so: “Area 101 — All Reno” and “Area 108 — All Sparks”.
The current median sales price in each area is as follows:
If you would like to see the median broke out by specific zip codes, I recently posted this blog post that you may find of interest: Washoe County Home Sales By Zip Code
Brian Connors
Great info Guy, thanks!
Guy Johnson
You’re welcome, Brian.
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