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Good news on the pre-existing sales numbers coming out of Las Vegas.

As a ground zero city for the housing crisis I tend to watch Las Vegas closer than most cities. So when news cam out that May resales were up even with prices down, it is cause for mild optimism.

Las Vegas could barely move any inventory when buyers saw pricing in free fall. But as foreclosures, half of the market, and other resales start to move the fence sitters will start coming back.

Buyers are out there, but they do not want to invest and then lose. They have seen what that has done to others and are not stupid. But once the consumer is confident the bottom is here and appreciation is possible they will return. Hopefully not with the unbridled optimism of 2004, but with the expectation that their biggest asset will increase in value.

Thanks partly to a bumper crop of foreclosures on the market in Las Vegas - about a third of resale listings in the city are in default - prices have plummeted 22.5 percent, or $65,000, from their October 2006 peak of $290,000. The lower prices are summoning buyers and investors back to the market, Smith said.

But less-expensive resales also hurt demand for new homes, given buyers’ perceptions that foreclosures are bargains relative to nondelinquent properties. Half of all resales sold locally in May were foreclosures, going for a median of $215,000. The median on nonbank-owned properties that closed in May came to $239,000. New homes posted a median of $269,990 in the month. via Big Builder Online

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4. Sales Down - Prices Up - Real Estate Agents Nervous
5. Inventory and Sales Almost Equal, Is This The Bottom?