Clark County’s real estate market appeared to slow in July, but only slightly — and only in comparison with the breakneck pace of market activity so far this year.
The report from the Regional Multiple Listing Service showed a slight dip in pending sales last month, allowing the region’s highly limited inventory to expand for the first time since April.
New listings were reported at 1,213, a 7.7 percent increase from June’s 1,126 and a 3.3 percent increase from the 1,174 listings in July 2020.
Pending sales, at 969, saw a 3.3 percent drop from the 1,002 reported in June and a 5.8 percent year-over-year drop from 1,029 in July 2020.
Closed sales increased 2.8 percent from June, from 966 to 993, and jumped 5.8 percent compared with 939 reported in July 2020.
The region’s inventory in months, a measurement of how much time it would take to sell through the existing inventory, ticked up slightly to 0.7 after holding steady at 0.6 for the three preceding months.
The inventory had ranged from 1.8 months to 2.9 months in the year leading up to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but dropped sharply during the summer of 2020 and has remained below one month since last September.
The median sale price for homes in the region fell slightly, from $476,800 in June to $475,000 in July, although the average price rose from $530,000 to $537,900 over the same time period.
It’s the first time either figure has fallen month-to-month all year. Local home prices have accelerated rapidly amid a surge of real estate activity, and local real estate agents have attributed the rising costs to short supply in the face of high demand, sometimes prompting would-be buyers to engage in bidding wars.
At this time last year, the year-to-date median sales price was $392,000 and the average was $428,300. For 2021, the year-to-date median is $452,000 — an increase of 15.2 percent — and the average is $509,000, an increase of 18.8 percent.
The local office of John L. Scott produced its own monthly report based on the data, highlighting the breakdown of sales and listings by price range.
Every price range up to $750,000 had an estimated 0.5 month of outstanding supply, and homes in the $750,000-to-$1 million range had an estimated 1.5 months, according to the Scott report.
The $350,000-to-$500,000 and $500,000-to-$750,000 ranges together account for nearly three-quarters of Clark County’s listing activity.
“The intense summer heat in Clark County’s real estate market did not waver in the month of July,” the report concluded.
