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tell us what you're seeing. Tell us what you're
seeing in the marketplace right now. Shifts in
the last week. I feel it. I have had some buyers
from my past, my broker days come out of the
woodwork in the last probably two to three weeks
or referrals from people. I definitely feel a
buyer mood. It just feels like people are in
the mood to buy. Um, a lot of these things are
just kind of gut feeling and real estate is sounds
so cliche, but real estate is very local. So
what goes for one city doesn't go for the other.
What goes for one zip code within one city doesn't
go for the other. What does one price point doesn't
always, but it's just a feeling. It's like a,
it's like a culture of buying. Whereas the early
part of this year, the first for sure, but second
and third quarter were very boring this year
in 2025, at least in Las Vegas. If you look at
the rest of the country, sings the same song,
not exciting, not a great time to be a seller,
kind of a crummy time to be a buyer. You're staring
down the barrel of high six, low 7 % interest
rates. The inventory that is out there is kind
of like a leftover inventory. Any of the new
stuff still pretty sought after. So you're still
maybe arguably in a competitive situation or
certainly paying more than you feel like you
should. The deals this year have been a new construction
and I've definitely been, especially with the
tonnage builders, your Linares and your DR Whartons
that have the kind of power to buy down rates
and the kind of motivation to clear out inventory
for the quarter versus someone like us, you know,
semi -custom home builder. We don't have. We
put 10 to 12 homes in the ground a year. I have
very little motivation to slash those houses
because it's a labor of love, every single house.
And it's also a unique home. And I go into every
project knowing that this could be on the market
for three to six months because it's not going
to be, it's not going to fit the bill for every
single buyer. And a lot of our, especially the
last five years of what we've put out has been
a lot of product that's discretionary. We have
some projects coming up that are going to be
more, even one now when we release it for sale
in November. Are those that little enclave of
homes? Those are more of a need. They're luxury
homes, but they're a need. They're not resort
style homes. They're just big, beautiful houses
in great areas on great lots. But in the past,
my wheelhouse or our wheelhouse has always been
these luxury resort style homes that had a very
small niche market. So I've always gone into
all my projects knowing full well that it could
be in it for the long haul. So I guess I say
that to drive on the fact that I never have super
high expectations. And I have had a couple of
our luxury customs go into a multiple offer situation,
but that's not been common. Or even some of our
high end renovations that we wouldn't turn around
to sell. Generally, you're kind of hanging tight
waiting for a buyer. So that's nothing new. But
what we saw now was that the tonnage builders
and the production builders and the regular old
resale at the median sales price, let's say 450,
were sitting. And those homes have never sat.
Our median sales price has never sat, really,
in the last 10 years. It's always moved pretty
well. So this is the first year that we really
saw that. Now, that being said, I have seen that
shift in the last probably two to three weeks.
different, some tone changed this month. We've
seen it. We've seen it. I know the home builder
tracking that's showing upticks in traffic, not
necessarily upticks in new contracts, but we
definitely the, at least there, it's not, it's
not bearing out in the data just yet, but the
traffic is there. So that being said, we're feeling
it on our side too, our inventory, we're seeing
an uptick in interest. And then the MLS at large,
at least in our county is Definitely seeing inventory
equilibrate. Amount of new contracts has gone
up. We're seeing more of a one -to -one absorption
rate. So whereas, let's call it May, which was
kind of our peak new inventory month, we were
seeing new inventory weekly at about 1 ,200 houses.
There'll be a little bit more some weeks. And
then new contracts as low as 500 or 600. So we
were adding inventory really really, really quickly.
In fact, May of 25 was our highest amount of
new inventory to ever hit our market since probably
in the last 10 years, with 5 ,000 new houses
added in that month alone, bringing our total
inventory to around 10 ,000. So to give you a
scale of reference, we doubled our inventory
in a 30 to 45 day period, the same period of
time our new home or our new contracts plummeted
from around 800 to 500. So we saw roughly a 20
to 30 % drop in new contracts and a 50 % increase
in inventory, actually a hundred percent increase
in inventory. So it just, you know, I also know
that real estate is really, it's sentiment driven.
So it's not that it was just dumb luck. It was
that because there was so much inventory being
added, buyers are pulling back because buyers
are pulling back the inventory that was being
added wasn't being able to be absorbed. Then
once it hits the headlines, then it spooks everybody
and then nobody wants to do anything. And that's
kind of where we found ourselves this spring.
Probably our most lackluster spring in my memory.
I've been in this business about 12 years. I've
seen 12 springs and this is by far my least favorite,
including the spring of COVID. And I don't, that
doesn't even look, when I look back at the numbers,
it doesn't even represent, it's not represented
in the numbers, which is very odd because for
instance, in terms of new listings, Raw numbers
were not much higher than we were in May or June,
2022 in terms of new listings. Now we were starting
with a thousand listings. So if we added 5 ,000,
you know, there's a lot, um, still, but still
under inventoried. So now we started with 5 ,000
and then we added 5 ,000. So it became much more
apparent. But if you look at the raw numbers,
it's not. There. So it's purely sentimental.
I feel that we're going to look back in a year
or two and say, what happened in 25? I don't
know. It's not even going to register because
it's going to be inconsequential. In terms of
sales price, believe it or not, we're up 2 .5
% from last month. In terms of the year, we are
up in the last rolling 12 months were up three
and a half percent pretty much countywide. So
that's, that's normal appreciation. I mean, again,
there are other factors that can play into this.
We're more expensive homes listed, more expensive
home transact. These are the medians. So it's
a little bit more representative than the average,
which can be thrown by a $25 million home sale.
one 2 ,500 million, but on the median, you know,
you have to have seven or eight 25 million of
home sales to throw the median off. So when you
look at it, we are still, we're at records. And
mind you, this data is from our local association.
So if you look at the National Association, if
you look at our other compilers, such as our
Zillow's and our Redfin's, these numbers could
easily be different. But our median previous
record was February, I'm sorry, January, 2023,
with the city Henderson being a 480 for median,
Las Vegas being 416. And currently today we're
at 490 for Henderson, Las Vegas being 440. So
we're substantially higher than during that time,
than three years ago. But the headlines will
say, we have seen a 3 % decline, whatever, whatever,
whatever. I just want to see the data because
you can spend data however you want. You can
get rid of outliers. You can look only at single
family. This includes some condominium and some
townhouses. So if you exclude those. It's going
to be even higher. Single family obviously is
a bigger share of the market and they transact
for higher sales prices. So it's a great year.
I mean, we're in a quarter three and it's a great
year. If you could have told me in January 2025
that this is the year we're going to have, I
wasn't prepared for the emotion of it, but the
numbers are fine. It's just been a bit of a paradigm
shift for us. We're in a market where we're used
to sellers holding all the cards. It's just not
like that at this moment. The sentiment is that
the buyers have more power. And the data is there
to back that up, because if you look at total
listings, total number of homes for sale, we're
at about 10 ,000, like I mentioned. But just
for reference, number one, we only have to go
back to May of 2023 to have that same number
of homes on the market. And before that, obviously
COVID is a nadir. April 2022 lowest amount of
available homes, which was around 4 ,800. So
it shows you we've come a long way and we've
doubled our inventory. But just for reference,
we only have to go back to July slash August
of 2020 to hit these inventory levels. And if
we want to end just for our own references, they
were never less than that. As far back as our
data. compiles in the last 20 years. There's
never been more homes available than that. So
I guess my point is that the line peaked here
in January 2015, and we're still nowhere near
that. We're still below. We talk about doom and
gloom, but if we go back to January 2015, there
were 14 ,000 houses on the market. in Las Vegas.
This is Henderson, Las Vegas, and North Las Vegas.
This isn't Pahrump. This isn't Mesquite. These
are no outlying areas. This is the Las Vegas
metro area. We have 14 ,000 houses for sale.
There's one caveat to this. A lot of new home
construction is not represented in the data that
I just mentioned. That new construction lot has
to hit the MLS and has to sell on the MLS and
show as a pending and show as a sold house to
hit any of this data. So the caveat there is
that we are definitely putting more new homes
in the ground than we have in many, many, many
years. But there's also people buying more new
homes there are many, many years. So if we look
at the number of closed transactions, like for
instance, closed sales, if we look at, you know,
from a monthly data, we're looking at approximately
2200 closed transactions in August, which is
pretty good. It's like, around $600 a week, give
or take, which is pretty healthy. For reference,
early 2021, we were seeing approximately 5 ,000
homes a month closed. So over 1 ,000 transactions
a week closed in March of 2021. Complete anomaly.
Going back 10 years, you don't get anywhere close
to that. But I just want to give a reference
point to show the number, the month I quoted
of January 2015, where we had 14 ,000 houses
on the market that month. We closed 2 ,000 houses
It's seven months supply in January 2015. So
It's eye -opening so we have we still have still
fewer homes and we closed more homes than we
did this time ten years ago, so We just have
had a hot market. We've had a lot of closed transaction
We had a lot of interest in Las Vegas. But my
point is is that January 2015, I'd have to go
back and look at the numbers, but we were still
reeling from the financial crisis, and I have
a feeling we were not building as many new construction
homes as we are today. The land development wasn't
there. I hate to speak anecdotally without having
the data, but I know we were building fewer homes.
So the total number of real estate transacting,
including new construction, including all the
resale, is significantly higher. The inventory
is significantly lower. interest rates are significantly
higher than they were in January 2015, which
were about four and a half, five percent, which
really, I mean, if you really think about it,
we're like six and a quarter today. Yes, it's
a lot higher. I think where we're feeling it
are the sales prices. It's those high rates plus
the sales prices being significantly higher.
So, for instance, the, let me see, sales price,
because everyone's going to have, everyone's
going to be in our comment section for this.
January 2015, the average sales price in Las
Vegas was $180 ,000. So that extra 2 % of interest
rate, you wouldn't have felt it. It feels different.
I'm seeing it. You're seeing inventory start
to thin down. My favorite expression, and I don't
know, maybe I'm the only one that appreciates
it, but buyers market breed only the most motivated
sellers. Sellers markets breed only the most
motivated buyers. Inventory begets buyers, or
I should say inventory breeds buyers. not the
other way around. Buyers don't breed inventory
because inventory takes a long time to amp up.
You could argue that high sales prices do eventually
breed more inventory because it will pull maybe
investors out that were renting their homes or
someone holding a second home and says, you know
what, it's doubled in value. So high sales prices
do tend to pull out a little bit more inventory,
but boy, it is slow because same thing. Once
sellers feel like home prices are appreciating
substantially, They're actually less inclined
to list their home. So it takes a while. It's
almost like not high prices, but peaking prices
once they feel like prices have peaked. And I
feel that that's what we felt like in early 25,
which is why we saw a lot of inventory. And then
when they didn't peak, when we started to see
them kind of not just necessarily pull back,
but slow down quite a bit and, oh, I'm not getting
comps for 700. I went to 715, 725 and I didn't
get it. I went to 700 and get it went to 685
didn't get it, pull it off the market. So I think
that's kind of where we're at right now. And
I will be encouraged to see where the rest of
the year goes. And we have a bit of a blip in
our market. And a lot of the Sunbelt markets
have another blip in the fall, you know, and
we just hit fall a couple days ago. So I expect
a pretty healthy fall based on these numbers.
Also, new mortgage is not new construction, new
home mortgage applications, not refinances. The
number I read were that they were up 22%. So
that is a phenomenal leading indicator. That
is a really good leading indicator for where
we expect values to go. People are getting pre
-approved. That's a hard credit pull. That's
largely usually sending in documentation. You're
not doing that to kick tires. You're ready. Yeah,
those are real buyers, right? Those are real
buyers Yeah, so we look at all these things and
as I'm making pricing decisions on our current
inventory we have One ready we have two that
are going to be ready in the next week or two.
We have one that'll be ready by the Thanksgiving
time period and then we have six more that'll
be ready probably in February But we're releasing
for sales in the next six weeks I need that information,
I need this information to make those pricing
decisions. So say, do we do a price reduction?
Do we do, what are we doing here? How do we engage
with buyers that ask for certain concessions
if I feel the market is on an upswing? Like I
said, every home is custom. So I'm not in the
business of slashing and burning. and getting
inventory off my books. I worked too hard for
that inventory. I didn't just build it to liquidate
it. Why? It's important. So I turned a real estate
podcast into a home builder episode, which I
can't help it. I love it. I love it. I think
it's great. It was good information. So thank
you. Perfect. Good content. Awesome. Thanks for
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