With all of the attention recently (national media, Reno Gazette Journal) on the mortgage crisis and the housing market, I thought I'd give a quick update on how the Carson City housing market and the Carson Valley housing market are holding out.

Buyer Market vs. Seller Market?
Both markets are currently "Buyer Markets" (probably not a big surprise to you) which means that the home buyer has more negotiating leverage than the home seller. Compared to February 2007, the local markets have actually moved further into "Buyer Market" territory. By how much? The Carson City housing market has moved 28% more towards a Buyer Market while Carson Valley has moved only 9% further in favor of Buyers. The best indicator of the market status is how many months of inventory (the number of months it would take to 'sell off' the current inventory of homes based on the average number of homes sold per month over the last year). Carson City is currently at 10.6 and Carson Valley is at 13.4 months. When this number gets down to 4 - 6 months, the market will be balanced.

Home Sales Volume
Homes are still selling (22 homes sold in Carson City in January, 2008 and 23 homes sold in Carson Valley in January, 2008), the volume is down - 44 homes sold in January of 2007 in Carson Valley).

Pricing Trends
How much dealing is going on? On average, about 4% worth. The average "sold price" to "list price" is about 96% for both markets. While this is not a large margin, at least compared to what I hear about many people's expectations, the prices have certainly come down over the last few years. The Carson City median home price peaked at $346,000 in April 2005 and is hovering around $257,000 for the last three months' average median price. Carson Valley peaked in September 2005 at $432,000 and has been in the range of $281,000 to $320,000 for the last three months.

What about Foreclosures?
While there are homes in foreclosure in Carson City and Carson Valley, about 85% of the foreclosure and bank short sale homes in our area are in Reno/Sparks. This is a good thing for home owners in Carson City and Carson Valley. Currently, there are between 8 and 10 new foreclosure/short sale listings each day in Northern Nevada.

If you are a home buyer, this may be good news and great information. Home sellers - hopefully this is good information to have. If you want to dig deeper, subscribe (free) to The Greater Reno-Tahoe Real Estate Report.

Comments and questions welcome - leave a note below!

Mitch Argon
REALTOR(r)