Home sales remain ahead of last year’s pace

Home sales in town continued their steady climb upward, with February home sales keeping 2016 ahead of last year’s number in the same time span.

February saw 29 single-family homes sold in Pahrump, which is the exact same number that February 2015 saw, but the average price a home was sold for was much higher this year than last, according to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.

February saw an average sales price of a single-family residence of $173,383, which jumped February 2015’s average sale price of $144,689, representing a 20-percent increase.

Norma Jean Opatik, broker with Realty Executives in Action, said that her firm has seen similar numbers.

“We are seeing an average sales price of between $150,000 and $175,000,” Opatik said. “It has increased significantly over the prior year and we’re waiting for our appraisals to catch up and they are working on that. It is working out much better.”

Cathy Slaughterback, owner of All Star Real Estate agrees with the rise in the average price sold, but despite the increase thought it might be busier than it has been thus far.

“Since last year, yeah, we have gone up,” Slaughterback said. “I just thought that we’d sell more though, I’m kind of surprised… There’s consistency, then there isn’t, anything can happen in this town. You never know.”

Opatik explained that higher average sales price is indicative of the ever-improving economy in the area.

Although they agreed on the current state of the real estate market, Slaughterback and Opatik disagreed on who is buying homes at the moment.

Slaughterback said she’s seeing more buyers willing to relocate out here and travel over the hump for employment.

“Not retirees so much, we’re getting back a few more people that are working in Vegas, we’re getting a little bit of that back,” Slaughterback said. “We lost that, for a while it got so we didn’t have a lot of them doing that. I think I’m seeing more of that coming in now.”

Optiak said that she’s seeing mainly those looking to wind down their working life and settle down.

“Most of the buyers coming into town are retirees,” Opatik said. “They’re retiring out here and looking for a little more of a peaceful living. That’s what I’ve heard from many of the buyers that I’ve dealt with. They say it’s nice and quiet and the pace is so much better out here for them.”

With the first two months of 2016 on the books, the total amount of single-family homes sold is at 62, which is above last year’s total of 47 during the same time frame.

The average amount of a home sold in town is also up this year over last, as 2016 has an average sale price of $173,422, which is above last year’s average of $161,611, representing a seven-percent increase.

This year is on pace to top 2015’s total homes sold of 408, which was an increase over 2014, which saw 344 single-family residences sold in town.

Although 2014 started out stronger than 2015, it then flattened out some. Both Opatik and Slaughterback are confident that this year’s strong start will continue throughout the year.

“I think (this year) is going to overtake last year’s numbers,” Slaughterback said. “I think we’ll keep going up as far as sales and I think the prices will maintain, if not go up. I think we’ll surpass last year in both sales and prices.”

“I believe that we’ll outpace last year,” Opatik said. “We had a situation between 2014 and 2015 where prices somewhat stabilized. Now the prices are going up again a little bit, and we’re seeing more and more people selling and more people are buying.

“So I think we’ll outdo last year.”

Contact reporter Mick Akers at makers@pvtimes.com. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.