Las Vegas homebuilders started 2025 with fewer sales than a year ago, a new report shows, as many would-be buyers face hurdles in affording a place.
Builders logged 974 net new-home sales — newly signed sales contracts minus cancellations — in Southern Nevada in January, down 8 percent from the same month last year, according to Las Vegas-based Home Builders Research.
The firm also reported that builders pulled 1,058 new-home permits in January, down 9.6 percent from a year earlier, indicating a pullback in construction plans.
Builders closed 777 sales in January as well, nearly identical to the same month last year. After a buyer signs a sales contract with a builder, it can take several months before construction of the house is finished and the sale closes.
The median sales price of January’s closings was $523,925, up 10.3 percent year-over-year.
Despite widespread talk about a lack of affordability, higher interest rates and other real challenges facing buyers, monthly sales cancellation rates in the home construction market have been at “very normal levels” of 10 percent to 15 percent, Home Builders Research President Andrew Smith wrote in the report.
By comparison, cancellation rates were in the 30 percent to 40 percent range in late 2022, after interest rates climbed, he noted.
In Southern Nevada’s resale market, sales of single-family homes dropped 6.1 percent in February from a year earlier, and the tally of houses for sale without any offers shot 50.6 percent higher.
At the same time, the median sales price, $485,000, matched the region’s all-time record set in January and was up 5.4 percent from a year ago, trade association Las Vegas Realtors reported.
Across the U.S., available inventory has climbed, pending sales have dropped, and mortgage rates and home prices both remain “stubbornly high,” real estate firm Redfin recently reported.
Buyers and sellers face widespread economic and political uncertainty, Redfin said, noting that tariffs, layoffs and federal policy changes have all contributed to an “air of instability.”
In January, 17.9 percent of pending home sales in the Las Vegas area fell through, third highest among the 50 biggest metro areas in the nation, according to Redfin.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
