Contingent and Pending Activity

No surprises

Everyone has been curious about the impact of the tax credit on sales. We are seeing a dip but no cliff diving. We have expected that some demand would be pulled forward from the latter months of 2010. Since about half of our market has been investor sales that are not qualified for the credit, the effect may be muted more in Las Vegas than in other areas. The ultimate effect on sales post tax credit may end up being a popular question but with an academic answer. It is going to be hard to disentangle. So far continued low mortage interest rates have kept some in the game. Other macroeconomic factors may trickle down in some form to local housing sales and a lot of this may be mistakenly tagged to the expiration of the tax credit. We know that the expiration will have an effect but by how much is hard to estimate.

Here are the contingent and pending numbers up to May. Don't forget, a lot of the contingents are based on a short sale approval, so many of these will not convert to closings anytime soon.




                                                           Single Family Home Sales
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Source: Mlxchange.