Carson City, Nevada Housing Market Update February 21, 2023

Carson City Houses

Recent data is showing the median sales price for a single-family home in Carson City is $426,500 – down 15.5% from this time last year. Is there a chance that number could go below 15.5%? It may not. We might see a little bit of a decline, possibly pushing into the 20% range. Carson City did not experience the same trendline as the Reno and Sparks housing markets, but we do expect as we go into spring to see quite a big difference in prices across all three markets. 

New Listings

Very few homes are hitting the market in Carson City, with only five newly listed homes for the whole area. What does that mean for folks in the area? There are many enthusiastic buyers active in Carson City, so if you’re a potential seller in Carson it’s a huge opportunity. With so few homes to choose from, there is no competition right now. Folks who are contemplating selling in springtime, waiting for warmer weather to list their properties, should seriously consider moving that up a month or two. As mentioned before, if roads and pathways are dry – buyers are out there buying. Again, something to keep in mind as we move forward – because you’re only going up against five new listings for the whole area.  

Homes Under Contract

Even with the weather we experienced in January, agreements reached between buyers and sellers is on an inclining trend in the Carson City market. “Pendings” have been absorbed since the beginning of the year. That shows us there is a good group of buyers are out there actively buying.  

Percentage of Asking Price 

Buyers and sellers are successfully negotiating. And recent data from the Carson City area is showing sales coming in around 95.6% of asking price. What does that mean? It means that settling somewhere around that 4.4% range is where folks are most often reaching agreements. Sellers, when marketing their homes, could think of this in a couple of different ways. First of all, they can expect that range of negotiations. Secondly, if they’re not within that 4.4% of what a buyer is willing to pay, their home will not sell. If a home is sitting on the market, it’s likely that the current listing price is more than 4.4% off from what buyers are willing to pay. It’s not a precise number and calculation because you can’t quantify human behavior, but doing your best to gather information and set some reasonable parameters is always a good strategy. 

Weeks of Inventory 

Folks in Carson City are currently seeing only 5.8 weeks of inventory. That’s not too far off from last year when the real estate market was reaching its peak and we saw just 4.4 weeks – only a week and a half of more inventory. That’s very little. The Reno and Sparks markets are seeing between 12-16 weeks, and that is still considered a seller’s market. For those who want to buy and live there, there’s a major housing shortage in Carson City. Once a pretty balanced marketplace, the inventory it had was rapidly absorbed, making Carson City a very strong seller’s market. It’s very volatile in comparison to what it has been over the last year.  

Median Days on Market

Right now, the median days on market in Carson City is 30 days. Anytime we see listings on the decline and pendings and median days on market on the incline, that tells us that sellers are likely having to do a couple of price reductions to find the right buyer. When we see months on market as opposed to weeks on market, typically what that means is the seller accidentally started too high, leading them to now reduce. In a marketplace such as this, it is very normal for sellers to take some time to find the top dollar marketing strategy for their home. Buyers aren’t likely to give original listing prices much thought. Buyers don’t care where the price was, they care about what the price is currently at. It’s best to focus on today forward and not dwell on the past. 

Unsold Inventory

Unsold listings have been linear as of late. We had a big spike near the end of the year, but we also saw a spike in new inventory. Those spikes likely correlate, meaning the sellers probably hired different agents. They were serious sellers who wanted to sell so they switched it up and hired a different agent. Twelve homes went under contract last week, five homes hit the market, and five homes did not successfully sell. Unlike the Sparks and Reno markets where there’s a very low percentage of inventory, and in terms of the small numbers overall, that is a sizable number of unsold listings. That leads us to believe that sellers are in disagreement with what buyers are willing to give them. Perhaps they disagree with the top dollar value of their home – it happens. Or maybe they would have taken a lower offer, but no one was willing to give it to them. Occasionally, this presents an opportunity for negotiation. So buyers shouldn’t hesitate to send an offer on a property that’s been sitting on the market for a little while. If you don’t try, you don’t know. The worst thing the seller can say is no. 

In summary,

if you are a new seller in the Carson City marketplace, you might consider bumping up your listing date by a couple of weeks. The cold weather is not keeping eager buyers at bay. Pendings are on a continual increase which means buyers are out there buying, and now is the time to take advantage of that opportunity.