The Center For Regional Studies has just completed the second quarter housing reports for Washoe County. Builders have been slowly working their way through the stockpile of finished units, and there were less than 1,200 units in “standing inventory” at the end of June (including model homes).
Each quarter we are seeing more and more tentative maps expiring — these represent units that were approved in the past few years but, due to the economic downturn, builders have not been able to bring these units to market within the allotted time frame. Seeing as there are still over 31,000 approved-unsold units in the Truckee Meadows, this trend in tentative map expiration will likely continue for some time.
To put that in perspective, there were less than 1,000 new homes sold in 2009, and 2010 is carrying on at a similar pace. The sheer volume of approved-unsold units in the area tells me that builders are going to be extremely cautious before attempting to add to that number with additional project approvals.
Also note that we have started reporting the average sales price of homes BY SUBDIVISION in our quarterly housing reports, and have started showing the total number of BANK OWNED homes within each of the approved subdivisions. This data is part of our comprehensive Market Activity Report available for Washoe County. For more information on these reports, visit our website, or call Brian Kaiser at 775-287-1237.
