Is the Reno and Sparks Nevada home buyer pool drying up? Signs are definitely showing the market is slowing and the number of closed escrows every month has diminished steadily over the last 3 months.

The graph below charts the Reno & Sparks home sales volume for 2000 – 2009 (year to date):

As you can see, the volume of home sales continues to decline. For the first 9 months of 2009, there were 2,800 homes sold in the Reno / Sparks area. That means unless another 1,100+ homes sell between today and December 31, 2009, then 2009 will have the lowest home sales volume of the decade. For those of you that like to see the data, here are the numbers of homes sold by year:

2000 – 4,695

2001 – 4,835

2002 – 5,548

2003 – 6,163

2004 – 6,856

2005 – 7,261

2006 – 5,075

2007 – 3,936

2008 – 4,425

2009 – 2,800 for 1/1/09 – 9/30/09

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Reno and Sparks still have a long way to go towards becoming a normal functioning market. The good news is the relative affordability of homes in the area has improved drastically over the last 24 months. Can you imagine what our sales volume would have been had we not had the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit to aid 2009 sales?

(Data is courtesy of the Northern Nevada Regional Multiple Listing Service, excludes manufactured or shared ownership housing, and covers Area 100, commonly defined as the Greater Reno & Sparks area including Pleasant Valley, Galena, South Meadows, Damonte Ranch, Hidden Valley, Caughlin Ranch, Arrowcreek, Stead, Cold Springs, Sun Valley, Lemmon Valley, Golden Valley and Spanish Springs.)