With prices rising and buyers facing what Tina said is still a very short supply of homes for sale, GLVAR has been reporting more homes sold by “traditional” sellers—as opposed to lenders, who are responsible for the short sales and foreclosures that dominated the market in recent years. In June, he said “traditional” sales accounted for a recent high of 60% of all local home sales.

GLVAR has also been reporting fewer foreclosures and short sales.

In June, 31% of all existing local home sales were short sales, down from 31.8% in May. Another 9% of all June sales were bank-owned properties, down from 10.3% of all sales in May. The remaining 60% of all sales were the traditional type, which was up from 57.9% in May.

Tina expects short sales to continue playing a significant part in the housing market this year, primarily because the federal Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act is set to expire Dec. 31, 2013. Barring any further extensions—as some members of Congress have recently proposed – any amount of money a bank writes off in agreeing to sell a home as part of a short sale starting in 2014 may become taxable when sellers file their income taxes.

GLVAR said the total number of existing local homes, condominiums and townhomes sold in June was 3,642. That's down from 3,884 in May and down from 3,945 total sales in June 2012. Compared to May, single-family home sales during June decreased by 3.6 percent, while sales of condos and townhomes decreased by 16.3 percent. Compared to one year ago, single-family home sales were down 7.8%, while condo and townhome sales were down 7.3%.

The total number of properties listed for sale on GLVAR's Multiple Listing Service generally decreased in June, with 13,750 single-family homes listed for sale at the end of the month. That's down 0.5% from 13,814 single-family homes listed for sale at the end of May and down 18.8 percent from last year. GLVAR reported a total of 3,448 condos and townhomes listed for sale on its MLS in June, up 1.8% from 3,386 listed in May, but down 7.1% from one year ago.

However, GLVAR reported more available homes listed for sale without any sort of pending or contingent offer. By the end of June, GLVAR reported 3,828 single-family homes listed without any sort of offer. That's up 16.1% from 3,297 such homes listed in May and up 3.7% from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 1,464 properties listed without offers in June represented a 14.6% increase from 1,277 such properties in May, and a 35.2% increase from one year ago.

In June, GLVAR reported that 55.3% of all existing local homes sold were purchased with cash. That's down from 57.9% in May and down from the peak of 59.5% set in February.

GLVAR reported that the median price of bank-owned single-family homes sold in June was $163,750, up from $154,900 in May. The median price of single-family homes sold as part of a short sale in June was $145,600, up from $140,100 in May.

When we last wrote about Las Vegas home prices in June, Clear Capital, a premium provider of data and solutions for real estate asset valuation and collateral risk assessment, said that Vegas has played some good hands in the home price recovery game. “May home price trends confirm the recovery continues to mature,” said Alex Villacorta, vice president of research and analytics at Clear Capital, at the time. “While there's no questioning the validity of the recovery at this point, performances at the local level remained mixed when considering strength, sustainability and relative positions to 2006 prices. For example, Las Vegas' strong yearly gains represent a rebound from a severe correction rather than bubble-like price growth.