Ulf Buchholz / File photo

Las Vegas-area home prices are likely to fall further as local foreclosure activity shows no sign of slowing down, two reports said this week.

The Wall Street Journal today reported on its quarterly survey of housing-market data in Las Vegas and 27 other major areas.

The report found sharp declines in the number of homes listed for sale around the nation as government programs tried to help delinquent mortgage borrowers keep their homes.

"That campaign has gummed up the foreclosure process, slowing the flow of houses into bank ownership -- but only temporarily," the Journal reported.

Despite the limited inventory, "the potential supply of homes is far larger because banks are likely to acquire significant numbers of foreclosed homes in some areas, notably Las Vegas, Atlanta, Detroit, Phoenix, Miami and other parts of Florida, and Sacramento, Calif., over the next few years," the Journal reported.

Quoting numbers from LPS Applied Analytics in Denver, the Journal said 22.6 percent of first-lien home mortgages are 30 days overdue or in foreclosure in the Las Vegas area. Among the metro areas covered, only Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Orlando were higher with 26.6 percent and 23.3 percent, respectively, of such loans overdue.

The national average is 12.4 percent, up from 5.2 percent at the end of 2006, the Journal said.

And the Journal reported that Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, predicts prices in Las Vegas and other hard-hit metro areas will continue to fall. Moody's Economy.com forecasts Las Vegas prices in the second quarter of 2010 will be down about 24 percent from the second quarter of 2009.

Also this week, data analysis firm Fiserv of Brookfield, Wis., projected Las Vegas-area home prices would fall another 23.9 percent from June's level to June 2010 -- and after that continue falling another 4.3 percent through June 2011.

Fiserv, too, noted the large number of foreclosures expected to enter the market.

The national median home price is predicted to drop 11.3 percent by the end of June, but then rise 3.6 percent through June 2011 Fiserv said.

The projected declines in Las Vegas would be on top of a 38 percent decline in the median price of Las Vegas homes, to $140,000, from June 2008 to June 2009. That was reported by the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.

The Las Vegas median price for new homes and resales peaked at about $313,000 in October 2006.

The Las Vegas mortgage delinquency numbers reported today by the Wall Street Journal are consistent with an Oct. 15 report from RealtyTrac, which found Nevada continued to lead the nation in foreclosure filings in both the third quarter and in September.

With unemployment running at 13.3 percent in Nevada in September, 18,766 foreclosure filings were reported in the state that month. These include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions.

The number of Nevada filings increased 4.8 percent from August and was up 44 percent from September 2008, RealtyTrac said.

The reports this week follow release of the September existing-home sales statistics from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.

The Las Vegas Realtors reported:

--The median price of single-family homes sold in the Las Vegas area in September was $138,000, up 1.8 percent from $135,500 in August; but down 29.2 percent from $195,000 one year ago.

--For condos and townhomes, the median price decreased 0.9 percent from $66,288 in August to $65,720 in September. That’s down 45 percent from $119,450 one year ago.