Housing prices in the Las Vegas valley are inching toward an all-time high, according to the latest report by the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.
GLVAR reported that the median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada through its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) during September was $310,000. That’s up 3.3% from an even $300,000 in September of 2018. Meanwhile, the median price of local condos and townhomes sold in September was $171,000. That was down 0.6% from $170,000 in September of 2018.
According to GLVAR President Janet Carpenter, those numbers aren't black and white.
"You have to understand that was in 2006, that was 13 years ago and with normal inflation and hopefully normal increases in salary, even if we got 315 it’s hard to say we reached our peak since that was 13 years ago," she said.
According to an inflation calculator found online, $315,000 in 2006 would be equal to $400,871.88 in 2019. This means that relatively speaking, Las Vegas isn't close to breaking the record for home prices.
However, she said the steady 3-5% rise Las Vegas has seen recently is a good sign of a stable market. She said right now, the housing market is in a good place and she doesn't anticipate any major falls in the near future.
Before slowing down this year, local home prices had been soaring since early 2012, posting double-digit gains from year to year while climbing back toward their all-time peak. According to GLVAR, the median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada is now within $5,000 of the $315,000 peak set in June of 2006 before prices began falling during the recession. Local home prices hit a post-recession bottom of $118,000 in January of 2012.
Additionally, GLVAR says fewer homes have been selling this year compated to the previous few years. GLVAR reported a total of 42,876 local property sales in 2018, down from 45,388 in all of 2017.
The total number of existing local homes, condos and townhomes sold during September was 3,430. Compared to one year ago, September sales were up 12.9% for homes and up 19.5% for condos and townhomes.
