Down payment for a house in Las Vegas? A report says you must save this long

Las Vegas Valley residents would have to save up for more than 17 years to afford a down payment for a house right now, according to a new study from Zillow.

The average home in the valley is worth $427,509 according to Zillow forecasting, and the median income for a household is $77,502. This means a household would have to put down $198,306 to “comfortably” afford a monthly mortgage payment in 2024.

To save up this amount, assuming the household saves 10 percent of its income every month, it would take 17.6 years, the Zillow study said. This is down from a peak of 20 years in 2022, but up 3.3 percent from before the pandemic started.

Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow, said housing affordability issues are forcing families to stay put and they forecast home values should drop 1.2 percent over the next year.

“(This) reflects a market where more listings are coming onto the market, and staying there for longer, than previously anticipated,” he said in an email response to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Many homeowners are breaking free of rate lock, cashing in on massive appreciation of their property, and moving on with their lives. Meanwhile, would-be buyers are struggling with monthly mortgage costs that have more than doubled since pre-pandemic times.”

Zillow expects home values to drop less than 1 percent in the Las Vegas Valley over the next year, and Divounguy said the local market is definitely one that illicits thoughts of concern.

“Home value appreciation (in Las Vegas) has been stronger than the national average over the last year, partly because housing demand has kept up with the increase in supply,” he said. “While new listings are now up 23 percent compared to a year ago, total for sale inventory is just 3.5 percent higher than in May 2023. Although momentum has shifted somewhat, Las Vegas remains in a bigger hole than the nation in terms of available inventory, compared to normal, pre-pandemic levels.”

Las Vegas has it worse than the national average right now as a Zillow analysis of major metros shows a homebuyer making the median income needs to put down nearly $127,750, or 35.4 percent, to “comfortably” afford a typical American home.

Las Vegas finds itself in the middle of a housing crisis as stakeholders on the residential side are calling for government intervention to unload federal land.

Las Vegas home continued to rise in June as well, but sales dropped last month, according to new statistics from the Las Vegas Realtors.

The median price of an existing single-family house sold in Southern Nevada through the Multiple Listings Service in June hit $475,000, just $7,000 off the all-time high that was set in May 2022. However, sales were down 12.8 percent from May of this year.

Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.