Las Vegas home prices remained flat through spring
Las Vegas house prices are on a flat streak.
The median sales price of previously owned single-family homes — the bulk of the market — was $300,000 in May, unchanged from both April and March, according to a new report from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.
Compared to a year earlier, the median house price was up 1.7 percent last month, the smallest year-over-year gain in seven years, the association reported.
By comparison, house prices in May of 2018 were up 18 percent from a year earlier, according to GLVAR data.
Price growth “has really been slowing down, and that has become especially apparent over the past few months,” GLVAR President Janet Carpenter, managing broker of Signature Real Estate Group’s Summerlin office, said in a statement.
Las Vegas’ housing market has seen other signs of a cool-down lately. Sales totals have tumbled from year-ago levels, and the once-depleted tally of available listings has shot back up, all of which followed a stretch of fast-rising prices and rising mortgage rates that, collectively, sparked affordability concerns.
Despite the slower growth rate, resale prices are still climbing in Las Vegas, but they haven’t reached their pre-recession peak yet.
Las Vegas’ median house price topped out at $315,000 in June 2006, during the real estate bubble, according to the GLVAR. Adjusted for inflation, however, that peak price was about $396,735 in today’s dollars.
Bucking a recent trend, resales gained speed last month. According to the GLVAR, 3,281 single-family houses traded hands in May, up 14.2 percent from April and 4.5 percent from May 2018.
But inventory kept rising. A total of 7,855 houses were on the market without offers at the end of May, up 5.6 percent from April and 90.7 percent from last May, the GLVAR reported.
The trade group pulls data from its listing service, which largely comprises previously owned homes.
Builders are also selling fewer homes in Southern Nevada, with 3,168 closed sales this year through April, down 3.1 percent from the same four-month stretch last year, according to Las Vegas-based Home Builders Research.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.