Vegas No. 1 for homeowners looking to move, report says

The Las Vegas Valley is the most searched place for relocating homebuyers in the nation, according to a new report.

“Buyers with the freedom and inclination to relocate are choosing Las Vegas largely because their money goes a long way there,” the report from real estate brokerage Redfin said. “Its typical home sells for $412,000, less than half the price of a home in Los Angeles, the most common origin for buyers moving to Las Vegas.”

The report is based on online searches by about 2 million Redfin.com users for homes across more than 100 metropolitan areas from April 2023 to June 2023. According to Redfin, a record 25 percent of users nationwide looked to move to another metropolitan area in the second quarter of the year.

Plus, new population estimates from UNLV’s Center for Business and Economic Research show that 115 people are moving to Clark County every day.

In fact, the county is expected to gain 42,066 residents this year.

This would be the biggest population surge the county has seen since 2020, when 50,885 people were added to the population, according to the UNLV report, which also projects Clark County could welcome 56,000 new residents in 2026.

Andrew Woods, director of the UNLV center, said Redfin’s analysis of the Las Vegas Valley as a top place to move is in line with what he is seeing for the area right now.

However, he also said it is hard to know how Clark County compares to fast-growing areas across the nation, as population data from the Census Bureau for this year isn’t available yet.

“That being said, this confirms some of the trends we’ve seen before that there appears to be a relationship between our population growth and home prices in Southern California,” Woods said.

Woods said 60 percent of Southern Nevada’s population growth comes from outside the state, noting Redfin’s analysis is in line with recent U.S. demographic trends he’s also seeing.

“I would note, though, that the great pandemic reshuffling seems to be settling down, as shown by their own data. And what we suspect is college-educated workers will start returning to the office more and be less inclined to move again, as they have been over the past two years, as a result of return to work policies, end of COVID-19 restrictions and higher interest rates.”

Census data shows North Las Vegas and Henderson were the 11th and 12th fastest-growing cities in the nation, respectively, from January 2022 through June 30, 2022.

Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.