LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Home prices went up again in March, getting just a little bit closer to the all-time record set nearly two years ago.
A report from Las Vegas Realtors (LVR) shows single-family homes increased by just over 1% over the past month, now at $465,000. It’s $5,000 more than the median price from February, and 9.4% higher than the price a year ago — $425,000.
The record came in May 2022, when the median price hit $482,000 after a six-month climb that saw prices rise by $62,000.
“Although prices have been rising recently, they’re still below the all-time high we hit in 2022,” LVR President Merri Perry said. “One of our biggest issues continues to be our housing supply. As we’ve been saying for a long time, it would help our local housing market if we had more homes to sell.”
Perry said the Las Vegas housing market is starting to bounce back from a sluggish 2023. The Federal Reserve has indicated it will adjust interest rates this year, but now analysts are wondering if that’s really going to happen.
Prices for condominiums and townhomes were stable, falling just $500 since February. The median price is now $282,500, up 8.7% from $260,000 in March 2023. The record is $287,000, set in August of 2022.
There’s plenty of evidence that people have just been priced out of the housing market. The number of home sales dropped by nearly 12% compared to last year, and LVR reported 3,323 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That’s down 20.8% from one year earlier.
The tight housing supply and higher mortgage interest rates have things stuck in place. People don’t want to move because they would be trading a low mortgage rate for something higher. President Joe Biden talked about the problem when he visited Las Vegas in March to announce a plan for tax credits that could help get the housing market moving again. But those are still just proposals that need approval from Congress.
The median price is the one in the middle — half are higher and half are lower. LVR’s report is based on existing home sales through its Multiple Listings Service (MLS), not new construction.
Nationwide, more than a third of all homes sold for cash according to a report from Redfin, the online real estate brokerage. That’s a sign that investors are buying the property.
But that number is lower in Las Vegas, according to LVR.
During March, LVR found that 26.1% of all local property sales were cash transactions. That’s up from 24.5% one year ago but still far below the May 2013 cash buyer peak of 59.5%.
LVR reported that 77.0% of all existing local homes and 76.1% of all existing local condos and townhomes sold within 60 days in March.
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