Realtors Say Las Vegas Hottest Market in U.S.

A new report is calling the Las Vegas-area real estate market the hottest in the United States.

The National Assn. of Realtors put median resale home prices in the Clark County, Nev., Nye County, Nev., and Mohave, Ariz., metropolitan area at $269,900 in the second quarter of 2004 -- up 52.4% from a median of $177,100 in the second quarter a year earlier.

“We’ve never seen anything approaching a 50% appreciation rate,” said Walter Molony, spokesman for the association, which has tracked sales of previously owned homes in markets nationwide since 1982.

The next-highest appreciation rate on record -- 38.7% -- was reached twice: in Orange County, in the second quarter of 2004; and in Fort Myers, Fla., in the third quarter of 2001.

The median price is the midpoint at which half the homes sold for more and half sold for less. It is used as an industry marker instead of average home prices, because high and low extremes can skew numbers.

The national median existing-home price, by comparison, reached $183,800 in the second quarter of 2004, up 9.1% from the second quarter of 2003.

Michelle Lindsay, 27, said she talked her husband into paying $236,000 for their first house in northwest Las Vegas in June 2003.

A year later, the 2,200-square-foot home was appraised at $409,000, she said.

“We just bought at exactly the right time,” said Lindsay, who works for a Las Vegas-area engineering and construction company.

Industry experts said the market was beginning to show signs of cracking under the gains.

Agents report fewer bidding frenzies for homes. Judy Christy of Realty Executives of Nevada said there was more inventory on the market.

“It’s not the craziness it was,” said Lee Barrett, president of the Greater Las Vegas Assn. of Realtors and Century 21 Barrett & Co. “But there is still a higher level of business going on when compared to last year. There are still more clients trying to buy homes and there are still more sellers.”

At least one reason Las Vegas home prices shot up was the limited supply of resale homes on the market, analysts said.

Molony said the Las Vegas new-home market also affected price increases.

In most markets, sales of new homes make up a small amount of overall sales. In Las Vegas, they represent about 30% of the market, according to southern Nevada research firm SalesTraq.

SalesTraq also posted numbers reflecting a strong market in the area it studies, including Clark County, but excluding Boulder City, Nev., Nye and Mohave counties.

It said that in June, the median price of an existing home in the Las Vegas area was $245,000, a 48.5% increase from the previous year.