Home price changes in selected cities - July 2011 v. July 2010
- Atlanta -5 %
- Chicago -6.6%
- Detroit +1.2%
- Las Vegas -5.4%
- Los Angeles -3.5%
- New York -3.7%
- Phoenix -8.8%
- San Francisco -5.6%
- Source: Standard & Poor’s
Las Vegas home prices retreated in July to a new low during the current recession, debt rating agency Standard & Poor’s reported today.
Standard & Poor’s issued its monthly S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices, with the closely-watched report showing prices increasing around the country in July – with Las Vegas and Phoenix being the exceptions.
With Nevada still struggling with elevated foreclosures and unemployment (13.4 percent), home prices in the Las Vegas-area fell 0.2 percent in July, a reversal from a rare gain in June of 0.1 percent.
This means prices locally have fallen in nine of the past 10 months, according to Standard & Poor’s.
In fact, Las Vegas prices are now back to November 1998 levels after peaking during the economic boom in August 2006. The July performance moved Las Vegas to a new low since the August 2006 peak.
The decline in Las Vegas in July compared to a gain of 0.9 percent for the 20 big U.S. markets tracked in the report.
On a year-over-year basis, prices in Las Vegas were down 5.4 percent in July vs. the 20-city average decline of 4.1 percent.
On a seasonally-adjusted basis, the performance for Las Vegas in July was even worse, down 0.7 percent, Standard & Poor’s said. That compares to a decline of 0.4 percent in June.
Today’s numbers compare to statistics for August from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors showing the median price of a single-family home sold locally was $120,000, down 1.6 percent from $122,000 in July and down 14.3 percent from $140,000 in August 2010.
As for the nationwide monthly increase for July reported today by Standard & Poor's, analyst David Blitzer there said today: “While we have now seen four consecutive months of generally increasing prices, we do know that we are still far from a sustained recovery.’’
He noted prices in 18 of the 20 cities in the indices remain down from year-ago levels.