Las Vegas home prices dip to new recessionary low

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.

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