There seems to be no stopping the soaring existing home prices in the Las Vegas area.
The median sale price for a home in Las Vegas rocketed to $363,000 in March, another new all-time record, according to the Las Vegas Realtors trade group.
The figure represented a 14% jump from March 2020 and a month-over-month increase of 2% from February’s median price of $355,000.
Aldo Martinez, president of the LVR, said in a news release that it’s likely the ceiling hasn’t been reached.
“At the rate we’re going, we could see even greater gains in home prices and sales next month, since the housing market stalled briefly last April before roaring back since then,” Martinez said.
The median price for a condo or townhome in Las Vegas was $194,000 at the end of last month, up 5% from March 2020.
Martinez said a tight housing supply in the area continues to present a challenge for potential buyers and a “rare opportunity for sellers.”
Martinez said the Las Vegas market had less than a one-month supply of preowned homes at the end of March, virtually unchanged from February.
A six-month supply is generally considered by industry experts to be a balanced market.
A total of 3,726 single-family homes were sold in the Las Vegas area last month, an increase of 35% from March 2020.
To further illustrate how much of a seller’s market it is, the monthly report showed that 74% of all homes sold in March were on the market for 30 days or less, an increase of 15% from March 2020.
At the end of last month, the LRV reported that 1,772 homes were listed without any offer, down 69% from March 2020.
“The pandemic has contributed to the supply shortage due in part to homeowners being out of work and therefore unable to upgrade even if they wanted to unless they could pay cash,” Martinez said. “In addition, reports for the National Association of Realtors show homeowners are staying longer in their homes.”
Martinez said research from the National Association of Realtors has shown that homeowners are staying in their residences two to four years longer than in the recent past, which, he said, could be partly attributed to lower-than-normal interest rates.
The Las Vegas housing market bottomed out in 2012 after the Great Recession, when the median price of an existing home dipped to $118,000.
At that time, the Las Vegas housing market was one of the most depressed in the United States.
The Las Vegas Realtors group, formerly known as the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, was founded in 1947. It boasts over 15,000 agent members in Southern Nevada.