S&P: Las Vegas home prices end eight-month losing streak

S&P: Las Vegas home prices end eight-month losing streak

By Steve Green

Tuesday
30 August 2011
8:17 a.m.

Las Vegas-area home prices rose for the first time in nine months in June, according to the widely-watched Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released today.

Las Vegas prices rose 0.1 percent on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, which is the "headline'' basis used by S&P. But they were down 0.4 percent on a seasonally-adjusted basis, S&P said.

The non-seasonal increase compared to a decline of 0.9 percent in May.

Today’s numbers compare to a report by Las Vegas-based SalesTraq that found the median sales price of existing homes and condominiums locally was $105,000 in July, down about 1 percent from $106,000 in June.

The meager non-seasonal gain in June for Las Vegas couldn’t mask the still-depressed state of the Southern Nevada real estate market, with prices down 6 percent on a year-to-year basis. That compares to a decline nationwide of 5.9 percent.

However, even with unemployment in Las Vegas running at 14 percent and rock-bottom foreclosure sales still driving the Las Vegas residential real estate market, today’s report by Standard & Poor’s surprisingly showed Las Vegas is no longer the worst or even near the worst market among the 20 big U.S. markets tracked by S&P.

That distinction now belongs to Minneapolis, where prices in June were down 10.8 percent on a year-to-year basis. In addition, Chicago, Phoenix, Portland, Ore.; Seattle and Tampa also showed annual declines greater than Las Vegas.

Nationwide, Standard & Poor’s said, the report for June showed "mixed signals for recovery in home prices."

While eight markets it tracks bottomed out in 2009 and have since risen, five markets set new lows in the second quarter: Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, Tampa and Detroit.

"These shifts suggest that we are back to regional housing markets, rather than a national housing market where everything rose and fell together," David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices, said in a statement.