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Las Vegas home prices set record in ‘remarkable’ streak amid pandemic

Las Vegas home prices set another all-time high last month, continuing a “remarkable” streak amid an otherwise badly battered economy, a new report says.

The median sales price of previously owned single-family homes — the bulk of the market — was $337,250 in September, up 0.7 percent from the previous record, set in August, and 8.8 percent from a year ago, according to trade association Las Vegas Realtors.

Sales volume accelerated even faster, with buyers grabbing 3,270 houses last month, up 12.4 percent from August and 18.9 percent year over year.

Las Vegas’ tight inventory eased a bit, as 4,798 houses were on the market without offers at the end of September, up 3.4 percent from the end of August. But the tally of available listings was down 34.6 percent from September 2019, LVR reported.

The association pulls data from its resale-heavy listing service.

“Local home prices keep setting records, which is really remarkable when you think about all the challenges we’re facing,” LVR President Tom Blanchard, a broker with Renters Warehouse, said in a news release.

Las Vegas’ housing market has heated up in recent months despite the severe economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, which has devastated the tourism industry, Southern Nevada’s main financial engine, and sparked huge job losses.

By all accounts, record-low mortgage rates have provided much of the fuel by letting homebuyers lock in lower monthly payments.

Last month’s record price level was just the latest time that Las Vegas’ housing market reached new heights amid the chaos of the coronavirus outbreak, as median monthly prices also set all-time highs in March, June, July and August, according to previous reports from LVR.

Before the pandemic shut down much of the economy, Las Vegas house prices hit a then-record high of $316,000 in February.

It took more than 13 years to reach that new peak, as Las Vegas’ previous record median, $315,000, was set in June 2006 during Southern Nevada’s wild housing bubble.

After the bubble burst and the economy fell into the Great Recession a decade or so ago, local home values cratered. According to LVR data, the median sales price for a single-family home hit bottom in January 2012 at just $118,000.

Contact Eli Segall at [email protected] or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.