Report: Las Vegas home prices reach record high in February as supply shrinks

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A new report from Las Vegas REALTORS shows Las Vegas home prices reached a record high last month, despite the ongoing pandemic. The median price for a single family home sold in February was $355,000, up 12.3% in the past year.

That breaks the all-time record set in November and tied in December 2020 and again in January 2021.

Las Vegas REALTORS say the local housing market is still performing better during the pandemic than people expected. The reason existing homes are getting more expensive is because there isn’t enough supply to keep up with the demand by buyers.

“As we’ve been saying for months, our housing market continues to perform better than most people expected when this pandemic started,” said 2021 LVR President Aldo Martinez. “Still, we’re looking forward to getting through this, to stabilizing the economy and increasing consumer confidence so people feel more comfortable buying and selling homes and moving when the need arises.”

The report, released Monday, also shows that local condos and townhomes are up 12.9% compared to one year ago, selling for a median price of $197,500 in February.

Martinez adds that the number of local homes available for sale remains well below the six-month supply considered to be a balanced market. He said the sales pace in February equates to less than a one-month supply of existing homes available for sale.

LVR reports a total of 3,489 existing local homes, condos and townhomes were sold last month. Compared to the same time last year, February sales were up 12.0% for homes and up 16.8% for condos and townhomes.

Since the pandemic started last year, LVR says the local housing market has been more in line with national trends, with a shortage of homes available for sale and historically low mortgage interest rates contributing to increasing sales and record prices.

Despite the coronavirus crisis and economic downturn, LVR notes the number of “distressed sales” remains near historically low levels. Short sales and foreclosures combined accounted for just 0.6% of all existing local property sales in February. That compares to 2.5% of all sales one year ago, 2.6% two years ago, 3.8% three years ago and 10.6% four years ago.