S&P: Las Vegas home prices dip to October 1998 level

Las Vegas home values slid in August to a new post-recession low — and to levels last seen in October 1998 — in a widely-watched real estate report released today.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price indices report found values in the 20 big U.S. cities it tracks rose an average 0.2 percent from July to August — but fell 0.3 percent Las Vegas.

The Standard & Poor's numbers are reported in index values, rather than dollar amounts.

Each city it tracks was assigned an index value of 100 in January 2000, meaning a city with a current index value of 150 would have experienced a 50 percent appreciation rate since then for a typical home in that market.

Las Vegas's current index value is 95.18.

Other cities with declines in August were Atlanta, down 2.4 percent; Boston, down 0.1 percent; Los Angeles, down 0.4 percent; Miami, down 0.3 percent; Phoenix, down 0.1 percent, San Diego, down 0.2 percent; San Francisco, down 0.1 percent; Seattle, down 0.3 percent and Tampa, down 0.1 percent.

The overall index grew thanks to gains in Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York, Portland, Ore., and Washington.

On a seasonally-adjusted basis, prices fell 0.9 percent in Las Vegas from July to August, Standard & Poor’s said.

Compared to August 2010, Las Vegas prices in August were down 5.8 percent vs. the 20-city decline of 3.8 percent.

For Las Vegas, which leads the nation in foreclosure filings and is struggling with high unemployment (13.6 percent), the declines in August as measured by Standard & Poor’s are the 10th monthly decline in the past 11 months.

Prices locally had fallen 0.2 percent from June to July, Standard & Poor’s reported last month.

S&P Case-Shiller statistics show Las Vegas prices are now at October 1998 levels — and are 59.5 percent below their peak in August 2006. That’s a new post-economic boom low for the Las Vegas-area housing market.

Analysts at Standard & Poor’s said the only sign of hope they see for the nation’s struggling housing market — and it’s a modest glimmer — is that 16 of the 20 cities in the index saw improvements in year-to-year pricing comparisons.

Since the recession, Las Vegas home prices as measured by Standard & Poor’s have fallen nearly continuously. But for the 20-city composite, they bottomed out in March and have since risen 3.9 percent.

Today’s numbers follow last week’s issuance of a report with some encouraging numbers by Home Builders Research Inc. in Las Vegas.

Home Builders Research (HBR) tallied 405 new home recorded sales locally, the third consecutive monthly increase.

That lifted the annual total to 2,788, a year-to-year decrease of 35 percent. But Dennis Smith, CEO of Home Builders Research, noted the 2010 numbers were inflated by a temporary tax credit for buyers.

The median price of the new homes that closed in September local was $206,480, up $7,875 from August but down $6,390 from September 2010.

Also, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported Oct. 11 that in September, the median price of single-family homes sold locally was $123,400.

The Realtors’ report focused on existing homes as opposed to new construction.

The $123,400 median sales price was up 2.8 percent from $120,000 in August, but down 8.6 percent from $135,000 one year ago.

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