The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported home prices rose 6.4 percent for the Las Vegas Valley, citing more homes sales in 2015 over the prior year. GLVAR also reported 2015 as the most stable year in the local housing market in the last decade.
Median home price on single-family homes in December, through the Multiple Listing Service, was $217,000. GLVAR reported a short dip from November to December, where the price had held steady for a prior four months from August to November at $220,000.
Condominiums, including high-rise inventory, and townhomes also saw a rise in price over prior year with a median price of $117,000 — 12.3 percent higher than 2014 numbers.
“I think 2015 will be remembered as the year the local housing market stabilized after the roller-coaster ride we had been on during the past decade or so,” said 2016 GLVAR President Scott Beaudry, a longtime local realtor who succeeded 2015 President Keith Lynam as of Jan. 1. “I think most people prefer a more steady and more predictable housing market we had last year. We also sold more homes in 2015 than we did the previous year.”
The industry saw a rise in the amount of product sold. For 2015, the combined total of single-family, condominium, townhouse and high-rise condo sales was 38,578 over the prior year’s 35,806.
In December in 2015, single family homes saw a more than 20 percent rise in amount of sales and the 20 percent rise in the condo and townhomes sales.
For 2016, Beaudry said he expects to see “more of the same” slow and steady price appreciation, “but hopefully with an increase in our inventory” of homes available for sale.
GLVSAR recently selected Heidi Kasama—realtor at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Nevada Properties, Summerlin division—as the 2015 realtor of the year.
Aldo Martinez and Omar Lopez—also from Berkshire Hathaway—were both elected to GLVAR’s board of directors for 2016. Martinez is a branch manager for at Berkshire’s southwest office in Las Vegas. He oversees 250 of the 1,100 real estate sales executives in Southern Nevada. He has been with the company for more than 20 years and will be serving on GLVAR’s public relations and communications and awards and recognition committees. Lopez will serve as a liaison to GLVAR’s Young Professional Network. He is a commercial real estate sales and leasing executive at Berkshire Hathaway.
Hotel construction ranked 5th
The hotel building market is surging in Las Vegas and across the U.S., according to a report by STR, an information and research firm that services the hotel industry.
At the national level, building in the space has increased more than 20 percent in rooms under contract in a year-over-year analysis, ending in November 2015.
Las Vegas was listed as fifth highest ranking area with more than 3,900 rooms under construction in 2015. STR had no comparative analysis from 2014.
“Almost 49 percent of November construction resided in the top 26 markets, and 20 of those markets experienced construction growth when compared with November 2014,” said Bobby Bowers, STR’s senior vice president of operations.
Across the U.S., there are more than 450,000 rooms under construction contract. This is more than a 10 percent increase in rooms under contract for the month of November 2015 over November 2014.
Las Vegas did have the highest existing supply out of the largest markets in the U.S. There are currently 167, 730 rooms in the city compared to New York’s 117,367 and Chicago’s more than 121,000. Other cities with more than 100,000 rooms are Orlando and Washington D.C.
Las Vegas is also in a data set that has more than 3,000 rooms under contract along with Miami, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston and New York. New York had the most rooms under contract with nearly 14,000 units under construction. Houston came in second at 6,619 rooms under construction.
“The New York market accounted for just about 10 percent of total U.S. construction activity and reported more than twice as many rooms in construction as the next closest market,” said Bowers.