The Las Vegas Market Is Cooling, but Prices Are Still Well Above Pre-Pandemic Norms

Housing markets that saw supercharged activity from 2021 to mid-2022 are beginning to cool, but in most homebuying hotspots, prices remain well above their pre-pandemic peaks. In Las Vegas, for example, home prices reached an all-time high of $434,000 in June 2022 and have since fallen to $395,000 in March 2023.

While the median sale price in Las Vegas dropped 6% year-over-year from March 2022 to March 2023, that still well above the March 2019 median sale price of $275,000. Though one of the nation’s most extreme cases, Vegas isn’t the only metro area seeing small but arguably insignificant price declines, Forbes reports.

The experience of the Las Vegas housing market connects to a larger theme, which is that, in the long-term, home prices throughout the area and for the state of Nevada overall are at historic highs. The Fed has been on a rigorous campaign of curbing inflation through rate hikes, which has been felt throughout housing markets through the consequent rise in mortgage rates. While this helped cool off many overheated housing markets of 2021-2022, home prices have only come down so much. In general, homes in the Las Vegas metro area cost markedly more than before the pandemic hit.

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