Land Market at All-time Low; Housing on Break From Slide

By Alex Girda, Associate Editor

The neon lights of the Las Vegas strip are unable to shine a light on the city’s by-now famously distressed real estate. Real estate news has been overrun with headlines regarding decaying markets during recent weeks, and this week is no different.

A VegasINC story details the real estate downturn from the perspective of land deals closed since the beginning of the recession. The severe decline in all other sectors is closely mirrored in deals perfected for land outside the resort corridor. The decline in median values for this type of transaction during the first quarter of 2011 was $156,700 per acre, which means a 6.3 percent drop in prices from the final quarter of 2010, and a 14.4 drop compared to values from the first quarter of 2010.

The Applied Analysis report quoted by VegasINC also indicates that since it hit its peak levels in the fourth quarter of 2007, the land market has experienced a decline of 83.3 percent where property outside the resort corridor is concerned.

Also making headlines is the change in Las Vegas housing’s primary attribute from “collapsing” to “fluctuating,” a Las Vegas Review-Journal story reported this week. As reported during previous weeks, the median price of home sales in Las Vegas is at a decade low, but a slight increase has been recorded by the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. The LVRJ story details the stats of this upward trend, which includes a 7.9 percent increase in the number of single-family home sales and a 0.8 percent median price rise for single-family homes, both compared to values recorded in May 2010.