Las Vegas housing hurts local economy

The Midyear Economic Outlook for Southern Nevada was presented this week by the UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research. The word that stands out from the report is slowdown. The residential real estate sector plays a large role in the overall weakness, as most of its indicators have fallen quite a bit.

Let's take a look at some of the actual housing numbers. New home permits dropped 21% from last year and existing house sales declined even more, almost 37%. The worst performer is new home sales that suffered a 41% decline. These numbers are a clear sign that the local market is still struggling to steady itself.

The report's findings aren't all bad, though. There are some positives that offer a healthy dose of optimism for better times ahead in the intermediate future. Despite the steeply falling sales figures, median new home prices decreased only 3.1%, to $318,346. The other notable positive is the new resident arrivals, namely 6,195 last month. An encouraging trend that has stayed in that range for years now.

So far we can say that Las Vegas is not about to experience a bursting of the bubble in the residential real estate market. Slowdown, that's what best describes the situation on the ground.