Report says rising prices in LV market ‘unsustainable’

AS house hunters know all too well, Las Vegas home prices aren’t getting any cheaper. If you’re wondering whether the market is in overdrive, Fitch Ratings weighed in this week, saying in a report that home-price growth “has become increasingly unsustainable” in the Las Vegas area.

As Fitch measures it, prices are about 15 percent overvalued in Southern Nevada, having steadily climbed since late 2013 when they reached overvalued territory again after the housing crash.

Limited inventory and increased buying is keeping prices overheated, Fitch managing director Grant Bailey said in a statement.

Las Vegas “has rebounded dramatically from the financial crisis, so much so that its upward momentum has carried it too far and home prices have now overshot,” he added.

All told, Nevada “has now emerged as the most overheated housing market,” Fitch declared this week.

This isn’t the first time since the economy tanked that people thought prices were climbing too fast.

Some people feared another bubble was inflating in 2013 because prices were skyrocketing around 30 percent year-over-year — a not-normal pace by any measure. Investors were behind the rise, buying cheap homes in bulk to turn into rentals, but once they started backing off, the growth rate cooled.

Today, Las Vegas home values are up 10 percent from a year ago, the third-fastest rate among large metro areas, according to listing service Zillow.

Whether you think the market is inflated a lot, a little or not at all, one thing’s for sure: It’s not nearly as bloated it was during the bubble years last decade, when easy money was fueling wild growth in construction, sales and prices.

According to Fitch, Las Vegas home prices were almost 48 percent overvalued in 2006.

Repos down but not out

Foreclosures keep falling in Las Vegas, but the valley still gets more repo activity than most metro areas, a recent report shows.

One in every 191 homes in the Las Vegas area was hit with a foreclosure-related filing in the first half of the year, down 30 percent from the same period in 2016, according to housing tracking Attom Data Solutions.

Las Vegas’ foreclosure rate, despite the big drop, was 18th among 200plus metro areas listed in the report.

INSIDER

stages in this process,” Preiss said, adding that it’s going to take some time to build new relationships.

A new approach

The Nevada Film Office has historically relied on cultivated relationships within the film industry, often made at industry trade shows, as well as the Las Vegas brand to recruit companies to film in Las Vegas.

Now the office is working to break into a new industry, build those

relationships and figure out what works in terms of marketing Nevada to video game developers.

“There’s a lot of overlap,” Preiss said. For example, film productions often hire a location manager to help find places to film. He said that could be useful for a game developer as well.

The Film Office has also offered tax credits to at least 10 qualifying productions since 2014, according to government reports. Tax credits are also a “tool in the toolbox” for video games, Preiss said — but those tools might need some work in order to be effective.

For example, in order for productions to qualify for film tax incentives, a production has 18 months from the time of their application to finish their production.

“A big video game might not be able to finish in 18 months. It might be a two-year development cycle,” Preiss said.

The office has not had a video game production apply for tax incentives, but Preiss said he is “hopeful.”

Contact Nicole Raz at nraz@ reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512. Follow @Journalistnikki on Twitter.