Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Las Vegas ranks No. 4 U.S. city for homeownership rewards
Portland, Phoenix and Atlanta came in as top three
Las Vegas might be a good place to settle down into homeownership.
According to a new report from Bankrate.com, “Best and Worst Metro Areas for Homeowners,” Las Vegas ranked No. 4 out of a list of the 50 largest metropolitan areas, by population, across the U.S.
Claes Bell, certified financial analyst and data and automation editor at Bankrate. com, said the report was constructed to assess metro areas based on which region had the best reward at the end of homeownership, and if potential homeowners had an easy time obtaining ownership and the level of affordability, or sustainability, of living in a particular area for the long term.
In total, eight factors were used to rate each metro: home affordability and price appreciation, property taxes, cost of homeowner’ insurance, energy and maintenance costs, foreclosures, and rent hedging — where people buy homes to protect themselves against rising rents.
Each factor was given a score of 1-10, with 10 being the highest rating in that category. The metros were then ranked based on a total score closest to 80, a perfect score.
Locally, Las Vegas scored 56.98 points, giving it its No. 4 rating. The top three metropolitan areas, in descending order, were the Portland, Phoenix and Atlanta metropolitan areas. The cities had scores of 60.85, 58.01 and 57.55, respectively.
Areas the Las Vegas Valley scored high on included home-price appreciation, the cost of homeowners’ insurance and maintenance costs. The scores on each factor rested at 9.25, 9.23 and 8.95, respectively.
Las Vegas also scored low on its energy costs under Bankrate.com’s survey. The Las Vegas metro scored 5.86 points on the report.
Mark Vitner, managing director and senior economist at Wells Fargo, said much of the price appreciation on existing single-family homes has been driven by recovering from the recession when the valley was plagued with thousands of homes that had negative equity and many others heading into foreclosure.
“That time has passed,” Vitner said. “We don’t have that dark cloud hanging over the market anymore.”
Stephen Miller, director of the UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research, said more than 70 percent of the homes were underwater at the beginning of the recession, but that number has fallen somewhere around 20 percent.
Still, the regional number is higher than the national average of homes containing negative equity, which sat at 12.1 percent in the second quarter, according to data released from Zillow in August.
Foreclosure activity has slowed in the valley. At the beginning of 2009, Realtytrac.com reported one in 14 homes in Nevada received a notice of foreclosure. That number as of July 2016 rose to one in every 735 homes in Nevada.
On home price appreciation, Miller is expecting 5 percent to 6 percent increases in home prices year-over-