Are Las Vegas homes overpriced? Forbes says yes; local analysts say no.
Median Las Vegas new home prices increased 12.5 percent in March to a record high of $320,379, a local market analyst has noted.
Along comes Forbes, a maverick financial magazine, with the categorization of Las Vegas being overpriced by 30 percent, despite dropping to 28th from 18th on a list of most overvalued housing markets nationwide.
Larry Murphy, SalesTraq president, said in a seminar, "All they (Forbes) did was look at what appreciation did historically in those markets and decided it must be overpriced. But prices don't go up or down based on history. Prices go up or down based on supply and demand."
Read the entire Forbes-Murphy point and counterpoint in the Review-Journal Business section for April 20.
In related news, the Associated Press reported from San Francisco that apartment rents, paced by increases in Las Vegas and elsewhere in Nevada, are increasing more rapidly as the economy produces more jobs and rising interest rates prevent more people from buying homes, according to a Novato-based real estate research firm. A table indicated Las Vegas average rents, at $834, rose six percent over a year's time.
