Economics

Las Vegas Home-Price Surge Spotlights Disconnect in U.S. Economy

  • Steep slide in values seen for riskiest big housing market
  • Prices increasingly out of line with incomes hit by pandemic

Photographer: Ethan Miller/Getty Images 

Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

Nowhere is the widening gap between real estate and the real economy more apparent than in Las Vegas, where tourismBloomberg Terminal is in ruins, wages are plunging and home prices just keep rocketing higher.

The median price for a single-family house in August jumped almost 10% from a year earlier to $335,000, according to a report from the Las Vegas Realtors. By comparison, annual price growth in February, the month before Covid 19 emptied out casinos, hotels and restaurants, was 6.7%.