Ep #55 - Pending Home Sales Data Crushes Housing Bears & Homebuyers Drawn To Cheaper Areas

Southern Nevada home prices jumped 19.8 percent year-over-year in June, outpacing the national rate of 18.6 percent, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index released Tuesday by S&P Dow Jones Indices. All 20 metro areas in the report showed double-digit price gains in June, with Phoenix leading the pack at a staggering 29.3 percent annual gain, and Chicago at the bottom with a still-fast 13.3 percent increase. “The last several months have been extraordinary not only in the level of price gains, but in the consistency of gains across the country,” said Craig Lazzara, global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones, in a news release. Locally, people have flooded homes with offers and routinely paid over the asking price, and builders have put buyers on waiting lists, regularly raised prices, taken bids for lots and in some cases even drawn names to determine who gets to buy a place. It has become increasingly difficult to purchase a home in the Las Vegas area, increasingly expensive, and, some fear, increasingly unaffordable.