According to a new study by Zillow, the average “luxury” home in the Las Vegas Valley costs roughly $1.58 million.
Zillow’s research defines luxury homes as the top 5 percent of homes for sale in an area that are most valuable — the average price for a prime property in the valley is $1.58 million — and luxury home prices have risen 7.5 percent in the area over the past year.
In fact, luxury home prices in Silicon Valley are rising at a faster pace than mid-range homes,” says Mark Staton, senior public relations specialist at Zillow.
“Luxury homes that sold in June went under contract in an average of 42 days, compared with just 12 days for a typical mid-range home,” he said. Staton added that 23.4 percent of luxury homes were reduced in price in June, compared with 23.7 percent for mid-range homes, and there are 0.2 percent more luxury homes on the market than last year.
The median price of a mid-range home is $434,569, which averages in the middle third of home prices in the Valley region.
Staton said home prices for luxury properties have been rising faster than mid-range properties nationwide, reversing a long-standing trend.
Zillow’s report goes on to outline a national trend that “luxury home value growth, which has consistently lagged behind the middle end of the market over the past few years, has now outpaced mainstream home value growth for five consecutive months.”
According to Zillow, the typical luxury home nationwide costs around $1.62 million. Looking at the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas, luxury home prices range from $750,000 in Buffalo to $5.3 million in San Jose.
“U.S. luxury home prices overall are up 3.9% from a year ago,” Zillow’s report states. “That’s a faster rate of increase than the 3.2% annual growth rate of typical U.S. homes. From January 2019 to January 2024, the fastest year-over-year change on Zillow’s record, typical home prices outpaced luxury homes on an annualized basis. In each month since, luxury home prices have risen at a faster pace.”
Luxury homes can be harder to sell because the buyer pool is much smaller, said Anushna Prakash, economic research scientist at Zillow.
“That’s one reason why their home prices are rising more slowly than usual,” he says. “We’re seeing different trends this year. Luxury home buyers will be less affected by rising mortgage rates than typical buyers, especially repeat buyers whose home equity has skyrocketed over the past few years. Many will be paying cash and able to skip mortgage payments altogether.”
Las Vegas is in the midst of a housing crisis, with single-family home real estate prices now approaching all-time highs and condo and townhouse prices already shattering previous records.
The number of cash buyers is also on the rise, as investors continue to snap up homes in the valley at high rates.
Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.
