According to the latest numbers from Las Vegas Realtors through August, the median price for a home in Southern Nevada stands at about $480,000.
So how much money do you need to make to afford a house in that price range? News Three’s Will Silverstein is joining us now live to crunch some numbers and give us the answer. Will.
Steve, it’s a big number to crunch $120,000 is how much a household has to make in order to afford that median price home. That’s a $3,000 a month mortgage payment that you have to pay per month. All these numbers, not only crunched by me, but crunched by this man, Professor Nicholas Irwin
There was a point in time in not too distant past, a lot of folks remember that housing was really affordable, housing was affordable for everyone, and that has quickly changed. And just the span of 20 years.
As more time has passed, Las Vegas is less affordable.
That’s UNLV lead center for Real Estate Research director Professor Nicholas Irwin. He says jobs like the ones on your screen are not keeping up with the cost of housing.
Simply out of reach for most of the jobs in this town. And that’s a serious problem that needs to be addressed for the long term growth of Las Vegas. The fact that a minimum wage worker has to work a impossible number of hours to afford a house is something that hasn’t always been the case here, and we are increasingly here in Las Vegas feeling some of those West Coast pressures of how things are just becoming so unaffordable
Speaking of West Coast pressures,
Southern Nevada is among the most affordable regions in the West, with more than a million people only bested by Tucson, Arizona and Fresno in California. But a lot of people are moving from California cities other than that affordable Central Valley town and driving up demand, but not necessarily supply.
We aren’t building houses at the rate we used to build houses. A lot of reasons for that. There’s some permitting reasons, reasons, zoning reasons, there’s some federal land ownership issues that are that are impacting it as well. But the biggest thing is the demand is outstripping supply.
You know, it’s still cheaper than LA. It’s still cheaper than a lot of places in California. But we’re getting close to some of that unaffordability and some of that wage house price differential that’s been facing California for the past 20 years, and that’s a dangerous spot to be in.
So what’s the professor’s advice to those interested in buying a home?
For home buyers, it’s just a matter of sometimes it’s getting lucky. Maybe buying a slightly smaller house with a smaller payment and hoping you can upgrade in the future, because a lot of it is. Getting in. And getting that first house allows you to afford the next one. But getting in is a tough part because the getting in price keeps going up every year and wait wages aren’t keeping up with that.
Wages certainly aren’t keeping up with that. You’re going to have to be working for more than 100 hours a week at the minimum wage level. That’s what his study also found out. To be able to afford that home. And people just simply cannot do that. Not enough hours in the week.
Well, that’s the truth.
