Las Vegas home prices going up 5 times faster than wages, report says

Las Vegas Valley home prices have grown five and a half times faster than wages since 2011, and the disparity in the state of Nevada overall is even higher, according to a new study.

TruckInfo.net’s study, which used Zillow home prices and U.S. Census data, found that from 2011 to the end of 2022, home price growth vastly outpaced wage growth, as the Silver State led the country with a six-fold increase.

“From 2011 to 2022, Nevada saw home prices grow six times faster than wages, ranking it first among all states,” the report stated. “Elementary teachers in Nevada have been particularly impacted, with home inflation outpacing their wages by (a rate of) 17.9. Truck drivers in Nevada saw home prices increase 16.9 times faster than their wages.”

The most recent census data from 2023 shows that gap did not get any better as wages most likely grew less than 5 percent last year. According to Zillow, home prices in the Las Vegas Valley dropped 1 percent from this time last year.

In terms of metros, only the Detroit area saw a bigger increase in the gap between wages and home prices in the nation than the valley, as their discrepancy grew 6.7 times. This means Las Vegas Valley home prices grew 217 percent since 2011, compared to a 39 percent wage growth uptick.

The average price for a home in the Las Vegas Valley currently sits at $400,354, which means since 2011 there has been an overall $253,000 increase in the price of a home over the past 12 years.

“To compare home affordability over time and across geographies, a commonly used metric is the home-price-to-income ratio,” the study stated. “From 1985 to 1999 this ratio was just 2.6. As of 2022, the national home-price-to-income ratio was a staggering 6.7, meaning homes are 2.5 times less affordable today than from 1985-1999.”

The state of Nevada is already short approximately 80,000 units of affordable housing according to the Nevada Housing Coalition, and while home sales in the Las Vegas Valley were their lowest since 2008, the price of a home essentially stayed the same due to a lack of supply.

Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.