Columnist Susan Snyder: Statistics are a house of horrors

Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004 | 12:26 p.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

WEEKEND EDITION

November 13 - 14, 2004

For many of us the measurement of residency is Target or Home Depot.

The answer to, "How long have you lived here?" sounds something like:

"When we moved out here there was nothing. Now there's a Target and a Home Depot ..."

And 300 starter-mansions around the corner.

As-yet-bare plywood fortresses peek over the top of mile-long walls that end at huge landscaped, guarded gateways.

We peek over the walls half expecting to see the dragons and moats (that very well might come later).

And we wonder:

Who is buying these places?

Certainly not most of us, a new study says.

A report issued by Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, which was profiled in Thursday's Las Vegas Sun by staff writer Jennifer Shubinski, shows only 24 percent of the Las Vegas Valley's residents can afford to buy a new home at the region's median price of $312,740.

And only 41 percent of us can afford to buy an existing house at the median price of $237,000.

Which typically brings us to the next question:

Where do these people work?

Many of them probably don't.

They're retired, said Jeremy Aguero, a principal at Applied Analysis, a Las Vegas economics research firm.

Many of those who still are working are moving here to take jobs in the growing health and human services fields, he said. And most of them are bringing along more than furniture and experience.

"A lot of people are coming here with huge amounts of equity in other homes. If you come here with 20 years of equity in California or Arizona, you can be a nurse or a teacher," he said, and be able to afford a home much easier than if you're just starting in those careers here.

"If you're bringing $200,000 in equity with you, you can buy more than if you're just out of college," Aguero said.

Or at least, you can buy. The study released last week also says a person hoping to purchase a new median-priced house will have to earn at least $79,727 a year to pay for it. And that includes a 20-percent down payment.

Got $60,000 lying around?

The person hoping to purchase an existing home in the median price range needs to earn a minimum of $56,950, provided he or she also has the $46,000 for a 20-percent down payment.

Starting salary for a Clark County schoolteacher is around $28,000. Even two of them would barely make enough to buy the latter.

And the 12,000 new jobs promised by MGM Mirage shows the true color of the valley's labor pool, Aguero said. Those types of workers -- the ones who make up the bulk of workers in the Las Vegas Valley -- aren't going to be buying up these hulking homes the first time, or maybe at all.

"Those people are going to rent. So watch the rental rates. They're going to start going up," Aguero said.

Eventually, some housing-price ranges will drop, while pressure will increase to raise some categories of wages and salaries.

"There will be a lot of corrections," Aguero said.

And one of them may have to be in our perception of who is really living next door and what the future really looks like in a city built on facades for tourists.