Editorial: High housing prices prove troubling

Monday, June 6, 2005 | 9:07 a.m.

For more than a decade, Las Vegans have found comfort in periodic reports from the U.S. Census Bureau that show Nevada to be the fastest-growing state in the nation. This sustained growth is a symbol of just how vibrant and resilient our economy has become. But lately Nevada has been at the top in another category -- and the news there could spell trouble. Specifically, Nevada has been showing up in various surveys as leading the nation in housing appreciation. Last week, for instance, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said that huge increases in Las Vegas housing prices pushed up housing costs in Nevada, causing a 31.2 percent appreciation rate from the first quarter of 2004 to the first quarter of 2005. Over a five-year period, housing prices in Las Vegas are up 89.1 percent.

While that is good news for those people who bought homes at least several years ago at lower prices, resulting in them acquiring considerable equity along the way, this is troubling news for those people who are looking to buy a new home today. In many cases they simply have been priced out of the American Dream. One of the big draws to luring people to Las Vegas was the relatively low price of housing here. And while we are still lower than Southern California, that gap is narrowing and we are starting to be much higher than other parts of the country. In a state growing as fast as ours, where we need to hire more teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses and members of other valued professions that aren't highly paid, this is posing a real challenge for recruiters. Local governments will have to work even harder with developers to ensure that more affordable housing is made available so that we don't become a community of haves and have-nots.