Your Way Home – November
While the news is not in our favor regarding the current status of the homebuilding industry in Southern Nevada, there are bright spots to ponder. You may be underwater in your house or may not have a huge selection of new homes to consider compared to the 2005-2006 boom, but because of economically friendly homes, businesses have found the home landscape in our valley very appealing.
So maybe your home is worth 60 percent less than what you paid for it, but because land values have gone south, out-of-state business executives are finding our fair city very attractive as a relocation hot spot. In Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter’s Jennifer Robison’s September 11 article she notes the interest.
“We’re finding that real estate costs are extremely compelling in Las Vegas,” John Boyd, president of The Boyd Co., a site-selection business based in Princeton, N.J., said. Boyd estimates that he’s seen a 30 percent jump in the last two years in clients asking about relocating to Las Vegas. He attributes the interest to the growing attraction to historically low real estate prices.
Somer Hollingsworth, president and CEO of the Nevada Development Authority, said his economic-development nonprofit has seen queries involving headquarter relocations double in the last year or so. Those potential transplants ask about real estate often enough that the authority now includes housing and commercial prices in its marketing efforts.
“When we told them they could buy a brand-new home in Las Vegas for less than $100 a square foot, their jaws dropped,” Hollingsworth said of a tour the NDA gave to a Western technology company. “They said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’”
Our city is also known nationally for its low property taxes. That’s a big deal because many businesses, particularly in the Northeast and the Midwest, pay big property taxes.
Falling home prices have been equally precipitous. The median single-family home’s resale value plummeted from $290,000 in October 2006 to $120,000 in August, numbers from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors show.
Housing prices are a secondary advantage in drawing relocations, particularly of corporate headquarters, Boyd said. That’s because the home office brings dozens, or even hundreds, of key executives and employees, all of whom need housing.
And finally, employers are able to take advantage of the city’s jobless rate of nearly 14 percent. So while our houses aren’t as valuable as they once were, there is the silver lining of corporations moving to Las Vegas and bringing the jobs with them.
