Some news from 7/19/2007 Las Vegas Review Journal.........

According to SalesTraq the median new home price in Las Vegas in June rose from May's $314,100 to $329,990.  New home prices are down 2.2 percent from a year ago. On resale homes for June the median pirce rose from $277,900 surpassing May's $275,000.  Resales are down 4.1 percent from a year ago.

Alex Edelstein, developer of the mid-rise Manhattan condos and Manhattan West in Las Vegas, says that Las Vegas is not the only city with housing prices above the national average. They're "cool" cities like San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, according to him.

"My interpretation of Vegas is not that it will have to plunge 33 percent, but rather that Vegas is being promoted into the small elite group of cities that have enough external factors that make people want to own property there that the prices simply are high relative to income," Edelstein said.

Prices needed to plunge in San Francisco 25 years ago, he said. Instead, they went up because people want to live there and the city has limited land. Home prices rose even without job growth.

Edelstein said every Strip high-rise condominium pushes the average price higher. Sky Las Vegas closed escrow on 200 units starting at about $500,000.

"When City Center completes 2,500 units at $1 million a unit, does that mean immediately Vegas prices will have to plunge an extra $30,000 per house to get back to normal? Of course not. It's a dumb, spurious, misleading calculation and it's time that someone pointed out the flaws in it," he said.

We are a "Cool" City and we have extraordinary job growth so I think we will be just fine!

www.MaryWarren.com  or www.MaryW.com