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Real Estate: Record real estate volumes anticipated for
2004
September 17, 2004 - Low interest rates and a high
amount of investor activity is driving Southern Nevada's real
estate market to record numbers. Real estate brokerage firm CB
Richard Ellis has recorded $1.06 billion worth of transactions
through the end of June. The company's previous best year was
in 2000 when it registered $795 million worth of transactions.
"We'll record close to nearly 375 transactions this year,
totaling $1.6 billion in volume," says Mark Bouchard, managing
director of CB Richard Ellis' Southern Nevada office. "We did
half that amount last year."
The average size of transactions has increased, both in size
and value. CB Richard Ellis has hired additional staff to keep
pace. The company currently has 70 employees or 15 more than
last year. And Bouchard is looking to increase that number to
82 employees by next year.
A sluggish stock market coupled with undervalued land prices
have helped propel Southern Nevada's real estate market to new
heights. Additionally, corporate tax breaks over the last year
have helped prompt more investment activity in everything from
office and retail to raw land and industrial.
"Over the last 18 months there has been no better investment
than buying real estate in Southern Nevada," says Jeremy
Aguero, a principal with Applied Analysis, a Las Vegas-based
economic research firm. "Every major investor is looking at
Southern Nevada. Properties that were selling for $500,000
last year are now selling for $1 million plus this year."
For a long time, the Las Vegas Valley was considered a
tertiary real estate market due to its population size. But
with 1.68 million residents and a projected 15 percent
residential growth through 2010, things have changed.
Employment grew to 831,000 in 2003, up from 796,600 the
previous year, while unemployment dropped to 4.5 percent, a
0.5 percent improvement over 2002. Meanwhile, raw land prices
reached a median cost of $202,100 per acre valley-wide,
reflecting a 27 percent increase.
"Last year was a record year and we haven't looked back,"
Aguero says. "A change in interest rates, population and
housing affordability could potentially slow things, but real
estate has been a better investment than stocks for some
time."
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Article ©: T. Illia, Las Vegas Business Press
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