Housing prices broke records in 2021, slight market cooldown expected
by Tabitha Mueller
As Samantha Christy searched for an alternative to the cramped, dilapidated home she and her family rented in Winnemucca, she watched rental prices increase and her options dwindle.
An area supervisor for a property management company, Christy said she and her husband, a welder, eventually decided they would attempt to purchase a house through the Nevada Rural Housing Authority's Home at Last down payment assistance program.
"We started pinching every penny. We started just paying the minimums of what we had to for our bills just to keep those current and keep us afloat," she said. "We didn't buy any extra socks. We didn't buy extra toothbrushes."
But even with the down payment assistance and savings in hand, Christy’s home-buying process was an emotional rollercoaster ride. She walked through more than six houses, but offers were sometimes already in place and accepted by the time she finished a tour.
After finally finding an available home that she loved, she put in an offer straight away, crossed her fingers and prayed the deal would not fall through.
"I was at that point of just saying ‘forget it,’" Christy said. "When they accepted the offer and my realtor told me they had accepted, it was like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I was so happy I couldn't even express myself properly."
Christy's relief at securing a house is far from unique.
Spurred by supply chain constraints, historically low interest rates, housing inventory shortages and migration changes influenced by the pandemic, Nevada's housing prices skyrocketed to record highs in 2021, hitting double-digit increases for the second year in a row.
Gary MacDonald, 2021 president of the Reno-Sparks Association of Realtors, described the price boom as a "seller's market,” because there are often many offers available to someone selling a house.
"When COVID first came into the marketplace, we were all thinking that it was going to be not good, it was going to hurt our business … and in essence, it did anything but hurt us," MacDonald said. "Everyone around the country has seen an uptick in business. Areas where the real estate market was just dead, all of a sudden it's come alive."
As home prices in Nevada's two largest metropolitan areas rose more than 23 percent in Las Vegas and around 22 percent in the Reno-Sparks area over the last year, so did housing prices across the country. In nearly all markets tracked by the National Association of Realtors, the median price of single-family existing homes rose during the third quarter, with 78 percent of those markets experiencing double-digit price increases within that same timeframe.
Read the entire article at The Nevada Independent: https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/housing-prices-broke-records-in-2021-slight-market-cooldown-expected