Aug. 4, 2006 - Las Vegas on the CNN Money List

Las Vegas made the CNN money list as one the 100 overpriced markets.  I tend to agree with the evaluation, however it does not seem to stop people from buying.  I will say though we have the highest number of homes in our MLS than has ever been there before.  Homes are also taking 4-5 months to sell.  So we may see the prices come down some as sellers get anxious.

Of course while our housing maybe overpriced, we were also on the top 100 as a good place to live.  Below are the statistics from CNN:

Las Vegas, NV
Financial
	City stats	Best places average
Median family income (per year)	$59,195	$76,893
Family purchasing power (annual, cost-of-living adjusted)	$44,845	$68,109
Sales tax	7.75%	6.55%
State income tax rate (highest bracket)	n/a	6.46%
State income tax rate (lowest bracket)	n/a	2.74%
Auto insurance premiums (Average for the state)	$2,557	$2,207
Job growth % (2000-2005)	19.68%	10.97%
Housing
	City stats	Best places average
Median home price	$260,000	$259,566
Home price gain (2004-2005)	11.20%	9.26%
Education
	City stats	Best places average
Colleges, universities and professional schools	3	8
Junior colleges and technical institutes	0	0
Test scores reading (% +/- state average)	-15.9%	13.3%
Test scores math (% +/- state average)	-9.2%	16.9%
% students attending public/private schools	91.1/8.90	88.4/11.59
Quality of life
	City stats	Best places average
Air quality index (% of days AQI ranked as good)	46.8%	71.9%
Personal crime risk (100 is nat'l average; lower is better)	323	45
Property crime risk (100 is nat'l average; lower is better)	267	74
Personal crime incidents (per 100,000)	789	228
Property crime incidents (per 100,000)	4,812	3,105
Median commute time (in minutes)	22.4	20.8
% population with commute 45 mins. or longer	9.8%	13.4%
Leisure and culture
	City stats	Best places average
Movie theaters (within 15 miles)	23	22
Restaurants (within 15 miles)	3,377	2,268
Bars (within 15 miles)	397	127
Public golf courses (within 30 miles)	62	74
Libraries (within 15 miles)	23	43
Museums (accredited by AAM within 30 miles)	1	7
Ski resorts (within 100 miles)	1	10
Weather
	City stats	Best places average
Annual precipitation (inches)	4.05	36.00
Clear days	210	107
High temp in July ° F	107.5°	87.7°
Low temp in Jan ° F	28.0°	23.5°
Health*
	City stats	Best places average
Has health plan (% of residents)	82.0%	88.2%
Body mass index (avg. for residents)	27	27
Cancer mortality (per 100,000, age-adjusted)	190.7	191.3
Cardiac mortality (per 100,000)	174.2	202.0
Meet the neighbors
	City stats	Best places average
Median age	34.2	34.5
Completed at least some college (% of residents)	50.2%	63.9%
Married	48.5%	54.3%
Divorced	14.0%	9.3%
Amount spent on vacations (domestic and foreign, household avg. per year)	$6,910	$7,549