Realtor.com forecast Las Vegas #1 vs. Zillow forecast San Jose #1

[Terry Lao]

Realtor.com forecast Las Vegas #1, while Zillow forecast San Jose #1, for top markets in 2018. Realtor and Zillow are both well known and highly regarded in the real estate industry. From what I can tell, Realtor takes data more from MLS, while Zillow uses a few more avenues like individual broker sites.

Las Vegas had 14% annual appreciation for 2017, while San Jose was 17%, for 2017. From my point of view, both double digit returns. However, the one item that stands out in favor of Las Vegas is the affordability. The median home price in Las Vegas is $265k, while San Jose tops a million. 

What is your opinion? Las Vegas or San Jose?

Terry

https://www.realtor.com/research/2018-national-hou...

https://www.zillow.com/research/hottest-housing-ma...

[Robert Rayford]

Of course the question and the determining factor is the earning power of the San Jose area. The median income in San Jose is $110,000 with a poverty rate of 9.5%. In contrast to Vegas at $54,00 and a poverty rate of 16.3%. I would say that appreciation will continue to rise at a constant pace in San Jose. The Vegas market and local area has plenty of room to build. San Jose is pretty much out of open space for new developments. The Vegas developers will continue to build as long as the numbers pencil out. Just this factor alone will slow the appreciation rate in Vegas. The rental market has a lot to do with rate of appreciation rise over time. Once a market has reach its top with qualified renters then housing will start to have longer DOM to find a renter. This will slow the buy and hold investors down on purchases, which will slow down the flippers who supply the buy and hold investors, so on and on. Most of the real estate sold in San Jose is purchased by buyers for their primary residences. With such low inventory , this will further inflate the values.