Home prices rising, but still a ways to go

Waiting for the rising home values to get back to the boom years?

Don't get too excited — it’s going to be a while.

Las Vegas home values have climbed a national-best 23 percent in the past year and are expected to rise another 8.5 percent by spring 2015. But they're still 40 percent below their peak and won’t be back to those levels until spring 2019, according to a report out today from Zillow.

The typical valley home was worth $182,500 in the second quarter, up 22.6 percent from a year earlier.

Nationally, home values climbed 6.3 percent in the past year, Zillow reported.

Home prices grew bloated and out of control during the bubble last decade when investors, backed by easily obtained loans, flipped homes en masse, and local residents, also with easy credit, bought grossly overpriced houses, often with little or no money down.

Prices plunged after the economy collapsed but have been climbing at one of the fastest rates nationally since bottoming out a few years ago, fueled in large part by investors scooping up cheap homes in bulk to turn into rentals.

Home values peaked in May 2006 at $305,800 and hit bottom in January 2012 at $114,700, Zillow says.

And though Las Vegas has to wait almost five years until property values are expected to recover all their losses, other metropolitan areas are poised to wait even longer, according to Zillow.

Minneapolis has until 2028, Chicago, 2026, and Baltimore, 2024.