The few houses they've seen that weren't sold by the time they showed up to look at them ended in bidding wars, causing the final price to be thousands of dollars above list price.

"We've looked at houses and haven't been able to secure one because there are so many bids on them. It's a bidding war," Ponder, 48, said. "We've put an offer on only two houses because it's so ridiculous."

Frustrated with the local market, Ponder, a former title insurance agent, and Perfetti, chief engineer at Turnberry Place's tower three, started looking to buy a house outside of the Las Vegas Valley, and asked their real estate agent, Sandy Curtis, to take them to Pahrump.

"As we went longer and longer without a house, the prices were going up and the houses were getting smaller," Ponder said. "We ended up in Pahrump because we could afford the houses that are over there and (in Las Vegas), not only are houses getting smaller, but the lots are three feet apart."

The couple, who moved to Las Vegas from Cleveland last year, bought a 1,652-square-foot house in Pahrump on two-thirds of an acre for $180,000. Perfetti will make the hourlong commute to Las Vegas five days a week. Ponder is interviewing for jobs and said she, too, will make the commute.

"I don't particularly like to drive, but if I leave work late, the drive takes 45 minutes (to the Budget Suites at Flamingo Road and Boulder Highway) and I'd rather put it on cruise at 70 miles per hour and drive a longer distance; that I don't really mind," Perfetti said. "If you want a home and you have a family, in Pahrump you'll be a lot better off."

Ponder and Perfetti are examples of a growing number of people that are being priced out -- and discouraged -- by the rapidly appreciating and cutthroat Las Vegas home market and are beginning to buy houses in Pahrump.

"It used to be people liked the lifestyle; now they are buying homes (in Pahrump) because there are no homes in Las Vegas," said Roy Bowditch, a real estate agent for almost 20 years in Pahrump and owner/broker of Win Realty. "They are not picking Pahrump as a destination point; they are being funneled to Pahrump."

The reason, many say, is the growing difficulty of buying a home in Las Vegas and the continuing increase in home prices. The median price of a new home in the Las Vegas Valley in January, the most recent statistic available, was $204,487, a year-to-year increase of more than $18,000. The median price of a previously owned home in January was $185,000, a year-to-year increase of $29,500, according to market tracking firm Home Builders Research Inc.

While those are large increases, some neighborhoods in the valley are seeing huge price appreciation, particularly in new housing tracts, where builders routinely raise the price each phase. In one Summerlin neighborhood, The Paseos, a new 1,900-square-foot home built by Pulte Homes, is selling for almost $582,000 -- a $132,000 increase since January, said Dennis Smith, president of Home Builders Research. Other builders routinely increase home prices $50,000 to $60,000 a phase.

"We're pricing people out of the marketplace -- builders have to look at it," Smith said.

Smith said satellite markets like Pahrump, Mesquite and Bullhead City, Ariz., are becoming alternative markets for people looking to buy a home. Smith, speaking at the Las Vegas Housing Outlook-2004 last week, said while he personally has never been impressed with Pahrump, the town "has come a long way."

"There is big growth and big demand out there," said Smith, adding that the town issued 452 building permits last year.

Karen Spalding, owner/broker of Spalding Realty, said she and her husband, Pahrump home builder John Spalding, have become increasingly busy as people from Las Vegas move to the small town.

"The lot sales have gone up through the roof in the last eight weeks," Karen Spalding said. "You can't find (raw land for) under $30,000 (an acre)."

That's compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars for land in Las Vegas. One builder recently paid as much as $400,000 an acre for land zoned for cluster (high density) housing, local analysts have reported.

In Pahrump, unless a home is being built in one of the community's master-planned communities, homebuyers usually need to install a well and septic tank to service the house.

"This is new to us," Karen Spalding said. "We like steady growth -- we don't like things jumping so quickly."

The Spaldings, who moved to Pahrump 10 years ago, said the town is close enough to Las Vegas for fun and errands, and close enough to Southern California to check on senior relatives. Karen Spalding said people moving to Pahrump at the time liked the quiet atmosphere and small community.

"People used to come out here because of the rural lifestyle," she said. "But I'm not sure about that anymore. I think now they are choosing to come out here because of the price of land and the price of a home."

Smith said the house someone can buy in Pahrump versus Las Vegas is striking.

"You can buy more house on a bigger lot," he said.

As an example, Smith said for $150,000 in Las Vegas, someone is likely to find a 1,285-square-foot house on a 2,300-square-foot lot. In Pahrump, the same amount of money is likely to yield a buyer a 1,852-square-foot house on a 10,000-square-foot lot.

Freddi Doss, a real estate agent with Pahrump Realty Inc., said about a quarter of the firm's business is from people in Las Vegas.

"We do have a lot of people that make the commute," he said. "It's a sellers' market now, and there's definitely a shortage of property."

The growing importance of Las Vegas' peripheral communities is not lost on other builders and developers. At least two large builders have plans to build houses in Pahrump by year's end, Smith said.

Dan Harris, general partner/owner of Harris Ltd., the development arm of Hollis L. Harris Realty and the developer of Desert Trails, a 652-acre master-planned community in Pahrump, has lived in Pahrump since 1964, and said in the last six months there has been more activity from large Las Vegas-area home builders than ever before.

"We now have two, three major home builders seriously looking at Pahrump right now," he said. "Hopefully in the next three or four months there will be something to announce."

In Desert Trails there are about 1,000 home sites, each about one third of an acre. There are about 60 homes built, and the 84 lots in phase one are almost sold out. Engineering work has begun on phase two and reservations will be taken in the next two months, Harris said.

Harris expects more builders as well as people wanting to own homes to look toward Pahrump as Las Vegas' land prices continue to increase.

"Las Vegas' property values are unreal," he said. "In Pahrump, builders can still buy large parcels for $30,000 an acre."

But land prices are going up in Pahrump as well. In the five years since Harris began selling lots in Desert Trails, the price of a one-third-acre lot has increased from about $23,000 to about $34,000. Harris expects phase two lot prices to increase to about $36,000 a lot.

Private home building company Nationwide Homes Inc., one of the largest builders in Mohave County, Ariz., is concentrating its efforts on Bullhead City, Ariz., which is across the Colorado River from Laughlin and about an hour from Henderson. Builders Nationwide Homes and Avalon Properties and Custom Homes are both selling homes in the master-planned community of Laughlin Ranch in Bullhead City, Ariz.

Bart Sloan, senior vice president of Nationwide Homes, said buyers are coming from all over -- including Las Vegas.

"We've seen more and more recently that people think it's too crowded so they move here to get out of the big city," Sloan said. "People like what Vegas has to offer, but don't mind being one hour and 10 minutes away."

Popular with retirees for its proximity to gambling in Nevada, water sports on the Colorado River and sunny skies perfect for golf, Sloan expects Nationwide Homes will also attract families looking for reasonably priced homes.

"It's totally going to shift the demographics," he said. "In fact it already has."

Nationwide Homes is building in three communities within Laughlin Ranch, with homes just under 1,400 square feet on a 6,000-square-foot lot starting at $170,000. Estates starting at 1,800 square feet on a 9,500-square-foot lot start around $230,000. Sloan said despite the lack of a permanent sales trailer, Nationwide Homes already has 150 checks for homes for the first phase release scheduled for April 2.

Another developer also is betting on Arizona as the next bedroom community of Las Vegas. Surrounded by speculators and real estate agents at the recent Las Vegas Housing Outlook-2004, developer Leonard Mardian pointed to a map that clearly marked his 36,000 acres of land in White Hills, Ariz., just 27 miles south of Hoover Dam.

Mardian told the gathered crowd that as developers run out of land in the Las Vegas Valley, and as the price of a home continues to rise, people will turn to Arizona, especially after the Hoover Dam bypass bridge, due to open in 2007, makes the commute from his land to the Strip less than an hour one way.

Mardian said in about two years he expects to start building infrastructure on the site and is talking to builders about selling super pads, or large tracts of land, for homes.

"The Las Vegas median price is rather expensive, and the only other opportunity (to own a home) is to commute to Las Vegas," said Lori Mardian, Leonard Mardian's daughter and a part owner in the project along with Susan Mardian, Leonard's wife.

In the meantime, Ponder and Perfetti will close on their home in the next couple of weeks and plan to move in shortly thereafter. Ponder said she expects more commercial development to follow as more people move to the community.

"It's just so much better over there," Ponder said of her new home. "I know it's way out, but they just put a Super Wal-Mart in, and in the next two years, I bet there will be a Lowe's and T.J. Maxx and Marshalls."

Jennifer Shubinski covers real estate and development for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-8832 or by e-mail at js@lasvegassun.com.