Las Vegas Has Eight Years of Land Left

The Las Vegas Valley faces a dire housing crisis. It has an eight-year window before it runs out of land for new homes. Tina Frias is the CEO of the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association. She sounds the alarm on the need for it to keep a healthy balance between housing supply and demand.

The association supports a federal lands bill. The bill would make more desert land open for development, Frias said. Gov. Joe Lombardo endorsed the bill. It's aimed to cut red tape and improve land access for development.

Clark County confirmed that the federal government owns 88% of all the county's land. The Bureau of Land Management manages over half of it. The BLM’s Southern Nevada district manages 2.6 million acres alone in Clark County.

A spokesperson for the BLM’s Southern Nevada district said that the act passed in 1998. It told the BLM to sell public lands. The lands were within specific boundaries in the Las Vegas Valley. The spokesperson said that stakeholders have sold, leased, or patented almost 44,000 acres. Another 27,000 acres of land is still available for disposal.

Many real estate experts and analysts told the Review-Journal that this. They said a lack of land and government red tape are major reasons. They say these problems have caused it's a “housing crisis” that is raising real estate prices.

Nicholas Irwin is an economics assistant professor at UNLV. He is also a researcher at the Lied Center for Real Estate. He said that the valley’s population will keep growing. So, the need for more land to develop is very important.

Redfin estimates the median home price in the valley is up 9.2 percent from this time last year to $435,000. Home prices jump $100,000 in three years, while sales collapse.

Brian Gordon is a principal at Applied Analysis. He said that making enough housing is a lasting issue.

Frias said the valley housing stock comes down to the three L’s: lumber, labor, and land. She cited a shortage of land as a major issue. She said many people got into homes during the pandemic, when interest rates were very low. Now, they're content to sit on the properties they bought, which takes them out of the resale stock.

“Right now, we're in a pretty unique circumstance. Buyers are sitting on homes with interest rates of 4 percent or less. They're not likely to give up that rate, so that impacts inventory. So, there's a lack of inventory. And, mortgage rates are higher than they were a few years ago. This makes it hard to match housing options with demand.”