For Anna Woods, housing isn’t guaranteed.
She’s lived in two student dorms, a room shared with a friend at a house, and now a student apartment with one bathroom for $2,700 a month shared by four roommates who split the costs.
Each week, the 23-year-old UNR undergraduate student checks her bank account to make sure she has enough money to afford rent.
“My first initial savings is definitely depleted,” Woods said. “I feel like a few more big expenses would take me out.”
She isn’t alone.
A recent report from the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities, a statewide nonpartisan policy research center, indicates housing and rental costs in the Silver State are more expensive than ever.
Like Woods, the report shows that more than half of Nevada renters and nearly a quarter of homeowners are cost-burdened, defined as at least 35 percent of gross monthly income spent on housing costs. It comes as average rent in the state’s two largest counties has increased exponentially since 2018 — a more than 55 percent average increase in Clark County and a 46.5 percent jump in Washoe County.
Nevada ranks second in the nation for cost-burdened renters, behind only Florida, and fifth in the country for states with the most excessively cost-burdened homeowners. As the report notes, this isn’t a recent trend.
The lack of supply has also led to Nevada having the least affordable housing units in the country for those living below the poverty level, defined as making 30 percent of the area’s median income.
In 2017, state lawmakers conducted a study on affordable housing issues that noted, “Nevada faces an affordable housing crisis.” The study indicated an imbalance in supply and demand, shaped by population and economic growth — and not much has changed in the eight subsequent years.
“ For 70 consecutive years, Nevada was the fastest-growing state in the nation,” Executive Director of the Guinn Center Jill Tolles said. “Essentially, due to that exponential growth and the impacts of two major pauses, the Great Recession and COVID-19, housing supply just didn’t keep up with demand.”
But the report doesn’t just focus on the overwhelming problems. It also offers more than 20 policy options that local governments and state officials can use to address the housing crisis from various avenues.
Those include redeveloping existing vacant properties, working with the federal government to expand land availability, pursuing zoning reform by allowing for multifamily construction and reduced lot sizes, expediting the permitting process and bolstering the state’s construction workforce.
“The good news is this situation is not fixed or unchangeable,” the report states.
Why are housing prices rising in Nevada?
The crux of Nevada’s housing crisis, according to the Guinn Center report, lies in the number of available housing units (supply) and the number of people needing units (demand).
As population increases, so does the demand and cost for housing, the report said. If there’s a slowdown in the housing supply, prices will also increase if demand is high.
Nevada’s population has increased by 1.2 percent during the past two decades, almost two and a half times faster than the national rate. Translated into direct numbers, Nevada has seen an average of 24,000 new people annually since 2010, but the housing supply has been unable to keep up.
Pauses in the housing development process such as what took place during the Great Recession and COVID-19 pandemic, combined with rising costs of home-building materials, zoning regulations, permitting processes and widespread federal ownership of Nevada land, contribute to a shortage of housing for renters and prospective homebuyers.
The Guinn Center report notes that incoming residents with higher incomes have “intensified” the housing market. Californians, who make up the largest share of new Nevada residents, have an estimated adjusted gross income of about $135,000 — 33 percent higher than that of Nevada residents.
Even as population growth is raising housing demand, new housing can’t be built immediately.
Developers still struggle with a lack of land, zoning restrictions and high capital costs, which are exacerbating affordability issues.
Families and individuals are having to choose between health care, housing and food needs and other necessities, Guinn Center researchers said, noting that has broader effects on the economy.
“The higher these costs are for rents and homeownership, it impacts so many things in everybody’s lives,” Guinn Center Research Director Michael Stewart said. “We’d heard over and over again how much this is a critical issue in our state. But when you really look at the data, it brings that home.”
Housing costs outstrip wages
Median housing costs for one- or two-bedroom apartments outstrip the annual incomes of four of the five top occupations in Nevada.
The annual median income needed to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Nevada is about $47,800, and the median income required for a two-bedroom apartment is about $58,200.
Those working in food preparation and service, office administrative support, transportation and sales annually typically have salaries less than $42,000. The report noted that only an individual working in management (with a median annual income of $93,600) can comfortably afford rent.
“This means that a typical household of one individual will face significant housing affordability issues even though they are gainfully employed and working full-time,” the report said. It noted that if a household consists of two individuals working full time in the same occupation, housing becomes more affordable but only by a slim margin.
That affordability is also limited because the vast majority of housing units in Nevada are single-family homes, which make up 66 percent of the market.
The report underscores Woods’ experiences. In her five years attending UNR, she said she has worked at 10 jobs, half of which were in food preparation and office administrative support roles — two of the top industries in Nevada.
She had one job in IT where she only made $1,000 a month, leaving her with roughly $400 after rent.
“I was losing money during that time, and I had to use my financial aid and savings,” Woods said.
Policy options
Though the statistics are discouraging, Guinn Center researchers believe there’s a bipartisan desire and will to address the housing crisis.
Specifically, researchers highlighted 20 policy solutions ranging from infrastructure, zoning, permitting, resource advocacy and construction costs to landlord engagement practices.
“What we decided to highlight, it was born out of our research and our robust stakeholder engagement,” Tolles said.
The Legislature is weighing many of the options touched on in the report, with more than 31 bills relating to housing introduced and more expected to come, including one from Gov. Joe Lombardo.
Lombardo announced in his State of the State address that he would introduce a measure to help make housing more attainable for families by streamlining permitting processes — a recommendation included in the report — and creating pathways to homeownership for first responders, teachers and nurses.
Lombardo said he also wants to establish $1 billion in new attainable housing units — those affordable to people with middle incomes — across the state, supported by the state infrastructure bank, low-interest loans and bonding capacity.
One of the most popular solutions the report highlighted focuses on collaborating with Nevada’s congressional delegation to release federal land for development, which accounts for more than 85 percent of Nevada.
Lombardo advocated for this effort in his State of the State address and has said he’s spoken to President Donald Trump multiple times about the issue.
It’s a solution popular with legislative Democrats as well. Assm. Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas) introduced AJR10, which urges the federal government to release land for housing. Congressional Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) has also pushed for the release of federal land to aid the development of new housing.
While opening up federal land for housing development could ease the demand for housing, the report warns that it could take years for Congress to pass such a bill.
Experts interviewed by the Guinn Center also highlighted the need to move forward on other policies — removing restrictive zoning laws, developing multifamily housing, regulating landlords to ensure costs aren’t passed along to renters and mitigating a punitive eviction process.
“Bold moves in all areas — including political, land use, and funding — are needed to significantly increase the availability of housing units,” said a representative of a local government homelessness program, who was unnamed in the report.
While legislative Democrats have said access to land is part of the problem, they want to prioritize tenants’ rights, including bringing back a bill to implement rent caps for seniors or those living on Social Security income as well as a measure Lombardo vetoed in 2023 to change the state’s unique summary eviction process, which requires tenants make the first filing in an eviction legal proceeding. Lombardo said he is open to it.
Legislators are also considering measures to outlaw the purchase of more than 100 homes by a single entity in a calendar year to crack down on corporate purchases of homes, increase funding for the state’s homebuyer counseling program and require certain landlords to report a record of consistently on-time rent payments made by a tenant to at least one consumer reporting agency.
Woods noted that as a renter, there are often predatory practices by landlords, such as not returning cleaning deposits even if the space is spotless, charging high application fees and not addressing broken facilities such as toilets.
Woods said she wants to own a house eventually, starting with purchasing a condo and then working her way up to a larger space — it’s just tricky to find something within her budget.
“[Renting is] a very frustrating experience,” she said.
