Everybody’s got to live somewhere, and as Nevada continues to diversify its economy and remains state tax-free and business-friendly, more people are choosing to hang their hats in Nevada and call it home.
It’s just there aren’t quite enough hat racks. Coming into 2026, the Nevada housing market can best be described as stable. There are no big jumps in housing prices, and no significant drops, either. There’s building going on in every corner of the state, and it’s said that we need more.
But the housing market has been slowing since November. Everybody has a hypothesis as to why. Nobody has a complete answer. “The reality is units to sales numbers are down, there are less homes turning over, less folks are buying and selling homes in Las Vegas right now than they have for the last few years,” said George Kypreos, president, Las Vegas REALTORS®.
Which means inventory is up but not at catastrophic levels in Southern Nevada. There’s about a five month supply, slightly higher than usual. Around 2,000 homes a month are selling. Around 10,000 units are available.
“There’s a balance there,” said Kypreos. “If more homes hit the market and buyer demand was low, you’d see prices soften. But they’re not. The buyer demand is a little softer because folks are having a hard time with interest rates and the higher payments and the higher prices, so it’s kind of propping prices up. Low sales and low appetite for buyers is kind of keeping buyers and sellers at bay.”
In Northern Nevada’s six counties, the housing market has stabilized. “We’re not seeing drastic price increases. We’re not seeing drastic price drops. We’re not seeing drastic fluctuations with days on the market. It’s just been a stable market,” said Garrett Lepire, president, Sierra Nevada REALTORS®.
Statewide, Nevada REALTORS® is seeing the market pick up a little after interest rates dropped near the end of 2025. “The market is starting to pick up for buyers who were on the fence, and now with a bit of a rate drop, it does give them a little hope and help get them off the fence,” said Sarah Scattini, president, Nevada REALTORS®. It’s a good time to buy, because sellers who might have gone off the market are returning with resale properties.
Home Prices
While there aren’t huge fluctuations in price, up or down, sales are down and prices are high. It seems logical, then, that housing prices would come down.
“You would think,” said Lepire. “Typically when total sales go down it means people aren’t willing to pay the price, so you have to lower the price to meet demand, and that’s just not the case here. We still do not have enough inventory to meet demand, which is why we are seeing prices stabilize, and not come down.”
But prices also aren’t jumping 10 percent a year either. Without a crystal ball it’s hard to forecast, but Lepire doesn’t see any metrics that would point to dramatic price increases, especially if interest rates continue to come down. A quarter point drop in interest rates by the end 2026 is realistic.
“My Rotarian friends who are in their sixties and seventies like to tell me these aren’t bad interest rates, back in the ’80s we had 18, 19 percent,” said Lepire. True. But those rates were on a $30,000 price. “Prices are high. Higher than they’ve ever been. And interest rates aren’t the highest they’ve ever been, obviously they’ve been much higher. But they’re higher than what they were. The 3 percent interest rate and a high price made homes affordable. But the high price and the 6 percent interest rates makes it a little less affordable.”
According to the National Association of REALTORS®, volume of transactions is expected to be around 14 percent in 2026. Forecasts speculate if rates were to drop and possibly there were legislative changes to try and boost the housing market, there might be change. Otherwise it’s likely 2026 will be a similar market to how the year is starting off.
Also nationally, mortgage rates in 2026 are expected to remain in the low sixes, and inventory should continue to grow nationwide between 8 and 9 percent. Prices are expected to raise by an average of about 1.6 percent, which should equal better affordability, said Scattini.
New Homes, New Homeowners
Traditionally, new homebuyers look to newly built homes. Kypreos’s first home was a new built, for $140,000 in 1991. But companies that were entry level tract homebuilders are now selling non-luxury homes at near-luxury prices. “So new homebuilders haven’t been a place for the first time buyers to shop—they’re way out of their price range.”
So maybe first time buyers now look at resale properties. If they can find them. Not every seller is primed to sell.
“Some sellers are trying to get a price and they don’t get it, they’ll pull out. Their mentality is ‘Give me my number or I’m not doing it,'” said Kypreos. Which makes sense because those potential sellers already have a home. It may not be their dream home, but if they have a sub-3 percent mortgage rate, they’re not enthused about looking for another property at 6 percent. “They may not love the home, but they love the payment. That’s locking out a lot of inventory.”
Scattini saw that with sellers who were determined to get their price. When they couldn’t, those sellers pulled their house off the market. Interest rates dropped, they lowered their price, and now they’re getting attention.
There’s a need for the existing homes market, because there’s a question of whether new homes being built are keeping up with demand. If there is a demand.
“Demand is down, but it’s down nationally. Sales all over the area are down because of rates,” said Kypreos. That said, Las Vegas is still where people who have sold homes in more expensive locations—like California—are coming into town with large down payments, looking for homes.
“Out of state buyers that are bringing equity from out of state to here are probably the main driver of the market today,” said Kypreos.
“The more interest rates drop the more buyers are going to enter the market and then housing prices will probably go up because of demand,” said Scattini. “Not enough housing and a lot of buyers out there are going to drive up prices.”
Single family homes New homes are being built. In Northern Nevada there seem to be new subdivisions everywhere.
“The big builders are the name builders right now, the big publicly traded ones—DR Horton, Lennar, Toll Brothers. They build nice homes. Even with all the building, I know it sounds crazy—we still need more,” said Lepire.
In Southern Nevada, the majority of new homes are tract homes, with builders building a handful at a time.
“They want them somewhat contracted before they build too many,” said Kypreos. “They’re usually pretty careful.”
New homes are being built on the outskirts of Vegas, because the land inside the city has already been developed. Buyers looking to get into a new home need to look further east than Henderson and further north than the Northwest to get a home, and they’re not cheap, Kypreos said. Which is why builders and developers offer incentives and buy the rate down for buyers, enticing them into transactions for new homes rather than heading for the resale market. There’s always been competition between the new home and resale market, and sellers are offering incentives, too, working with buyers, offering closing cost assistance, help with rate buydowns.
The Rental Market
In order to meet Nevada housing demands, there’s a lot of multifamily housing being built, everything from apartments to condos to townhouses.
“Condo townhouses are great to get into as a starter property, but a lot of people can’t do multifamily or a condo townhouse,” said Scattini. They might have bigger families or an intergenerational situation, caring for parents or housing adult children.
It used to be first time home buyers looked to the new home market. But today’s prices are sending potential first time buyers to look at the rental market. That’s leading to a new trend—subdivisions with homes that aren’t for sale.
American Home Builders is building a new tract in Carson City, 250 homes that will only be for rent. “I think there’s a push, and I don’t know exactly by who, to commodify single family homes and to make that the new commodity that gets traded,” said Lepire.
One way to do that is to build large-scale tracts that are investment only properties. The builder anticipates holding them for about 10 years, then sells them as a package. While federal legislation may be in the offing to stop corporate home buying, it’s not known how that will affect this new trend where builders are building, not buying, the homes. After building the homes they’re not making them available to the marketplace.
Having the availability of rental properties is important for consumers who need to put a roof over their heads, and it helps with affordability of housing. “But I think we need to be careful about commoditizing single family properties,” Lepire added.
Multifamily housing is an option for putting roofs over heads. Across the state apartments and condos are coming up out of the ground and they’re still not keeping pace with demand. For the past two years, rents have been flat or gone down 1-2 percent following the unusual post-pandemic spike where rents rose 7 percent over a year. But connect the dots between 2020 and 2026, there’s been a fairly normal 2-3 percent rent growth, meaning the market is realigning.
Supply is going down, however. Builders and developers need to be creative with financing to be competitive because materials and labor costs remain high. “We’re not seeing a lot of new construction in ’25 or ’26,” said Jess Molasky, COO, Ovation Development. “Construction has slowed. There was a lot of supply delivered at the end of 2025 and right now that’s why we’re seeing rents going down, seeing a lot of concessions in the market. You can get six weeks free on a really good deal on an apartment today.”
Since 2007, Ovation has been building multifamily in Southern Nevada, everything from affordable housing to luxury units. They’re starting 2026 with 1000 affordable housing units and 400 market rate apartments in the pipeline.
“It’s really a response to the marketplace,” said Molasky. “It’s pretty complicated to build a project. People think the developer makes a lot of money but it’s a pretty tight margin. It’s difficult to make it work.” Costs of everything have gone up—materials, labor, insurance.
So what works for Ovation—and the rental community—is partnering with city, county, and state agencies to invest in housing and create units that wouldn’t be built otherwise.
Rent on an affordable apartment in Southern Nevada can run around $1500. Not much different than a $1600 mortgage payment for a homeowner with a 3 percent rate. But renting typically requires less income, less capital upfront, smaller monthly payments, no maintenance costs.
“Home ownership is a great option for financially secure families, but it’s a little bit of a folly to try and rush everybody into becoming first time homebuyers,” Molasky said.
The Big Picture
The national economy has an impact on home buying trends. “The more savings people have and the safer people feel and the better their jobs are, the more bullish they are to invest in real estate and take on debt and payments,” Kypreos said. “As our economy trends up, or down, a bit, real estate usually follows.”
The national economy has an effect, but all real estate is local, Lepire said. When local economies slow, the housing market feels it.
“The real estate industry is one of the main drivers for the national economy, and certainly one of the main drivers for the economy of the State of Nevada,” said Lepire. “Being that we have a stable marketplace, that’s a good thing. One thing that would benefit not only the national economy, but also our state economy would be to see total sales go up. Our trade association, the National Association of REALTORS®, is forecasting a 14 percent increase in the number of sales on a nationwide basis. That would be great.”
“The biggest thing nationally that would help us and the entire nation would be federal investment in housing,” said Molasky. “It’s some of the most effective economic stimulus the government can do.”
Investments in housing directly effect the Nevada economy, injecting capital into communities, building and developing workforce, and then providing housing for that workforce.
“If a buyer is comfortable with their employment and income, and they need a home to live in, I’m bullish on Las Vegas real estate long term,” said Kypreos. “I always recommend that people invest in Las Vegas. Now is a good time to buy and a good time to sell. It’s a balanced market and people are transacting every day.”
