Las Vegas is facing a housing reality many families here are feeling firsthand.
I dug into a new report from UNLV's Lied Center for Real Estate that shows investors have bought up nearly 100,000 single-family homes across the valley — about one in every five homes sold over the past 15 years.
WATCH| Abel Garcia looks into a new report that reveals one in every five homes sold in the valley have been sold to investors
The report tracks investor activity in Las Vegas going back to 2009. Researchers found investor buying surged after COVID, peaking in 2022. While it's cooled slightly, it remains elevated.
Last year alone, about 23% of all homes sold in Las Vegas went to investors — nearly one in four. That's a rate higher than the national average.
Research Director at the Lied Center for Real Estate, Nicholas Irwin, says that level of competition makes it harder for everyday buyers, especially first-time homeowners, to compete.
"What concerns me is that we're still a blue-collar town, but we have white-collar home prices — and that's untenable in the long run," Irwin said.
"For a household of four, you need about $120,000 a year in income just to afford a median-priced home. Those people are our teachers, our nurses, our first responders. If they can't afford to live here, they'll move somewhere else — and that impacts everyone."
Irwin says fixing that means changing policy to make it easier to build more homes — but those solutions could take years to show results.
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