Nevada is facing some of the highest housing prices in the nation. Debate around how to solve it comes down to a fundamental difference in worldview. Will more regulations, rent controls, and federally subsidized affordable housing fix the problem? Or is expanding free market solutions the answer to bringing down housing costs?. Since 2020, 158,000 Californians have flocked to Nevada, now making up 43% of all new Nevada residents in the last four years.
There is a unanimous consensus that Nevada’s soaring housing prices are driven by an imbalance of supply and demand. In March, President Joe Biden said at a Las Vegas event, “To solve long term, we have to increase supply because when supply is down, demand is up, costs rise.”The debate begins with the kind of housing to build and who will pay for it.
Is building more affordable housing units going to bring housing prices down in Nevada? Roger Valdez, Director of the Center for Housing Economics and a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity told the Washington Examiner, “We don’t need more affordable housing. We need more housing so it’s more affordable.”
At the time, Lombardo said the Biden administration’s failure to embrace the free market was at the heart of what is driving the housing shortage, and “tearing at the very fabric of our state.” “Mr. President, it is time for your administration to embrace free market principles that rely upon supply and demand and rein in excessive federal spending that is hurting Nevada families,” the governor begged. “ let’s dump money on it .