Mom-and-pop investors were behind nearly 66 percent of all homes bought by business entities in Clark County since 2015, and real estate experts say the Las Vegas Valley is the perfect climate for the business venture.
These investors, defined as those who purchased 10 or less homes, bought about 48,058 single-family homes in the valley from 2015 to 2025, UNLV’s Lied Center for Real Estate found.
Tia Roman, broker and owner of Remax Reliance, who is also a property manager, said the valley became the perfect breeding ground for mom-and-pop investors over the years.
“People who bought homes between 2015 and 2022 before the interest rates increased to over 4 percent and beyond didn’t realize how fortunate they were at the time. Now, when they have life changes and need to move for whatever reason, they realize that their new purchase will come with a much higher interest rate,” she said.
Interest rates shot up in 2022 due to inflationary policies brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, and have created a “locking” phenomenon in the housing market, where homeowners are reluctant to give up low rates they got during the pandemic. In turn, homesellers are reluctant to drop prices, which has locked out a significant portion of the homebuying market post-pandemic, as mortgage rates have been largely above 6 percent since 2022.
This has created a new wave of “accidental landlords,” said Roman, which Zillow says Las Vegas ranks in the top 10 in the country for right now.
“With significant home price increases (during the pandemic) and some since, most people that bought during those years have significant equity,” added Roman. “Lastly, the increase in rents over the past 10 years has made it increasingly difficult for people to choose to let go of their homes as they realize they could convert it into an investment home with rents that more than support the mortgage payment.”
Jeff Hurst, the CEO of Furnished Finders, a company that helps investors furnish properties for tenants, said he’s not surprised by the numbers at all, and said mom-and-pop investors are cashing in on a rising short-term rental market in Las Vegas, that was previously dominated by the casino hotels.
“The city is increasingly attracting convention attendees, remote workers, healthcare professionals, and relocating families, creating a more stable, year-round demand profile,” he said. “The shift has opened the door for mom-and-pop landlords to turn single properties into long-term investment strategies, often through monthly rentals.”
Who’s buying what in Las Vegas?
Nicholas Irwin, the research director for UNLV’s Lied Center for Real Estate and one of the authors of the report, said there are a few general ways to think of this type of investor.
“I would describe mom-and-pop investors as individual or family-size investment companies who own a small portfolio of properties, 10 is usually the upper end, manage them directly, and use conventional financing such as mortgages to purchase the properties,” he said. “They are also locally based, giving them a potential advantage in submarket or specific neighborhood knowledge compared to larger-sized investors.”
A total of 73,273 single-family homes were bought in the county by business entities from 2015 through 2025, and 424,820 overall home purchases were made in Clark County during that time frame, according to the UNLV study.
Investor purchasing appears to have peaked twice, according to the study: first in 2013, when they made up 24.1 percent of all home purchases, and again in 2022, when they made up 22.2 percent of all homes bought.
“The group that purchased the second-most housing was the large investor classification, which saw a total purchase volume of 15,069 houses from 2015-2025, which corresponds to 20.6 percent of the overall investor market,” reads the report. “These results mean that, within the Las Vegas market, the two most predominant investor types are small investors– aka ‘mom & pop’ groups– and large investors, who purchase large volume of houses for investment purposes.”
This means business entities large and small were behind about 17.2 percent of all homes purchased in the county from 2015 up until last year.
Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.
