The best way to lower housing prices is to build more homes. There’s good news for Las Vegas in that regard.
On Wednesday, Gov. Joe Lombardo announced that Olympia Companies had purchased around 940 acres through the City of Las Vegas for a new development. The land, which is in the northwest edge of the Las Vegas Valley, came from the Bureau of Land Management. Olympia Companies plans to build up to 6,000 homes in a new master-planned community called Monument Hills. The development will include a range of housing options, including some for service members at Creech Air Force Base.
Olympia Companies may not be a household name, but its other projects are immediately recognizable. It played a role in developing Southern Highlands, Coronado Ranch and Skye Canyon.
This is encouraging news for those looking to buy a home. Housing costs have increased significantly over the last decade. In July 2016, the median sales price of a single-family home in the Las Vegas Valley was $236,000. In July 2020, it was $330,000. Just two years later, it had soared to $465,000. It’s remained near that level since then. In July 2026, it was $480,000.
For many young adults, these numbers have made homeownership an unobtainable fantasy, instead of a bedrock part of the American Dream. In the mid-1990s, the median age of first-time buyers was a bit over 30 years old. It remained in that range until COVID. Last year, the median age had increased to 40 years old. In the mid-1990s, the median age of all buyers was in the upper 30s. Last year, it was 59 years old.
While there is widespread agreement that prices are too high, there is disagreement on the best solution. Many on the left have embraced proposals like rent control. Subsidies for want-to-be homeowners have received bipartisan support.
But there’s a problem with these plans. By tinkering with market prices, they artificially boost demand without a corresponding increase in supply. That can benefit a select few, but they don’t solve the underlying problem.
There are two options to do that. One is a real decrease in demand. An economic collapse would accomplish that, but it’s obviously not an attractive option. A recent working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found the onslaught of illegal immigrants under the Biden administration “raised local house prices and rents without expanding housing supply.” President Donald Trump’s moves to reduce illegal immigration have prevented that problem from worsening.
But the best solution is to increase supply. This happens frequently with other products, and the free market is uniquely situated to facilitate it. High prices send a signal that consumers want more of a particular product. Motivated by profit, companies start to build more of it. More supply causes prices to fall. This is why Las Vegas rents are declining.
This is basic supply and demand, but there’s a complicating factor when it comes to building housing. The federal government controls a staggering 88 percent of the land in Clark County. That’s more than 4.5 million acres.
This sale by the Bureau of Land Management took years of work. Mr. Lombardo wrote to U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, pushing him to approve it. Las Vegas played a key role as well.
It shouldn’t be like this. The federal government owns more than 80 percent of Nevada’s land. That’s by far the largest percentage of any state in the country. In New York, for instance, the federal government owns less than 1 percent of the state’s land as of 2020. Nevada is on unequal footing with other states.
If 6,000 homes can be built on 940 acres, imagine how many homes could be built if the Trump administration released 100,000 acres for new housing projects.
Give Nevada lands back to Nevada.
