Housing permits in Las Vegas stall, with apartments falling 23%

The housing boom in Las Vegas brought on by the pandemic has petered out.

Housing permits around Sin City were flat last year at 13,073 from 2022, while permits for apartment complexes fell 23 percent, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported, citing a new study from Point2.

Across the state, housing permits dropped for the second year in a row, according to the online real estate search portal, which obtained its data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The state handed out 18,473 new housing permits last year for single-family homes and apartments, 8 percent fewer than in 2022.

While there was a slight uptick in single-family home permits statewide, permits for apartment projects fell 32 percent, which “points towards a contraction in the multifamily housing market, potentially limiting options for residents seeking affordable housing,” according to the report.

The doldrums for permits around Las Vegas, with a sharp decline in apartments, suggests “a shift in the region’s housing stock, with implications for the variety of housing in the area,” the study said.

The Las Vegas Valley has had an increase in multifamily units entering the market, which have flattened and/or decreased some rental rates.

But the pipeline for new apartment projects is grim, as the building boom brought on during the pandemic has come to an end, according to commercial broker Jeffrey Swinger, in an earlier interview with the Review-Journal.

Reno and Carson City had larger drops last year, with permits falling a resective 28 percent and 11 percent.

This month, Gov. Joe Lombardo urged President Joe Biden to release more federal land in the state to allow for more housing developments.

Last year, Las Vegas had its slowest year for home sales since the Great Recession, with higher interest locking many homeowners into their homes.

Meanwhile, new housing continues to come onto the market, and home prices have stayed firm, a trend playing out nationally, according to Redfin. Nationwide permits dropped 11 percent year-over-year until the end of 2023, a decline for the second consecutive year.

“Increasing inventory has yet to dampen price growth,” the report said. “The median U.S. home-sale price is up 5.3 percent year over year, the second-biggest increase since October 2022, and the median monthly mortgage payment is just $31 shy of its all-time high due to elevated mortgage rates and prices.”

— Dana Bartholomew