Investors snap up single-family homes in Las Vegas

Investors are soaking up available homes across Las Vegas, which now ties with San Jose for the top magnet for investor buyers.

Investor purchases in greater Las Vegas jumped 27 percent year-over-year in the last quarter ending in June, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported, citing a study by Redfin.

Redfin defines an investor purchase as a deal made by a company rather than an individual. The total number of investor home buys, and the companies involved in the deals, were not disclosed.

Las Vegas hit the top five for cities that had the highest share of investors buying homes at the end of the second quarter, at 22.3 percent, behind Miami which led the country with 28.5 percent, according to Redfin.

Chen Zhao, head of Redfin Economics Research, said a number of factors could make the Las Vegas Valley attractive to residential investors.

“Investors could be attracted to Las Vegas because rents there are increasing more than the national median,” Zhao said in a statement. “In addition, Las Vegas is a tourist destination, so short-term rentals are another reason for investors to want to buy there.”

A Lied Center for Real Estate at UNLV study from last year found corporate investors own approximately 14 percent of all residential single-family housing stock in the valley, and 25 percent of North Las Vegas specifically.

Investors nationwide had the biggest increase in two years, buying up $43 billion worth of homes in the second quarter, a 13.7 percent increase from this time last year, according to Redfin.

The price of a typical single-family home in greater Las Vegas rose 7.7 percent year-over-year in June to $475,000 — $7,000 off the all-time high set in May 2022.

Real estate players who spoke to the Review-Journal said federal control of most of the land around Las Vegas has curtailed development and driven up costs on residential and commercial properties.

— Dana Bartholomew