Millennials Struggle to Buy Homes in Las Vegas

Millennials in Las Vegas hoping to buy a home might consider leaving town.

The city has one of the lowest rates of millennial home purchases in the nation, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, citing a report from Construction Coverage.

Residents born between 1981 and 1996 bought 48.4 percent of the single family homes last year in Las Vegas, the second lowest rate among the nation’s largest cities.

The only city that had a lower rate was Tucson, Arizona (45.2 percent). The metro with the highest percentage of millennial home buyers in 2023 was San Jose (73.5 percent).

The study estimates Las Vegas Valley millennials had a higher loan-to-value ratio than any other demographic.

Jonathan Jones, a senior researcher for Construction Coverage and the author for the report, said that while the average millennial is now 35 and in their prime homebuying phase of life, they’re not buying like other generations when they hit their peak earning years.

“Recently, the cost of homeownership has skyrocketed in large part due to an adverse combination of high interest rates and scarce inventory, leaving millennials with a daunting homeownership outlook,” Jones told the Review-Journal.

In greater Las Vegas, the median loan for millennial homebuyers last year was $385,000, with a median loan-to-value ratio of 86.2 percent, higher than those aged 25 to 34.

In terms of rankings by state, Nevada had the fifth lowest rate of millennial home purchases (48.1 percent) while Delaware was last in the country last year with 40.6 percent.

Massachusetts led the country in terms of millennial homebuyers by state with 64.2 percent.

Despite this, and an overall decline in home buying across the country, millennials still accounted for the majority of the nation’s home purchase loans last year, or 56.9 percent, Jones said.

Baby boomers meanwhile are reluctant to give up their homes, according to a new study from Clever Real Estate, which estimates more than half of that demographic born between 1946 and 1964 don’t plan on selling their home before they die.

Only 15 percent of boomers expect to sell their homes in the next five years. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that boomers own more than half — 53.6 percent — of all the homes in the U.S.

Las Vegas is undergoing a housing crisis because of a lack of buildable land coupled with competition from California and corporate investors, which have driven up home prices close to all-time record highs, according to the newspaper. Last year, the Las Vegas region had its worst year for real estate sales since 2008.

— Dana Bartholomew