The housing situation at UNLV is complicated, to say the least. Unfortunately, those difficulties persist across the state. The Brookings Mountain West Institute offered their first Fall 2024 installment of their “Brookings Lecture Series” Monday morning in the Greenspun Hall Auditorium. The community forum, entitled “Nevada’s Housing Policy Landscape: Data, Analysis, and Policy Solutions,” provided a wide array of research and discussion about some of the most pressing issues facing Nevada.
For most of these presentations, it was the first time this data and research had been presented to an audience.
David Damore, executive director of the Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West, started the discussion with a few opening words. Then, he handed it off to Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto, who provided some virtual opening remarks. “I’m always fighting to cut through red tape and make it easier to build homes that Nevadans can afford,” she said, noting her work in the Senate to increase the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit for Nevadans.
Following her comments, Dr. Damore turned it over to Shawn McCoy and Nicholas Irwin, the respective director and research director of the Lied Center for Real Estate. Their lecture centered around micro-level analysis of the housing market in Southern Nevada, with a specific interest in the impacts of investors on affordable housing. McCoy explained that, through his research, he was able to find that half of Nevada zip codes are seeing rising rates, while others are experiencing falling rates, even though the data makes it appear that average rental prices are remaining steady. Interestingly, the areas that are seeing increased rates saw falling prices just a year ago and vice versa.
From there, Irwin took over, showing the audience of students and community members alike how the Lied Center was able to aggregate census-level information and convert it into data on Assembly District and Senate District scales. “We have a part-time legislature … the folks that work in the legislature might not have the data tools necessary to understand what’s going on inside their markets.” By mapping everything onto state legislature districts, it can be used to help inform the decisions of the legislature.
The next lecture was titled “Examining Housing Inflation Post-COVID” and given by Aaron Klein, a senior fellow and the Miriam K. Carliner Chair in economics at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. This research took a macro approach to the United States’ housing issues and touched on housing assets being a critical part of Federal Reserve monetary policy. This policy of “quantitative easing,” which is when the Fed buys assets, in this case, housing mortgages, to help stimulate economic activity. Klein explains, should be reconsidered by the Federal Reserve, given their asset value impacts.
For the final lecture, Dr. Arthur Nelson, Professor Emeritus of the University of Arizona, presented “Nevada’s Predictable Household Train Wreck and What to Do About It,” which drew quite a few laughs. He states, “Projecting the future is faulty, but we still have to do it.” Currently, Nevada has only been able to add half of Dr. Nelson’s projected 30,000 necessary units annually. As a result, this means that hundreds of thousands of Nevadans will be left without homes of their own, even if they want them, simply because there isn’t enough supply. Dr. Nelson recommends that Nevada increase its housing development policy and focus on building duplexes and other ‘plexes’ in walkable communities specifically, which can accommodate a larger population.
Thus began the first panel discussion on “Improving our Housing Finance System,” moderated by Aaron Klein. On the experienced and varied panel sat David Sanchez, the acting Chief of Staff for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Susan Wachter, professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania, and Elizabeth Carroll, the executive director of JP Morgan Chase Home Lending.
To wrap up the conversation, they had one more panel, moderated by Damore on “Improving Access to Housing.” The second panel took a more localized approach, with panelists Shanti Abedin, the Vice President of Housing and Community Development at National Fair Housing Alliance, McCoy, and Dagny Stapleton, Community Housing Administrator at Clark County.
While there was plenty of discussion about the things Nevada has been doing wrong, it ended with a note of hope. As Damore said, “The research presented today and the panel discussions provided a lot of insight into how to move forward on some policy recommendations.” Change is coming, and the Brookings Mountain West is helping Nevada lawmakers forge the future.
