Donald Trump Could Spark a Housing Revolution in Nevada

President Donald Trump’s plan to develop affordable housing on millions of unused acres of federal land across the United States could have a huge impact on Nevada where local homebuilders, residents, and lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum have long been calling for a similar solution to solve the state’s deepening crisis.

“Nevada would tremendously benefit from the release of federal land for housing,” Governor Joe Lombardo, a Republican, told Newsweek, mentioning the state’s severe lack of inventory and available land to build new homes on.

“To put this into perspective, projections show that Reno could run out of developable land by 2027 and Las Vegas may face the same issue by 2032,” he said.

Why It Matters

Trump campaigned on the idea of boosting much-needed inventory in the U.S. by using government-owned land to relieve the country’s housing crisis, though the move would need an act of Congress to be applied across the nation.

The initiative could be revolutionary for many states in the Southwest and especially Nevada, where most of the country’s federal land is concentrated. In the Silver State, where over 80 percent of land is controlled by the federal government, homeowners—especially those with lower income levels—are struggling with a chronic shortage of homes that has only exacerbated in recent years, sending prices through the roof.

Understanding Nevada’s Crisis

Rent and home prices have skyrocketed in Nevada in recent years—especially in the capital, where the majority of the state’s population is concentrated.

The Silver State ranked second-highest in the country for most cost-burdened renters, behind Florida, and sixth for states with the most excessively cost-burdened homeowners, according to a recent report by the nonpartisan policy research center Guinn Center for Policy Priorities.

Fifty-eight percent of all renters in Nevada spend at least 35 percent of their gross monthly income on housing, researchers found, while 24.4 percent of mortgage holders reach that level.

The deepening of the state’s affordability crisis has been caused in part by the growing numbers of wealthy Californians who, over the past few years, have crossed the border to dip into the neighbor’s more affordable housing market.

These newcomers, whose average income was about 93 percent higher than that of Nevada residents, according to a 2024 report by the Lied Center for Real Estate at the University of Nevada, led to a vertiginous growth in demand and brought up prices by engaging in often unfair bidding wars with locals.

Between 2019 and 2023, according to Zillow data, rent in the Las Vegas metro area increased by 34 percent, while local wages only grew by 14 percent. In February, the latest data available on Redfin’s website, the median sale price of a home in Las Vegas was $440,000, up 1.9 percent from a year earlier and a staggering 66 percent from February 2020.

But even without Californians flocking into the Nevada housing market, locals would be struggling because of the state’s inability to keep up with its growing population due to a lack of skilled labor and the difficulty of building on its land.

“More than 2.3 million people live in the Las Vegas Valley and research shows that by 2040, there will be more than 3 million,” Representative Susie Lee, a Nevada Democrat who has been advocating to open the state’s federal land for housing, told Newsweek.

“We have a critical housing shortage, which is causing prices to increase beyond what is affordable for most families and first-time home buyers. It is logical that with 80 percent of land in Nevada being federally owned, opening up federal lands will solve one piece of the puzzle when it comes to building affordable housing,” she said.

David Edelblute, a Nevada-based government affairs attorney at Howard & Howard and a trustee to the Henderson Chamber of Commerce Foundation, told Newsweek that “we are in a true housing crisis,” adding that Washoe County has about two years of developable private land left while Clark County has about seven.

“Across Nevada, we are over 100,000 housing units short, driving up prices from the supply-demand imbalance pricing out thousands from the American dream,” Brandon Roberts, Nevada REALTORS® president, told Newsweek. “Increasing land supply will reduce costs, improve attainability, and help align home prices with median incomes for working Nevada families.”

Tapping Into the State’s Unused Federal Land

Nevada lawmakers have long been trying to use part of the state’s federal land to build new housing, and have pressured the federal government to help them do so.

At the moment, one law—the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act (SNPLMA) of 1998—allows the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to sell land in southern Nevada for housing needs and other developments.

“It has admittedly allowed for some development, but the process is glacial, and we are running out of developable land set aside under the SNPLMA,” Edelblute said. “The BLM often, but infrequently, releases land in small batches that are insufficient to cure the underlying issues of affordable housing.”

In December 2024, the Biden administration announced the sale of 20 acres of public lands for just $100 per acre for the construction of “critically needed” housing projects in Southern Nevada.

But the state needs much more than 20 acres to fix its crisis, as Edelblute said—and is now hoping to get that with the support of the Trump administration.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced the creation of a joint task force with the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) that will be responsible for identifying “underutilized federal lands suitable for residential development, streamline land transfer processes, and promote policies that increase the availability of affordable housing.”

Lombardo said his office signed an official MOU—a formal agreement—with the BLM last week to identify areas of federal land disposable for housing development.

“We are working towards finalizing this agreement by May 1,” he said. “Additionally, I recently requested that Nevada be added to the Joint Task Force on Federal Land for Housing, so that our state can be an active part of conversations with the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

Nevada lawmakers have also taken bipartisan steps toward legislative action to open up federal land to housing development. In February, a bill pushed forward by Lee in the House and Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto in the Senate, the so-called Accelerating Appraisals and Conservation Efforts (AACE) Act, was signed into law, promising to cut red tape to speed up federal land transactions and lower housing costs.

While most of Nevada’s federal land is not suitable for developing housing, as it comprises military land, tribal land, and some of the country’s most beautiful national parks, “we don’t need all 87 percent to survive,” Edelblute said.

“Ten-15 percent of Nevada’s federal land is likely suitable for development, which accounts for six to nine million acres.”

This is land immediately next to “boxed-in communities” from Las Vegas to Reno to more rural Lincoln County, Edelblute explained. “Nevadans need housing for themselves, their children, and their future. Of course, the process requires local government expertise with issues like infrastructure, sustainability, and smart growth. We’re fully capable of navigating those issues.”

He added: “I’m not even sure we could develop six million acres within our lifetime, but the point remains that this is a solvable issue.”

According to a recent study by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington, D.C., conservative think tank, 1.5 million homes could be built on developable BLM land within two miles of the Las Vegas city limits. That’s about 9 percent of all land managed by the BLM in the region.

The Uphill Path to Change

Despite Nevada’s bipartisan support to use some of the state’s federal land to build much-needed housing, there are significant obstacles in the way—which would need the support of the federal government to be removed.

“It is essential to streamline the regulatory process for releasing federal lands. Historically, building on federal land has been complicated by red tape, including lengthy environmental reviews, complex transfer protocols, and conflicting priorities among agencies,” Lombardo said. “Developing a more efficient process for land transfers and leases is crucial, while also ensuring that we use resources responsibly and preserve our beautiful landscapes.”

“As a real estate and development attorney in Nevada with experience in this area, I can say the challenges to building homes on federal land are daunting, primarily due to a labyrinth of regulations and red tape that create a choke point in progress,” Edelblute said. “The federal government owns 87 percent of Nevada’s land—the highest percentage in the U.S.—and accessing it to build housing and supporting commercial developments is incredibly onerous and costly.”

Part of the regulations lengthening the process of building on federal land are there to avoid abuses that would have nefarious consequences on the environment and conservation. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976, which governs most land disposals through the BLM, requires extensive environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Edelblute explained.

“This process lasts between 18 months and several years—often stalling important and necessary development,” he said.

Edelblute thinks this process should be revised and shortened.

“The bottom line is that when the FLMPA was passed in 1976, the U.S. had a population of approximately 218 million, and Nevada had a population of 630,000. Now, those figures are estimated at 345 million and 3.32 million, representing 58 percent and 427 percent growth, respectively,” he said.

Edelblute believes there is no reason why the Trump administration cannot take “immediate action” to update the SNPLMA and begin releasing large sections of federal land already designated for development in Nevada.

“There’s between 25,000 and 28,000 acres of land left under the SNPLMA, and the Trump Administration can start alleviating the burdens in Southern Nevada by releasing 5,000 acres at a time,” he said.

However, critics fear that selling public land for housing needs and other developments could become the norm instead of an exception to the rule, and the environment would end up paying the price.

Lee thinks that Nevada could do both—open up federal land for housing development while protecting the state’s environment.

“I am currently helping lead the Clark County Lands Bill which would support new home construction on federal land, while also protecting our public lands and water supply, advancing outdoor recreation, and supporting our Tribal communities,” she said. “Also, last Congress, I wrote and got signed into law my bipartisan AACE Act to speed up the appraisal process so we can get more federal land transactions moving faster.”

While the support of the White House could be crucial to move forward Lee’s agenda, she is concerned that the layoffs at BLM and the DOI “will further delay processing, despite clearing this logjam,” she said.

“Further, with Trump’s tariffs and immigration policies, the cost of home building material will continue to rise, and our worker shortage will worsen—both driving up housing prices.”