Experts Say Major Factor Affecting 2024 Election is Las Vegas Housing Crisis

LAS VEGAS, NV – One of the major hot-button topics that may affect the outcome of the 2024 presidential election on Tuesday is said to be the housing crisis currently plaguing the Las Vegas Valley – and the affordability concerns that are driving it – due to a growing lack of land available for new development, experts say.

According to John Tuman, Executive Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of Political Science at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), Latinos, who make up a rapidly-growing demographic in Nevada – 30 percent of residents currently identify as such, with the group estimated to contribute 20 percent of the state’s total votes in the upcoming election – have expressed concern inflation, rent, and housing affordability, with those factors said to be influencing their voting.

Normally, Latinos tend overall to vote Democrat, but recent polls indicate that former President Donald Trump has been making progress with this demographic while campaigning this year as opposed to his opponent, current Vice-President Kamala Harris, Tuman said.

There’s been a lot of debate about whether or not Trump has made inroads with Latinos nationally,” he said. “I think there is evidence that he has, but it’s very sensitive to the states that you’re looking at. Latinos as a group are not monolithic and the demographic composition of different Latino population varies across different states. And so I always try to caution, not to generalize for example from what we’re seeing in Florida or even in South Texas to Nevada.”

However, affordability concerns when it comes to housing isn’t confined to Latinos, Tuman said; indeed, people from all walks of life are expressing the same fears, with the recent number of Californians fleeing the high taxes in their home state for the lower cost of living in Nevada subsequently eating up housing inventory and driving up prices as a result.

We’ve had an influx of people from California who took equity out of their homes and then have driven up new home prices and also existing home prices in different parts of the Las Vegas metropolitan area,” Tuman said.

In addition, research suggests that in as soon as eight years, the valley could exhaust its supply of land for development unless the Bureau of Land Management – a federal agency that controls much of the land in Nevada – speeds up the process of releasing more land for housing construction, a process that they have been heavily criticized for due to their lack of urgency in doing so thus far.

The stance of both candidates on this topic this Tuesday represents a yet another huge factor when it comes to influencing the votes of Southern Nevada residents, with both stating they are in favor of releasing more federal land in the state for housing development.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.