Harris’ housing plan aims to help ease Nevada’s shortage of affordable housing

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign unveiled an ad Tuesday magnifying her push to address the housing shortage and lower home costs in America, saying “we should be doing everything we can to make it more affordable to buy a home, not less.”

The minutelong spot begins with Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, detailing her childhood, in which she said her family spent years as renters before having the money to purchase a property. The ad targets residents in election swing states including Nevada, where the median price of a single-family home was $480,000 in July, according to the Las Vegas Realtors trade group.

“My mother saved for well over a decade to buy a home,” said Harris, the Democratic nominee for president. “I know what homeownership means and, sadly, right now, it is far out of reach for far too many American families.”

The messaging reaffirms the housing plan Harris proposed earlier this month calling for 3 million new homes, a $40 billion fund for local jurisdictions to fund housing initiatives and a tax incentive for homebuilders focused on first-time buyers.

“It’s too difficult to build, and it’s driving prices up,” Harris said while unveiling her housing policy last week in North Carolina. “As president, I will work in partnership with industry to build the housing we need, both to rent and to buy. We will take down barriers and cut red tape.”

The plan additionally calls for $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-generation homebuyers and a $10,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers.

Nicholas Irwin, the research director at UNLV’s Lied Center for Real Estate, believes there’s potential in the proposal.

“I’m a big, big proponent, like most people in the real estate space, of building more housing as best we can,” he said.

The issue is especially pertinent in Nevada, which has the sixth-lowest homeownership rate and 11th-highest median rent in the country. In 2023, Las Vegas and Henderson had over 30,000 evictions.

While Irwin said housing was largely a local issue, he said the Silver State was in a unique position due to its relationship with the federal government. A series of agencies own just over 80% of the land in Nevada.

“We don’t have the option to just go build,” Irwin said. “(Federal agencies) are not disposing of it perhaps as quickly as we would like, especially when it comes to addressing our affordable housing needs.”

Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine, a Democrat, believes that’s where Harris’ proposed $40 billion housing innovation fund can come into play. Conine said the fund could be used to secure federal land and then pay for the infrastructure to build on it.

The Nevada Association of Realtors declined a request for an interview and Las Vegas Realtors President Merri Perry wrote in a statement that they’d be working with their national counterpart to review the policies.

“We appreciate reasonable proposals that recognize the importance of affordable housing with the stated intention of helping people buy a home and encouraging the construction of more housing, all of which is urgently needed,” Perry wrote.

Maurice Page, the executive director of the Nevada Housing Coalition, said Harris’ plan could be a “great asset” for the state, but worried about its downstream effects on housing costs.

“These will definitely create some amount of inflationary pressure, because you’re putting more money in a certain group’s hands, the first-time homeowners,” Irwin said. “But if you pair a demand-side policy like that with supply-side, getting more houses online, hopefully it will dampen that effect.”

Irwin said Harris’ housing plan was more specific than that of her November opponent, former President Donald Trump.

The Republican Party’s platform has some similarities to what Harris proposed, including tax incentives for first-time homebuyers — although it doesn’t indicate what kind of incentive.

“The federal government may have good ideas of things to do, but getting that implemented at a state and local level, that’s where you sort of run into the issues,” Irwin said, referencing zoning and the intricacies of Clark County’s incorporated and unincorporated areas.

Although Trump made his reputation as a real estate developer, data shows that there was a shortage of available housing during his presidency that has continued, according to The Associated Press.

The Trump campaign has also opposed efforts by Democrats to encourage the construction of apartments and condominiums in suburbs and cities, which could alleviate the housing shortage. Trump has said in a video that such efforts are “Marxist” and would be a “war on the suburbs” that would destroy property values.

Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, in a statement said that “Kamalanomics” is to blame for homeownership becoming less attainable, an attempt to undermine Harris’ message of being a change candidate who can open opportunities for the middle class.

Trump’s main play has been to claim that Harris can’t pay for her housing agenda. That’s even though he also attacks her for supporting tax increases and other revenue raisers proposed by Biden that could in theory offset the costs.

“She has no clue how she’d (pay) for $25,000 to every first-time homebuyer, including illegals,” Trump said at an Aug. 19 rally in York, Pa., claiming without clear evidence that her policy would support immigrants without legal status.

Conine said Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are the only candidates in the race who have a plan to make housing more abundant and affordable.

“As president, Trump planned to cut Housing and Urban Development funding by almost 18%, literally cutting dollars that are coming to the state of Nevada to build affordable housing,” Conine said last week. “Nevadans deserve and demand policies that actually bring dollars into the state.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

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