Not dead yet? Future of Nevada corporate homeownership bill up in the air

CARSON CITY — A bill to significantly regulate corporate home buying in Nevada failed an initial vote in the Nevada Senate on Tuesday, but Democratic leadership signaled they may still consider the policy in the waning days of the session.

Senate Bill 391 proposes allowing corporate investors to buy no more than 100 residential units in a calendar year. It was one of the key housing proposals brought by legislative Democrats this year — and an issue that Gov. Joe Lombardo also highlighted in his State of the State address in January.

The governor’s office called on the Republican caucus to not support the bill, one Republican said before Tuesday’s floor vote. Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, said he supported the concepts presented in the bill and decried how hedge funds push would-be buyers back into the rental market.

“If me and a couple of ordinary people, people of ordinary finances, were to be bidding against Elon Musk, who is going to win that bidding war?” Hansen said during the debate.

The bill required a two-thirds vote to pass because it imposed fees. It failed along party lines during a floor vote in the Senate, 13-8, and was declared dead. But moments later, Senate Democratic leaders called to rescind the vote and put it on the chief clerk’s desk – effectively a purgatory for legislation. It could be called back for another vote or amended in the last six days of the legislative session.

Bill sponsor Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, expressed frustration before the vote about the governor’s influence on the bill. She refuted the opposition’s argument that SB 391 gives the Legislature too much authority in policing the housing market.

“We as a state need to move against this particular power that is turning over homes to corporate investors and not giving our own people the right to go and bid against an investor and own the property,” Neal said before the vote. “It is perfectly within the purview of the Legislature to move within this realm of the policing powers and to actually go in and regulate while that housing crisis is going on.”

Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.