Can Trump fix Las Vegas’ housing crisis?

Some real estate experts aren’t totally sold on President Donald Trump’s latest proposed policies on residential real estate leading to relief for the Las Vegas Valley housing crisis.

Trump’s recent statement that his administration would be directing representatives to buy $200 billion worth of mortgage backed securities drew largely negative reactions from local mortgage advisors.

Hector Amendola, the president of Las Vegas-based Panorama Mortgage Group, said the directive to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy the bonds may offer short-term relief to overall mortgage rates, however may not offer “significant or lasting” effects on the overall market.

“Mortgage rates are driven less by short-term market actions and more by broader economic fundamentals such as inflation, employment and overall economic confidence that shape monetary policy,” he said. “As it relates to improving affordability, it is important to recognize that meaningful and sustainable progress requires a wider set of factors, including steady economic conditions, improved housing supply and borrower financial health.”

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgate rate dipped below 6 percent briefly in the past few weeks, according to Freddie Mac, however now sit at 6 percent as of Jan. 19. Mortgage rates bottomed out during the pandemic, then rose dramatically and until recently had not gone below 6 percent since 2022.

Matt Hennessy, a local mortgage advisor, explained how the move by Trump could in theory make housing more affordable, however he expressed skepticism much like Amendola related to the long-term effects.

“In the short term, large-scale purchases of mortgage bonds can push rates lower,” he said. “When a major buyer steps into the market and increases demand for MBS, bond prices rise, and because bond prices and interest rates move in opposite directions, mortgage rates typically fall. This is exactly what happened during past Federal Reserve bond-buying programs.”

Hennessy said the long-term impact of Trump’s directive is much less certain as other market forces could have a greater impact on the industry.

“Mortgage rates ultimately reflect broader economic forces such as inflation, employment, consumer spending and global demand for U.S. bonds,” he said. “Even aggressive bond buying cannot keep rates artificially low if inflation remains elevated or investors demand higher yields elsewhere. In other words, bond purchases may create temporary relief, but they don’t override economic gravity.”

The mortgage bond announcement comes as the Republican president gears up for a midterm election that will surely see the Democrats focus on affordability issues as a way to potentially take control of Congress for the remaining two years of Trump’s term.

Las Vegas Valley housing prices skyrocketed during the pandemic due to Covid lockdowns and inflation spiked due to the government pumping money into the economy. The pandemic bottoming out interest rates led to a home selling and buying craze, along with a refinancing blitz that saw many homeowners snag much lower rates. This has essentially locked the housing market since and home sales have plummeted since 2022.

Home sales in the valley in 2025 hit their lowest level since 2007, according to the Las Vegas Realtors, which pull data from the Multiple Listing Service as listings flooded the market throughout last year. However, prices stayed relatively elevated, close to record highs that were set to start the year.

Corporate housing comes into Trump’s crosshairs

Trump’s other policy statement was to direct Congress to act on banning large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes. Investors, Wall Street backed-hedged funds and corporate owners have long played a significant role in Las Vegas’ housing market as a recent report from UNLV’s Lied Center for Real Estate — which pulled its data from Redfin — estimates investors have purchased more than 99,000 homes since the start of the Great Recession.

Local Realtors who spoke to the Las Vegas Review-Journal largely support Trump’s statement, and Lori Galarza, the broker and owner of Remax Central said she thinks it’s finally time to draw the line on how many homes large corporations can buy.

“I believe there was also a discussion that the large corporations will have to start selling some off their homes to limit the amount they carry which is also a good idea,” she said. “Maybe they could offer some incentives for first-time homebuyers with these sales? I think buyers want as many incentives as possible like lowering credit scores to purchase, and of course any government incentives that would help encourage home ownership like maybe grants and tax breaks.”

Capping or banning large institutional investors from the housing market is missing the bigger problems, said Brian Bonnenfant, the project manager for the Center for Regional Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.

“Politicians are deflecting by framing large landlords as boogeymen and the cause of high prices, while politicians themselves are to blame for knee-capping supply through high construction costs, heavy-handed regulations and policies, and being swayed by NIMBYs,” he said.

Bonnenfant said appreciation rates for single-family homes have dropped across the country and is now disincentivizing investors from buying more. He added a drop in inmigration from both foreign and domestic sources to the country under Trump’s new illegal immigration push should further quell demand.

“The other argument that arises is that some single-family investment companies are created by pooling of mom-and-pop monies,” he said. “Government discouraging households from capitalizing on capitalism has its own negative unintended consequences such as forcing them to further rely on precarious social security for retirement.”

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reached out to LVR President George Kypreos via a spokesperson regarding Trump’s stance on institutional investors, and Kypreos deferred to the National Association of Realtors for comment.

Shannon McGahn, NAR’s executive vice president and chief advocacy officer, said they were encouraged by the statement and said it shows the administration is zeroed in on improving the nation’s housing affordability and supply crisis.

“We share the goal of ensuring there are enough places for people to live and of expanding access to homeownership—especially for first-time buyers—and ensuring that housing policy strengthens communities rather than limiting opportunity,” she said in a statement. “At our Annual Conference in November, NAR adopted policy aimed at incentivizing large institutional owners of single-family rentals to transition homes back to owner-occupants while also creating new housing supply.”

However, some real estate policy analysts have pointed out that large institutional investors own a small share of America’s housing stock and limiting them or forcing them to sell off their properties might not have much impact on the overall residential real estate industry.

Edward J. Pinto, a senior fellow and co-director for the AEI Housing Center, said that banning large corporations from owning homes is not the most effective way to solve America’s housing crisis.

“At the heart of the affordability crisis is a chronic and severe housing shortage,” he said in a recent report. “This shortage is no accident—it is the result of irresistible force meeting an immovable object. The immovable object has become many of the 33,000 state and local jurisdictions issuing land use regulations—keeping supply tight and prices high. The irresistible force is the federal government’s demand stoking efforts to make homes ‘affordable’ with leverage and credit easing during good times and bad.”

Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.