What real estate stories should Las Vegas watch out for in 2026?

Forecasters from the residential real estate world — Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com — have all put out their 2026 projections, and it looks like much of the same. Mortgage rates aren’t expected to drop enough next year to unlock the country’s housing market, new builds will continue to lag, and prices will remain relatively elevated.

Realtor.com said in its report that it predicts a “steadier” housing market next year and a slight shift to a more balanced market. Redfin’s report says 2026 will be the year of the “great housing reset,” which means the start of a yearslong period of “gradual increases in home sales and normalization of prices as affordability gradually improves.”

Finally, Zillow said the housing market should “warm up” in 2026 with “buyers seeing a bit more breathing room and sellers benefiting from price stability and more consistent demand.”

So what should Las Vegas residents be keeping an eye out for 2026 when it comes to the local housing market? Here’s five things that could shake things up next year.

Movement on the federal level?

Everyone involved in real estate in the valley, be it commercial or residential, knows the underlying foundational element that governs most of the activity: the remaining plots of land that could be developed are controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. This means bureaucracy plays a pivotal role in how the valley grows and expands, or doesn’t.

But the Trump administration ushered in a new era of less government and regulations, and more power to the private sector, and his recent appointment to the head of the BLM, Steve Pearce, personifies this. Pearce, a Republican from New Mexico, would be a radical change from the previous administration and could offload a lot of federal land to the private sector for several reasons: to support more oil and gas production or to help bring in more revenue to the federal level.

Federal politics tends to move at a glacial level, but the Republican party has made attempts recently to unlock land in Nevada, and with a new head at the helm of the BLM, they may finally succeed in getting some of that land to the private sector or the county, which would have massive implications for Southern Nevada’s residential real estate market.

Investor activity

Recent reports and studies have shown a significant slowdown in investor purchases of homes in the valley and that they are also offloading properties.

Investors only want to own homes in Las Vegas if they can make a return on their investment, and over the past 12 months that has become increasingly difficult locally. Whether we see a massive sell-off of investor owned homes in 2026 is anyone’s guess.

A recent Redfin report said Las Vegas has cooled when it comes to investor purchases, adding that “Las Vegas has historically been a volatile housing market, growing in value when the market is hot, and losing value when the market is cool,” according to chief economist Daryl Fairweather. “Investors are often the first to exit the market when the market cools, contributing to the volatility in home values.”

This coming year will probably be a pivotal one for the valley’s economy: Can it recover from a down 2025 that saw a tourism slump which hit the Strip’s casinos particularly hard? If not, we can expect a depressed housing market as investors may offload properties here because they can’t rent them out for enough money to make a return. Or Las Vegas has a rebound year and we’re right back to where we were before.

Population decline?

Las Vegas has seen increasing population as far back as its existed, but in 2025, a sea change took place: The Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants from foreign countries has clearly had an effect locally. Data shared with the Las Vegas Review-Journal showed the bulk of new immigrants to the city in 2024 were international. Given the border shutdown, 2025 statistics could paint a drastically different picture.

A recent UNLV report found that growth estimates are down slightly regarding long-term projections and Clark County won’t break 3 million residents now until 2045. Andrew Woods, one of the authors of the report, added 2025 will definitely be an interesting year when they break down the data in 2026.

“More concerning are the changing economic conditions, slowing economy and impact of immigration policy, which gives us some caution moving forward and we are keeping an eye on it,” he said. “We won’t know until we run the numbers again next year. We’re also keeping an eye on the aftermath of the wildfires in California if that spurs increases in migration, and we are looking at some modeling on the side to better understand what that could mean for domestic migration.”

Redfin has called Las Vegas real estate “historically volatile,” and if the city continues its slump, we can expect population to slow and potentially even stop if the tourism and gaming sector doesn’t fully recover next year. What does this mean for real estate? Most likely home sales and prices will both drop, and rental rates might actually go down in the city.

However until 2025 figures are made public regarding the valley’s demographic and population, we won’t know how far and deep this slump really goes.

Mortgage rates

Nothing has dictated the housing industry more than mortgage rates. They bottomed out during the pandemic, which led to a buying, selling and refinancing blitz that saw a record year for local Las Vegas real estate. Then inflation bit and the rates skyrocketed and have yet to come down. The average rate for a 30-year-fixed term mortgage has not gone below 6 percent since 2020, according to Freddie Mac, and it could very well stay above 6 percent in 2026.

But if it does start to drop, which is anyone’s guess, how low will it have to go to unlock the market? Rates going below 6 percent is largely a ceremonial number, but with the Federal Reserve set to undergo changes next year to align more with the administration, we could see more interest rate cuts.

Hector Amendola, the president of Las Vegas-based Panorama Mortgage Group, said the discussion needs to pivot from the “relentless” topic around pursuing lower rates. He said lower rates are definitely a doubled-edged sword for a local housing market that just set a record high for home prices in November.

“While lower rates can certainly help with affordability, they also tend to ignite demand, which pushes prices even higher and ultimately puts more families out of reach,” he said. “The more sustainable path is a housing market where prices stabilize and wages have room to catch up, combined with increased new home inventory that real everyday Americans can afford.”

So what’s the bottom line for the Las Vegas housing market? Keep an eye on mortgage rates in 2026 if you want to know where the housing market is headed, because if they drop enough, we could see a return to some sort of normalcy when it comes to residential real estate.

Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.