How to Solve Housing Affordability

Question

Want to know how to make housing cheaper?

Build a lot more housing.

I wish it were more complicated than that, but it really isn't.

Want proof? Look at Austin, Texas.

Over the last few years, Austin approved and built housing at a massive scale. The result?

Rents have fallen for nearly two years straight, apartment rents dropped roughly 22% from their peak, and home prices have come down significantly as inventory flooded the market.

https://tinyurl.com/mr27wpcd

Meanwhile, here in Reno, we have the opposite problem.

From May 2025 to May 2026, active inventory fell by nearly 25%, while median home prices increased by more than 5%.

Less supply.

More competition.

Higher prices.

That's not politics.

That's not greed.

That's not a conspiracy.

It's supply and demand.

When there are 10 buyers chasing 5 homes, prices rise.

When there are 10 buyers chasing 20 homes, sellers start competing with each other.

The good news?

Reno remains to be a very desirable place to live. The bad news is that unless we significantly increase housing supply, affordability will likely remain a challenge for buyers.

The market doesn't care how we think it should work.

It only responds to supply and demand.

What's your take? Should Reno be building substantially more housing, or do you think there are bigger factors at play?

Eric Fernwood · Answer

Jake Andronico - Well said!

Prices and rents are a function of supply and demand.

One city that has avoided many of the housing affordability problems seen in other major cities is Tokyo. The city government encourages developers to build housing at many price points. When expensive new housing is built, some people move up, which frees up lower-cost housing for others.Las Vegas had the same supply-and-demand principle with apartments. The city has seen significant apartment overbuilding. To no one’s surprise, apartment rents are falling. Prices and rents are driven by supply and demand. Increase supply, and prices fall.

The property segment we target is single-family homes priced between about $380,000 and $475,000. New single-family homes now start around $550,000 because land costs are so high. That means the supply of homes in our target price range is effectively fixed. Combine fixed inventory with continued population growth, and you get a powerful supply-and-demand setup: rising demand for a limited number of homes in the price range our tenant segment can afford. Since 2015, rents in this segment have grown at about 4.7% per year, while prices have grown at about 7.5% per year.