Nevada housing bill money starts flowing to middle-income homebuyers

Summary-expanded

Nevada’s housing bill that took effect last year is starting to translate into homes and funding that state officials say are targeted at the state’s affordability crisis—especially for middle-income residents who can buy neither at prevailing prices nor with traditional down-payment requirements alone.

Paradise Trails, a new subdivision in southeast Las Vegas, began selling homes after receiving assistance through AB540, Gov. Joe Lombardo’s 2025 law introduced in the legislative session. Heidi Griffith, a mortgage loan officer who hosts the homeowning-focused radio show “Mortgage Matters,” said, “We haven’t ever seen anything like it,” and described the law as creating “a lot of chatter.”

The law created the Nevada Attainable Housing Account, or NAHA, with $133 million to support the development of both single-family and multifamily housing “at prices middle-income families can afford,” according to state program descriptions cited in the reporting. The money is directed mainly to developers, but it also includes funding meant to help local governments reimburse builders’ fees and permit costs, as well as assistance for Nevadans with mortgage or rent payments.

Nevada Housing Division Director Steve Aichroth said the state’s middle-income focus is unusual relative to many existing federal housing programs, which often prioritize the lowest-income households. He said housing finance agencies typically dedicate more resources toward lower-income groups because “that’s very much tied to federal funding,” and added that there “not much” for Americans in “slightly higher income brackets.” He also linked Nevada’s approach to rising prices, saying that even average earners can no longer afford homeownership.

Aichroth said AB540 specifically targets households earning between 80% and 150% of area median income, and he contrasted that with resources focused below 60% of average income. Paradise Trails is the first development in the reporting to reach home sales after receiving AB540 support, with AB540 also described as covering other categories of projects. The reporting said the nearly 6,500 new housing units supported by AB540 include both middle-income housing and millions of dollars for low-income rentals.

At Paradise Trails, the development company Signature Homes said the homes are designed to fit Nevada’s typical housing costs, with a monthly mortgage payment estimated around $2,000—similar to Nevada’s 2024 median monthly mortgage payment. Rick Barron, president of Signature Homes, said payments would have been closer to $3,000 without AB540, which he described as requiring participating developers to match state contributions. Barron said the state’s investment largely supports buyers with down payments and closing costs, while developers’ matching funds are used to reduce mortgage interest rates.

Griffith said she welcomed that emphasis on down payments, saying, “We know how much it takes to save for a down payment,” and that AB540 is “putting people into homes who didn’t ordinarily have the necessary funds for the down payment or closing costs to actually purchase a property and start that process of building wealth.”

The Nevada Housing Division said it moved quickly to deploy AB540 dollars as the state continued to struggle with housing affordability. In February, the agency announced it had awarded $86.1 million of the $133 million. The reporting said of that spending, $22 million was earmarked for homebuyers working in fields including health care, education, public safety, or construction, while other awards included $15 million for low-income housing, $9 million in grants to local governments, and $11 million on land purchases—described as all in Clark County.

Officials said the structure is meant to keep money available for future rounds. Aichroth said state officials want it “to become a revolving fund,” describing a plan in which they “envision the $133 million cycling through a few times.”

Nevada’s affordability crisis has been documented for years, with a 2017 state-authorized study concluding that the state’s supply of affordable housing was in crisis. The reporting said the pandemic accelerated the problem, contributing to a homebuying surge that raised prices and temporarily slowed construction, with effects that continued afterward. A 2025 report by the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities described factors including population growth, permitting complexity, construction labor shortages, and the outsize share of Nevada land owned by the federal government.

Tina Frias, CEO of the Southern Nevada Home Builders’ Association, said those conditions slow construction and drive up prices, telling The Indy in an interview that these delays make future development harder. Frias said she also supports more effective federal-land access efforts; at an event, she celebrated the governor’s signing of an agreement with the Bureau of Land Management aimed at making federal lands available more easily.

But some housing advocates argued that Nevada needs immediate protections for renters, not only additional supply. Ben Iness, coordinator of the Nevada Housing Justice Alliance, said, “Building isn’t a silver bullet,” and argued that Nevada also needs interventions that prevent rent hikes, rent gouging, and evictions. He pointed to a 2025 LendingTree study analyzing Census data that found more than 123,000 vacant housing units in Nevada, and he warned that a long-term supply push could be too slow for people facing rent pressures now.

Iness said Lombardo’s focus on attainable housing for middle-income families could be helpful in theory but described it as “seems like a second-stage intervention” after the current crisis. He favored changes such as a temporary 5% cap on rent increases, saying it would give “folks time and space and peace of mind to weather that crisis.”