Reno Built Plenty — Just Not What Was Needed
Is Reno building enough housing? Can people afford to live here? Here's a look at what has been built using data from the City of Reno Housing Dashboard and housing needs report.
Aug 12, 2026
Inside the City’s Housing Report: The Numbers We Need to Talk About
When City Hall talks about “housing progress,” they mean ground-breaking and ribbon-cutting.
Reno’s Housing Needs Assessment tells a story of imbalance, missed priorities, and a widening affordability gap.
For the next decade, Reno’s pipeline meets demand for luxury renters but falls short for the people who work here.
Link: City of Reno: Housing Needs Dashboard
Link: 2025 City of Reno Housing Needs Assessment
Information for this article comes from the Housing Needs Dashboard and the 2025 City of Reno Housing Needs Assessment report, which have interesting data.
Click the image to visit the Reno Housing Dashboard.
Reno Built — Just Not What Was Needed
“The housing pipeline is adequate for market-rate needs but insufficient for affordable households.”
The City’s own data shows: we’re building for profit, not people. Reno’s market-rate pipeline covers 100% of the projected need, while the affordable pipeline covers just 32%.
That means seven out of ten working-class families will remain priced out even if every “affordable” project breaks ground.
1,710 New Affordable Units — But Who’s Still Left Out?
Since 2019, Reno has supported 1,710 new affordable units and rehabbed another 1,192. On paper, that’s progress.
But rents have risen faster than wages, and most “affordable” units still require incomes far above those of seniors, retail workers, and care staff.
A worker making $20/hour can afford $1,040 in rent. The average Reno one-bedroom now goes for nearly $1,900.
The math doesn’t pencil, not for workers, not for families, not for retirees.
Are Reno’s Luxury Apartments Hitting a Wall?
The report quietly notes that several “large multifamily projects are taking a prolonged time to stabilize at 90% occupancy.”
Translation: Reno’s high-end rental market may finally be saturating.
Citywide vacancy is still around 3%, but that masks two markets — a shortage for everyone earning under $60k and an oversupply at the top, where landlords now dangle “one month free” incentives.
Ballpark Apartments Pivot to Hotel in Slow Market for High Rent Units
Jobs Up, Wages Up — But The Math Still Doesn’t Pencil
Between 2013 and 2023, total wages in Reno grew 91%, but the average worker’s pay only rose 53%, while rents climbed nearly 80%.
In other words, prosperity is flowing upward. The City’s economic stats look great, but they disguise the daily reality for 60% of residents who rent.
Population Growth Without Housing Balance
Reno’s population grew roughly 2.1% per year between 2013 and 2023, but housing growth lagged far behind — just 1.3% annually.
We’re welcoming more residents than homes. That imbalance drives up prices, squeezes renters, and strains infrastructure.
Developers keep building luxury units downtown, but seniors, students, and low-income families are pushed farther out — or out of the county entirely.
The 5% Rule — Why Low Vacancy Keeps Rents Hot
A healthy housing market hovers around a 5% vacancy rate. Below that, landlords gain power and rents spike. Reno hasn’t been at 5% in a decade.
This “tight market” isn’t a sign of success — it’s the core reason prices climb year after year.
Every new luxury complex that opens is already out of reach for most Renoites, and insufficient building means that prices on older units don’t come down.
Whose Housing Is It?
Reno’s population is aging, household sizes are shrinking, and the demand for small, accessible units is growing.
What we’re building are multi-story luxury boxes and “amenity-rich” projects with dog spas and rooftop firepits.
It’s housing for investors, not for the people who are aging and retiring.
The Next 10 Years: What Reno Must Build
The report outlines what Reno should build annually to close the gap:
300 extremely low-income units
400 very low-income units
500 low-income units
That’s 1,200 affordable homes a year — not counting preservation of existing ones. Right now, we’re producing maybe one-third of that.
Until Reno funds its own housing trust and ties incentives to affordability, this will remain an unfulfilled goal.
Approved affordable projects stall for years waiting on tax credits or state funding.
Meanwhile, market-rate developers move fast with private capital. The system rewards speculation, not building shelter.
If the City streamlined affordable project permits, we’d be housing more people.
Reno’s Housing Dashboard: What’s Missing
The Housing Dashboard launched with this report is a useful tool, but it’s missing some critical data:
No tracking of rent-burdened households
No updates on eviction filings
No disclosure of unit loss due to conversions
It shows what’s being built, not who can live there.
Link: City of Reno: Housing Needs Dashboard
Until we get data on affordability, eviction rates, and rent trends, the dashboard won’t show us the overall picture, but it is a start to understanding the situation.
The $2 Billion Mirage: Has Jeff Jacobs’ Downtown Reno Vision Stalled?
My Take on the Housing Situation
The real question is: Are we building enough housing?
If enough housing were being built, the rents for older units should come down as people move up. That is basic supply and demand.
The low vacancy rate indicates that not enough housing is being built to account for the large population growth fueled by the influx of people, on top of organic population growth.
Developers are not going to build affordable housing as it isn’t profitable for them, and they need a profit to stay in business.
Building affordable housing requires government subsidies funded by taxation. The funding process is slow, and the funding is limited. There will never be enough affordable housing being built.
The only solution is to make the building process easier to encourage more housing to be built so that supply and demand work to lower rents.
It would also help if Reno could attract better-paying jobs, as it’s difficult to pay rent on warehouse wages.
However, there is resistance to growing Reno faster, as it is already congested. The reality is that we are dealing with unusual demand, and there are no easy answers.
Link to RGJ: A developer tore down motels where poor residents lived. Why Reno did nothing to stop it.
It doesn’t help that Reno approved demolition permits for 18 motels with about 600 rooms after Jacobs Entertainment bought them, and that since 2017, only one apartment building has been built on a Jacobs-owned site of a former motel and the promised 2000 housing units have not been delivered.
Conclusion: The Illusion of Progress
Reno’s leaders talk about growth, innovation, and “housing solutions.” But the City’s own numbers prove that our housing machine is misaligned.
We’re building luxury apartments and calling it progress while the people who keep this City running are pushed out of the housing market.
Reno needs to do what it can to encourage housing construction. Until the incentives change, the crisis will deepen. This is a policy choice.
Do you have a story to tell? Write to me at: mike@mikesrenoreport.com
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