The Next Housing Boom: Building Up Our Area

This is great news for Northern Nevada and the Krueger Land Team! Looks like we will continue to be busy the next five years!

Mark Krueger, Principal

KOLO 8 News Now By Rebecca Kitchen, Click here for the story

RENO, Nv – The size of two Carson Cities: that’s how many homes EDAWN says the Reno-Sparks area needs to build in the next 5 years. Break it down, and that’s about 9,000 new homes, apartments, and condos a year. It’s all thanks to the expected growth from what’s now being dubbed the Tesla effect.

“We still have some people who say I’ll believe it when I see it,” Mike Kazmierski,, president and CEO of EDAWN said. “Well we’re seeing it and if you’re out there trying to buy a house or rent something you’ve seen it as well.”

But it’s not just Tesla that’s driving this growth.

“Compound that with the economy’s really doing well,” Kevin SIgstad, president of the Nevada Association of Realtors said. “Lots of stuff going on, lots of businesses starting and add Tesla. So we’re talking the potential for 50 thousand new jobs over the next 5 or 6 years.”

With those jobs, come people from out of state and people in state now able to buy a home. The problem is those homes or apartments don’t exist.

“Housing construction, both multi-family and single-family housing, slowed down significantly between 2009 and 2013,” Sigstad said. “Right now, I think there are 2500 apartment units that are in development currently. That’s a drop in the bucket.”

But can we build quality homes that quickly?

“It’s a big number if you spread it out over 10 or 15 years,” Kazmierski said. “We need it in the next 5. It will take a lot of work. It will put a strain on our community. But if we don’t do it what’s going to happen? We start to shut down the economy, we start to affect our growth.”

“I don’t think it’s really ‘can we build those houses'”, Sigstad said. “We have the land, we have the water, we have the materials, we don’t have the labor. I think that’s going to be one of the limiting factors is how fast can we attract that labor to the market.”

But Sigstad adds, once construction takes off, expect growth in several areas.

“There’s going to be growth in Fernley,” he said “There’s going to be growth in the Silver Springs, Dayton Valley- kind of that corridor- and there’s going to be growth in the Reno/Sparks area to support all of this growth.”

The numbers may seem jarring, and some people may be skeptical considering how hard the housing market was hit in the recession. But both real estate and economic experts are quick to say this is nothing like the last housing boom.

“This is not the last boom bust cycle,” Kazmierski said. “This is totally different. This is driven not by speculation, but by real jobs, real companies that are really coming here.”