Nevada
All-cash homebuyers in Northern Nevada hit record high
Washoe County broke an all-time record in October for the most all-cash home sales, setting the stage for an area becoming more expensive by the day.
Home prices and high-paying jobs have been on the rise in Washoe County, largely the cities of Reno and Sparks, as major companies continue to set up shop and rapidly grow in the area.
Nearly 30 percent of Washoe County’s home sales in October were all-cash (no mortgage needed), a record-breaking high dating back more than a decade, which is how long the county assessor’s office has been collecting the data. And while Lake Tahoe is known for multimillion-dollar real estate, houses on the Nevada side of the city make up a small fraction of the residences in Washoe County.
Brian Bonnenfant, project manager for the Center for Regional Studies at the University of Reno, Nevada said Northern Nevada’s real estate scene has been seeing an influx of high-income earners along with high-income jobs for years.
Companies such as Tesla, Google and Panasonic have all set up shop in Northern Nevada alongside the region’s lithium-ion battery company boom. The Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, billed as the largest industrial park in the world, houses a Tesla gigafactory which opened in 2016 and employs an estimated 11,000 workers. Tesla also announced at the start of 2023 it plans on hiring 3,000 more workers and building two new factories as part of the Sparks facility.
Home sales, and home prices, said Bonnenfant, have invariably gone up with the boom in business.
“The luxury side of product has still been very healthy (in Washoe County),” Bonnenfant said in regards to massive companies like Tesla and Google bringing corresponding high-wage tech salaries. “A lot of million-dollar-plus homes, existing and new are being built and sold, it’s easily the most popular product in town.”
Washoe County is located along the northwestern edge of Nevada, and is the second largest county in the state by population with close to a half-million residents.
Bonnenfant said much like Southern Nevada, high-income earners from California are seeking out a cheaper life in Washoe County. Their companies are moving here and bringing them with them. The biggest demographic age range moving to the area is 20-29 year olds.
“Through November, one out of every four existing homes were cash purchases,” he said. “This indicates that the California relocation of homeowners is alive and well, or investors still see our region as a safe investment, albeit at relatively high prices, or both.”
He said with high mortgage rates (just under 7 percent for a 30-year-fixed rate right now), someone would need to make at least $125,000 annually to afford a mortgage for the median home sale price in Washoe County, which currently sits at around $560,000.
Las Vegas Realtors says the median price for a resale home in Southern Nevada in December was $449,900.
“And that’s out of reach for most households now, unless of course you are a Californian, and sell your house in California for say more than (the average home price) and then bring that money over here. And that’s made up the bulk of the activity this year, what’s been driving a lot of it is those cash sales.”
Sarah Scattini, a real estate agent who has been working in Northern Neveda for 20 years, said she really noticed real estate begin to take off in 2019, with a new influx of high-income earners.
Scattini, vice president of the Nevada Realtors State Association, said major companies such as Tesla and Google are helping their employees relocate to the southern part of the state.
“They’re also giving them incentive packages to entice them to move here and come make the jump here,” she said. “So they are paying for their rent for a period of time while they come look for homes to buy in the area.”
California boomin’
Close to a third of the people who are relocating to Washoe County are from California and it has been that way for decades, according to Washoe County data.
Bonnenfant said that back in 2015 the county was selling approximately 30 homes a quarter that were valued at more than $1 million and since the pandemic that number has jumped to 143. The Reno area has also added close to 10,000 more jobs through November of last year, compared to the same time period in 2022.
Much like in Clark County and the rest of the U.S., spiking mortgage rates “kneecapped” the Washoe County market, Bonnenfant added.
Washoe County also takes into account the ultra-affluent Lake Tahoe area where the average sale price for a home is approximately $1.6 million, according to the Northern Nevada Regional Multiple Listing Service.
This has in turn sparked an affordability crisis and subsequent spike in homelessness in the region that Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve has addressed as a key priority. In an email response to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Schieve said Reno is making a big effort to provide more affordable housing.
“From new home construction, to new apartments and rehabilitating existing structures, Reno is working to add housing in a variety of neighborhoods.”
Schieve said Reno has spent $11.7 million in rental assistance in the last three years, supporting 3,661 households, and from 2022 to the end of last year, 2,600 apartments and single-family dwelling units were created. This included the city council approving federal funding that helped build 1,134 affordable housing units and 134 rehabilitation units.
Council also allocated $7.5 million from American Rescue Plan funds to help build a rehabilitation facility for low-income residents with mental health needs, as well as units other low-income residents or homeless veterans.
Many local citizens have decried the increase in home prices, and invariably, the rental rates. RentCafe has the average rental rate for a one-bedroom in the Reno area at $1,631, well above the average rate of $1,457 in Las Vegas.
Scattini said this is the biggest test that Washoe County will face in the years to come, is making sure affordable housing keeps up with the growing housing demand in the area.
“I think the big thing a lot of people don’t know is that 87 percent of Nevada is owned by the government,” she said, referring to federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. “And it’s pretty simple they need to release more of that land so we can continue to build because currently in Northern Nevada we don’t have the infrastructure.”
2023 was the slowest year for home sales Washoe County has seen since 2018, but cash buyers have clearly propped up the local housing market. Bonnenfant said as long as the narrative remains the same, the real estate story will continue in lockstep.
“Recent census data reports that California continues to bleed above income households,” he said. “Thus, the demand side continues to show healthy signs for our region.”
Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.
Nevada
Vandalism damages HVAC at high school in North Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Vandalism at Cheyenne High School forced crews to work early Monday to restore the campus HVAC system before classes began, according to the Clark County School District (CCSD).
CCSD officials said the damage occurred over the weekend, but facilities teams completed repairs before 8 a.m. Monday, allowing instruction to continue as scheduled. School staff monitored temperatures during the work to ensure conditions remained safe for students and employees.
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The district said the vandalism also prompted a temporary shutdown of the building’s water fountains while required testing of the school’s water system is underway. CCSD said bottled water is being provided to students and staff while officials await test results, and that all other water systems on campus remain operational.
District officials said there has been no disruption to the school day, citing the quick response from school staff, CCSD Facilities and Martin-Harris Construction.
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Nevada
Jeff Choate evaluates spring camp following Nevada’s first padded scrimmage
The Nevada football team held its first closed scrimmage of spring camp last Thursday with the team nearing the halfway point of its 15 allowable spring practices.
After the scrimmage, third-year head coach Jeff Choate met with the media to share his takeaways. One of the first things he noted was positives coming from the wide receiver and running back rooms, saying all four wideouts who transferred to Nevada this spring made impact plays. Those newcomers include Donnie Cheers (Southeast Missouri), Jaceon Doss (Towson), WR Gary Givens III (Northern Illinois) and Damien Morgan (Idaho State), who were imported to shore up Nevada’s biggest weak point last season.
“I thought we did some really good things creating explosives,” Choate said. “The negatives from an offense standpoint was just some basic operational things. We had a lot of snaps that were on the ground, perimeter blocking the first time you get the officials out there. We got some holding calls that negated some explosive plays. So, those are things that obviously we need to continue to work on and clean up.
“From a defensive standpoint, like I told them after the scrimmage, ‘There’s the two things that are always going to show up in these. We can’t really simulate live tempo the way it’s going to be when you’re playing football with officials. So, I think the tempo got them a little bit. And then tackling always shows up in a first scrimmage where we’ve been working tag tempo or thud tempo in practice and now we’re out there playing real football.
“A lot of things to clean up on both sides. I felt like there was good competition. I think that guys competed hard. There was some good physical play. “
Entering spring camp, Choate said the Wolf Pack had the same depth chart at quarterback as it ended the 2025 season, with Carter Jones atop the list, veteran backup A.J. Bianco second and UCLA transfer Luke Duncan blending in with the two. Choate said all three quarterbacks did some good things in the scrimmage, which will be used as an evaluation tool as a pecking order begins to take shape after spring break so the quarterbacks could continue to build consistency with playmakers on the depth chart.
Despite some sloppiness, it was an interception-free scrimmage, with turnovers an issue for Nevada last season. The Wolf Pack ranked sixth worst in the nation in passing efficiency, throwing 10 touchdowns and 17 interceptions.
“I think that competition raises everybody’s performance,” Choate said. “I felt like the three top guys all did some really, really good things. All three of them were able to lead touchdown drives at one point in time or another during the scrimmage. There was some sloppiness with some issues with the snap, but some of that was on the quarterbacks, right? They gotta be able to catch the freaking ball first and then worry about what the read is. And some of that stuff I’d like to see be a little cleaner in terms of the basic operation stuff.
“I thought those guys missed a couple of reads there, and that’s gonna happen. But by and large, we didn’t throw any interceptions today. I thought that was good they took care of the football, they got out of the pocket when it was appropriate for them to do that and they were able to put the ball in the end zone, which is the goal.”
Choate hired offensive coordinator Brett Bartolone this offseason to help revitalize a stagnant offense that averaged just 17.5 points per game last year, one of the worst marks in program history. Bartolone isn’t new to Nevada after serving as an offensive analyst for the Wolf Pack from 2020-21. Nevada’s offense hasn’t been as potent since then. During that two-year stretch, it averaged 33.7 points per game led by two-time Mountain West offensive player of the year, Carson Strong and playmakers Romeo Doubs, Cole Turner and Toa Taua.
Choate admitted this offseason change was needed to be more effective on offense, which includes throwing the ball more than his offense featured the last two seasons. Bartolone previously ran a spread-passing attack that Nevada is installing this spring.
“I think he’s got a plan and he knows what he wants it to look like,” Choate said of Bartolone. “He’s run this system for a while and he’s been a part of the system for even longer, so he’s gotten bank reps on, ‘Hey, defenses are gonna play us certain ways, and when they do this to us, this is how we can counterpunch that.’ And I think it’s done a good job there. I think there were some things in protection today that we’ve got to get cleaned up. We missed some protections with the backs, but those guys will get better at that as we get more repetitions.”
Nevada is on spring break this week and will continue spring camp next week with its final scrimmage at Churchill County High on April 10.
Nevada
30 Southern Nevada high school football programs go independent, leaving the NIAA playoff structure
LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — 30 southern Nevada high school football programs are going independent and choosing to step away from competing in the NIAA-sanctioned playoff structure.
“Definitely a good number of schools, their decision was based off of Bishop Gorman, we have to do all of these weird playoff configurations with these complicated formulas because a lot of teams don’t want to play them, but it’s not the only factor,” Liberty Football head coach Rich Muraco said.
WATCH| Alex Eschelman reports the latest on 30 high school football programs leaving NIAA playoff structure
30 Southern Nevada high school football programs go independent, leaving the NIAA playoff structure
Other factors include differences in zoning rules, transfer rules and finances.
“When you’re playing for a state championship, the NIAA’s job is to group teams you know as fairly as possible and play with similar types of circumstances and rules and there’s a perception out there that that’s not being done,” Muraco said.
Now, these schools are taking action into their own hands as the first step toward an even playing field.
“The goal long term is to get everybody back in a room and come up with a plan that’s fair for everyone,” Muraco said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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