The bill that emerged from that effort ultimately fell one vote shy in the state Assembly, but its defeat came with promises from Democrats and Republicans alike to continue working on proposed legislation with the goal of reintroducing a bill in the next regular legislative session in 2027.
“People are being priced out of homes,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro told reporters after the special session adjourned. “You can talk to almost anyone and find an anecdotal story of someone who was competing against a corporation with unlimited coffers in order to buy a home… We owe it to Nevadans to work on solutions to home ownership and to affordability issues, and that was absolutely something that we should have passed.”
Assembly Minority Leader Greg Hafen (R-Pahrump), before voting against the bill in his chamber, called the issue “something that is worthy of this body to look at.”
“I just don’t believe this legislation is there yet,” he continued.
Senate Bill 10 of the 36th Special Session was designed to stop corporations from gobbling up a critical mass of available properties, giving Nevadans a better shot at the American dream of homeownership.
It would have placed a 1,000-unit cap on the total aggregate number of homes that could be purchased in a year by private investors. The Nevada Secretary of State’s Office would help monitor a new corporate homeowner registry and determine when the 1,000-unit limit was reached.
The legislation was presented by state Sens. Dina Neal, a Democrat from North Las Vegas, and Ira Hansen, a Republican from Sparks.
Neal brought similar legislation in 2023. The bill, supported by Hansen, was vetoed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.
That year, a Stateline analysis of data from real estate analytics firm CoreLogic found that nearly a quarter of all single-family homes sold in 2021 had been purchased by investors. In Nevada, the same analysis found, the share of investor purchases increased from 18% to 30% from 2020 to 2021.
Neal revived her corporate home ownership legislation in the 2025 regular session, though she made the cap a paltry 100 housing units after reading in the Las Vegas Review Journal that one corporate investor had purchased 264 homes in a single day. Hansen said during the floor vote in May that he had “been asked by the executive branch to support a caucus ‘no’ position” and would “very reluctantly” vote in opposition.
The Lied Center for Real Estate at the University of Nevada Las Vegas estimated investors owned roughly 15% of homes in the City of Las Vegas. That percentage was expected to grow both in Nevada and across the nation.
The bill under consideration by lawmakers in the special session set the aggregate cap at 1,000. Industry groups pushed behind the scenes for a 2,000 limit, but those requests were dismissed by Hansen and Neal.
New builds, manufactured homes, apartments, condominiums, townhomes, and foreclosures bought by credit unions would have been excluded from the cap.
Jonathan Norman with the Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers urged lawmakers to reconsider the exclusion of town homes and condos since they are often seen as “the first step of the property ladder.”
“If you have young people who cannot afford a home, or the average price is $400,000, a condo is a good way to start building equity,” he said. “I’m afraid if we start exempting those, the eye of corporate buyers and private equity might be swift to condos and town homes and freeze out those people who might not have a down payment.”
Hansen said the exclusion for new builds addressed the “political reality” of potential opposition from industry groups.
“Southern Nevada Home Builders didn’t want to be included in the bill and they would have aggressively opposed it,” he said.
The association still opposed the bill.
David Goldwater, a lobbyist with the Nevada Home Builders Association, warned the bill could still have “unintended consequences.”
Other opponents raised concerns about the constitutionality of the bill, specifically the “dormant commerce clause,” by which states can’t enact measures that interfere with interstate commerce.
Political Reality
“I have so much respect for this institution,” said an audibly shaken Assemblymember Alexis Hansen (R-Sparks) before casting what was seen as the deciding ‘no’ vote that killed the corporate home ownership bill, “but I don’t have a respect for what has transpired in the last few days, but particularly in just the last couple of hours.”
Hansen went on to say that her signing of the petition to have the bill considered during the special session was not a commitment to vote for it on the floor. (She voted against the 2023 version of the bill. The 2025 regular session version of the bill never made it to the Assembly, meaning she did not have a chance to vote on it.)
“I just wanted us to be able to bring the bill and hear it, find those solutions that we needed to,” she continued.
Hansen said she would “work diligently” in the upcoming months.
The assemblymember could not be reached by the Nevada Current for additional comment.
The effort to rein in the purchasing power of corporations was not on the list of items for the special agenda. Alexis Hansen and her husband, state Sen, Ira Hansen (R-Sparks), worked with the Democratic caucuses on a petition to force the issue to be added to the special session.
The bill was brought forward as intense negotiations around the film tax credit were happening behind closed doors. Neal attempted to shoot down rumors that her bill’s resurrection was brought “so I can feel comfortable to vote on film.”
“I am not horse trading for corporate investors for a vote on film,” Neal said.
(Neal would, later that day, vote for the film studio bill, but she would say in a floor statement and to reporters afterward that her vote was cast out of personal loyalty to Senate Majority Leader Cannizzaro, who Neal credited with saving her life earlier this year after a medical episode.)
Ira Hansen also pushed back on rumors he was being “offered some sort of deal” in exchange for support of the film tax credit bill.
“Everybody knows I’m a no” on the film bill, he said, “and that’s not going to change.”
Hansen would go on to vote against the film studio bill.
The corporate housing bill received attention and support from Democratic lawmakers throughout the state, including U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, who called in to support; U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, who wrote a letter in support; and Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who participated in the hearing.
Ford, who is running for governor, used much of his time to attack Lombardo for killing previous iterations of the bill.
When given the opportunity to “limit out-of-state corporations from buying our homes and pricing Nevadans out of their communities, he failed to do so,” Ford said. “Because of his dereliction of duty Nevada families are suffering and Wall Street hedge funds are the largest landlords in Clark County having amassed thousands of homes.”
Lombardo’s office did not respond to the Current’s request for comment on the introduction of the corporate home ownership bill into the special session or the calls to address the issue through future legislation.
This story first appeared in the Nevada Current. Read the original here.
