People visiting Northern Nevada as a possible place to move to are often confused about how our property values remain elevated. We are, after all, relatively rural even in the Reno/Sparks metropolitan area; have a lot of visible vacant land; and have thriving markets with modest employment compensation. How can that be?
One of the first things we need to explain to them is how Nevada came into the Union … on unequal footing. Nevada was 87% owned by the federal government. That left 13% for private ownership. Take out the large ranch properties throughout the state, large portions of remote desert property that are privately owned, and there is little left to choose from in the fertile valleys of the Truckee Meadows, Eagle and Carson Valleys, etc. That is where people are now wanting to live, clustered in the northwest corner of the state.
The next contributing factor is water. Nevada has the best example of western water law in the United States. You can’t just drill a well and pull water from it. You must have the right to do so and how much you can extract is limited by state law. All water in the state is owned by the state of Nevada per the state constitution. You may own the right to use certain water, but you don’t own the water…