Las Vegas is getting a tiny-home community where rent is surprisingly affordable

Las Vegas got the green light for an affordable housing alternative.The City Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to approve a proposed tiny-home community.About 50 custom tiny homes will be constructed on a 2.25-acre lot in Las Vegas that currently sits vacant.Sunridge on Searles is a $6 million project, led by Accelerated Real Estate, which will use Boxabl materials to construct the homes.Boxabl, a Las Vegas–based technology company, specializes in factory-built, foldable modular housing. Elon Musk made headlines in 2022 by revealing that he owns a Boxabl tiny home.“As a large-scale manufacturer of homes right here in Las Vegas, we’re very pleased to be able to provide quality homes for this terrific local residential development,” Boxabl CEO Paolo Tiramani tells Realtor.com.

“The purpose of Boxabl is to solve the housing crisis through technology and scale, and this is certainly on mission.”Each unit will be about 360 square feet and is expected to rent for $1,000 per month, including utilities.The median asking rent in the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV, metro is $1,423, which is 17.6% higher than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.“We’re really excited about it,” developer Gary Gumm tells Realtor.com.“It’s something that’s really innovative.

Tiny-home developments have been done, but the ones I’ve seen had houses on wheels.This is more unique since the Boxabl homes will be attached to a foundation.

These are on grade, on a pad, with no steps to get into the units, which makes it nice for seniors.”Gumm says they’ve been developing the project for three years and that they overcame a lot of obstacles to get it approved.“Our property was zoned for multifamily, so we had to work with the city to get the R3 multifamily zoning codes rewritten to include tiny homes,” he says.“We look at that as a feather in our cap, since it will help the zoning for future projects as well.”Gumm says this tiny-home commun...