Las Vegas Faces Job Losses And Housing Market Shift

Las Vegas, a city synonymous with bright lights, endless entertainment, and a booming hospitality industry, is weathering a period of profound transformation. As 2026 begins, the city’s economic landscape reveals both the pain of lost jobs and the promise of a maturing real estate market—two sides of the same coin, shaped by shifting tourism patterns and evolving investment trends.

According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, visits to Las Vegas were down 7.4% in November 2025 compared to the previous year. This downturn, as reported by KLAS, stems from a cocktail of factors: a rocky national economy, rising travel costs, and a notable decline in international visitors, especially from Canada. The fallout has been swift and severe for the city’s hospitality sector, with the Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation recording a loss of 4,700 jobs in the Las Vegas metro area between September and November 2025. The leisure and hospitality industry, long the city’s economic engine, bore the brunt of these losses.

Several major hotels, including the high-profile Fontainebleau and Resorts World properties, enacted layoffs in 2025, leaving many experienced workers suddenly adrift. For some, this has meant seeking out new and unconventional ways to make ends meet. One particularly striking trend has emerged at Crazy Horse 3, a well-known strip club located just blocks from the Las Vegas Strip near Allegiant Stadium, home of the Raiders.

Citing a 55% increase in nightly adult-entertainer auditions as of December 2025 compared to six months prior, Business Insider reports that Crazy Horse 3 is now seeing an influx of first-time dancers—many of whom previously worked in traditional hospitality roles. “People are looking for other streams of income,” said Louis Aceves, the club’s general acting manager, in an interview with Business Insider. He added, “In nearly 12 years in the industry, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The numbers are telling: previously, slower nights at Crazy Horse 3 saw just two to four auditions. By December 2025, that figure had jumped to six to eight. And when major events like the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) come to town, the club can field as many as 10 to 12 auditions in just a couple of hours. Many of these new applicants were laid off from casino and hotel jobs, or have had their hours cut, prompting them to look for flexible and immediate sources of income.

This surge in interest isn’t just a curiosity—it’s a sign of how deeply the city’s economic challenges are being felt by everyday workers. The traditional safety nets of the hospitality industry have frayed, and people are adapting in whatever ways they can. Aceves noted that local business has helped steady the club’s demand, even as tourist numbers have slumped.

Yet, while some residents are scrambling to find new footholds in the service economy, others are navigating a real estate market in flux. Patrick Blennerhassett’s December 17 article for Redfin noted a 20% year-over-year decline in investor purchases of Las Vegas homes as of December 2025. At first glance, this might seem like another sign of economic trouble. However, C.C. McCandless, engagement coordinator for the Roland Team with LPT Realty, sees it differently.

“A 20 percent year-over-year decline in investor purchases, as cited in the Redfin report, is not a signal of market weakness. It’s a sign of normalization,” McCandless wrote. Las Vegas had experienced an unusually high share of investor activity in recent years, driven by historically low interest rates and rapid appreciation. As financing costs have risen, many short-term or highly leveraged buyers have stepped back, creating space for owner-occupants to re-enter the market on more balanced footing.

This shift has had tangible benefits for families and first-time buyers. With fewer investor bids—especially all-cash offers—ordinary buyers are facing less pressure and have more time to make thoughtful decisions. Price growth in the housing market has moderated, but not collapsed, giving the market a much-needed dose of stability. “Stability—not speculation—is what supports long-term equity for homeowners,” McCandless emphasized.

It’s important, he argued, to understand what the data actually represents. Redfin’s definition of “investors” includes anyone purchasing under an LLC, Inc., Corp., or Trust. This means that institutional funds are lumped together with local, mom-and-pop owners who may own just one or two rental properties. In fact, institutional investors represent only about 2% of the total housing supply nationally and are not the main cause of affordability challenges in Las Vegas. Local small investors, McCandless noted, provide much-needed rental housing and help maintain properties in the community.

Blanket policies aimed at curbing corporate investment could inadvertently sideline these small-scale landlords, reducing rental supply and potentially driving up costs for tenants. The real solution, McCandless contended, lies in building more homes. Las Vegas continues to benefit from strong population growth, job diversification, a favorable tax structure, and long-term demand from people relocating to the city for work and lifestyle reasons—not just investment opportunities.

Builders are responding to these conditions with incentives, rate buy-downs, and new product types designed to help buyers bridge affordability gaps. At the same time, resale inventory has improved, giving consumers more choice than they’ve had in years. “A market with fewer speculative buyers, more end users, steady demand and expanding inventory is not a market in trouble—it’s a market maturing,” McCandless wrote.

From the ground, the sentiment is cautiously optimistic. Las Vegas real estate remains resilient, opportunity-rich, and fundamentally sound. The call from experts is for policymakers to focus less on assigning blame for affordability woes and more on encouraging thoughtful development, zoning flexibility, and infrastructure investment. These measures, they argue, will help supply catch up with demand, fostering long-term affordability and stability for both homeowners and renters.

Las Vegas, in short, is a city in transition. The challenges are real, from lost jobs to shifting investment patterns, but so are the opportunities. As workers adapt to new realities and the housing market finds its footing, the city’s resilience is on full display—proof that even in tough times, Las Vegas is always ready to reinvent itself.