University District

The University District is the band of blocks holding UNR to the city: century-old bungalows and postwar cottages within earshot of the campus bell, purpose-built student housing like Canyon Flats across the freeway from the Quad, and small apartment buildings on the side streets between the campus hill and I-80.

Lending here runs on two tracks. Investors buy student rentals, where a DSCR loan qualifies on the property’s rent instead of your tax returns, and owner-occupants house-hack an FHA two-to-four unit, living in one and letting the tenants carry most of the note. Conventional and Nevada down payment assistance cover the first-time buyers who simply want to own near campus.

Geography is momentum right now: the Mathewson Gateway project is building the corridor that ties campus to downtown, the 400-unit graduate and faculty project at 600 University Way is slated to finish in 2028, and Nova Reno adds 465 beds on the east side of campus for 2027. I-80 runs along the district’s southern edge, with downtown a short walk beyond it.

Per 2026 student-housing guides, beds near campus rent for roughly $700 to $1,200 per person per month, which is why a well-kept multi-unit here can pencil where much of Reno cannot. Ask Art to run the DSCR math on a real address.

The University of Nevada opened in Elko in 1874 and moved to this hilltop overlooking Reno in 1885, raising Morrill Hall the next year as its first building. The tree-lined Quad that followed was laid out in the tradition of Jefferson’s lawn at Virginia, and Gutzon Borglum, later of Mount Rushmore, cast the statue of miner John Mackay that still fronts the Mackay School of Mines. The blocks below the hill filled in with faculty and railroad families a century ago, and today the district is mid-transformation again as the university builds toward downtown.