I wrote an article (link below) about cashing out of the NYC housing bubble and moving to Reno, NV. No one knows when the bubble will end, but when house prices exceed fundamental rents and wages, watch out!
This article focuses on Las Vegas because it is a very interesting city with lots of bad press, much of it unfairly gained.
Anyway, Reno is great for outdoor types and I don't regret defending that city every chance I get. However, I have since relocated to Las Vegas and am enjoying the mild and warm weather here. Las Vegas is a great place so when I saw this quote at this Patrick.net blog post, I had to share it with all you guys who are pondering a lifestyle change. Apparently you are not the only ones:
"I was born and raised in Manhattan in a neighborhood that became more and more crime ridden every year. We gave up and moved to Yorktown Heights in Westchester. The utilities, mortgage and prop taxes ($10K for prop taxes alone) were a sleigh ride to hell. We stuck that out for 13 years and moved to Las Vegas in 2006. Life is easier here, more affordable. You can park anywhere. The people I've met are friendly (much more so than in Westchester.) I guess it depends on what you're used to. I like the weather here. I don't miss snow. I would not walk around at night in the area we rent in now. But I wouldn't do that in NY either, if I had any qualms about it. When I first got here I rarely met another NY refugee. Now they're coming in droves."
To be fair, not all responses to my article have been positive, but this quote pretty much sums up how I feel. And you poor New Yorkers, you can't park anywhere you want? Who can go through an entire lifetime not being able to park where you want?
And think about it New Yorkers, no snow! There is virtually no snow in Las Vegas. Can you grasp living where there isn't any snow, and no major humidity in the summer to boot? You can't even imagine it can you, unless you hop down to Florida now and again.
The summers in Las Vegas are warm, but they are not as stuffy as Palm Springs, another place I really like. That sea level heat can be quite "close", if you know what I mean. Las Vegas, on the other hand, sits above 2000 feet above sea level on the strip and west of it is even higher. Obviously Lake Las Vegas and most of Henderson are lower than the strip but are beautiful. Just a little hotter there.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Las Vegas. It is a lot nicer than many folks think. Not all of Las Vegas. But I bet there are well over 100 square miles of pretty nice living in Las Vegas. There are 35 square miles in Summerlin alone. Las Vegas totals about 300 square miles for two million people. 300 square miles crams 8+ million people into New York City proper. Wow, what a difference.
As I was driving down Tropicana Boulevard looking at the New York skyline, I was thinking to myself, at least here you can visit NYC, eat the good food, and go home in 15 minutes! What a hoot.
So far, the hottest day I have spent in my new city was 115. It felt like 109. But the heat generally is intense in two weeks in July and in two weeks in August. Global warming does impact some summers, and makes things a bit hotter. But if you don't get snow your body adjusts to warm just fine. I have been more miserable in the east with 95 degrees and 90 percent humidity. Talk about close.
And, as I write in my article about the pros and cons of living in Las Vegas, parts west of the strip have a rise in elevation. It makes a large difference, and cools down more at night.
We had a weird rain on August 22 and I thought I would need a jacket walking my dog through a trail in Summerlin. It is close to where I live, so I try to go up the plateau just a bit for cooler weather for a dog built for cool. But to almost need a jacket on August 22 was nice.
It won't get much cooler than that in January people!
I happened to be talking to a server at the Agave restaurant in Summerlin and he told me that Brooklyn was high crime and not so clean as he remembered it. I don't know since I have only driven through Queens a long time ago. But he said Las Vegas was clean and in his area there was little crime. He loved it. Las Vegas was his second favorite place to live, the first being San Diego. But San Diego is stupidly expensive, and it doesn't have the strip.
So anyway, I hope I have been able to show you a glimpse of Las Vegas absent a bunch of negatives that are most certainly exaggerated. Check it out sometime, New Yorkers, and you could improve on your lifestyle. If it is good enough for Pia Zadora, hey, it has to be great right?
For further reading:
Pros and Cons of Living in Las Vegas
Prostitution is Illegal in Las Vegas and Reno: Funny Stories
New Yorkers: Escape that Housing Bubble and Move to Reno, Nevada
Pros and Cons of Living in Los Angeles