Rentals, Real Estate, and Neighborhoods

7000 people move to Las Vegas every month. Are you gonna be one of them?

Don't let the dazzle of neon blind you to what you should know about living here.

Three years ago, there was a housing boom here. A 3bd bth house built in the early 1970s, like the one my father bought for $80,000 nearly twenty years ago, now can go for $225,000 or more. A mid-nineties house with four bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms like what my mother owns can easily go for over $300,000, and it's not even new or in a particularly chi-chi area. New houses right now can go for $400,000; $500,000; or even more. If you're moving here from California, that might not seem so bad. If you're moving here from almost anywhere else, that's really high. The Las Vegas valley is running out of land.

Decided you'd rather rent for a while instead? Apartments aren't cheap either. A lot of units got removed from the rental market as a result of the housing boom mentioned above because apartment buildings were converted to condos. So if a house seems a bit steep, you could live in an apartment building instead. Hey, at least you get to own a piece instead of just paying rent. Condos range from $120,000 to $200,000, depending on how big and nice they are.

Rents can and do start at $450 or $500 but these are studios in the bad areas of town. There are a lot of ads on Craigslist touting their units as "close to the Strip!" Believe me, you do NOT want to live close to the Strip. ON the Strip, they're building some ultra-highrise apartments for New York City prices. One block east and one block west of the Strip, the rents are far lower, but the crime is far higher. So to get a decent apartment in a decent area, plan to spend at least $650-$750.

The Strip itself is pretty safe because of the throngs of people and because a casino entrance is always within easy reach. I'd walk down the Strip just about any hour of the night without worry. But the residential areas nearby contain many cheap apartment complexes and transient motels. To the east of the Strip run Koval and Paradise. To the west, I-15 and Industrial. Avoid those areas.

For some reason, the area around the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is also an area to avoid. I'm sure the students bunch up, and perhaps they find some safety in numbers. While not as bad as near the Strip, it's not a good area to live either.

North Las Vegas is also pretty scary, as is downtown (the cluster of casinos that was there before the Strip started growing and growing). Another area to avoid would be along either of the two major freeways, I-15 and US-95, but the further you get away from downtown, the nicer even these areas become.

Now there are several areas that are particularly desirable. Summerlin, which lies in the northwest, Green Valley in the southwest, and Henderson in the southeast, are all quite happening places right now. There's tons of new construction and new upscale stores being built in these areas. Henderson is an old well-established town in its own right, but Las Vegans used to scoff at the idea of living in Henderson. Not any more.