Beyond The Horizon
ICYMI: How Long Time Residents Of Las Vegas Are Being Priced Out Of The Home Buying Market
Las Vegas used to be one of the most affordable places to live in the country where you could not only make your money stretch longer, but where you could still be a city that had it all. Those days, unfortunately, are long gone and a lot of long time residents of Las Vegas are now being forced out of their homes and in fact, forced out of their city all together.
The reason? Rent prices have skyrocketed in Las Vegas more than 35 % since the pandemic, and they show no signs of ever coming back down to earth and this, in turn, is forcing people to make very difficult decisions about where they live.
So, what's causing the sky high prices and the struggle to maintain?
Let's dive in an see!
(commercial at 14:01)
to contact me:
bobbycapucci@protonmail.com
source:
Las Vegas locals say they've been priced out of once-affordable city as housing costs soar 35% in four years, with fed-up locals turning on Dems for abandoning them | Daily Mail Online
- Duration:
- 26m
- Broadcast on:
- 27 Jun 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
Judy was boring. Hello. Then, Judy discovered Chumba Casino.com. It's my little escape. Now Judy's the life of the party. Oh baby, mama's bringing home the bacon. Whoa, take it easy, Judy. The Chumba life is for everybody. So go to Chumba Casino.com and play over 100 Casino-style games. Join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Chumba Casino.com. No purchase necessary for your prohibited by law. T+ terms and conditions apply. See website for details. What's up, everyone? And welcome back to the program. If you listen to the powers that be and the talking heads on TV, they'd have you believe that everything is great with the economy. They'd have you believe that it's booming, that jobs are being created, and everybody's living this great jet-setter life. But the truth is that most people are struggling and most people are losing their savings. And that's because everything is way too expensive. Remember the guy a few years ago, who was running for president or whatever, who was talking about the rent is too damn high? Dude looks like Miss Cleo now, because the rent is too damn high, especially here in Las Vegas. And today we have an article from The Daily Mail talking about how locals here in Vegas are being priced out of their city. And it's the truth. I've been in Las Vegas now since 1989, and it used to be one of the most affordable cities in the whole country. Now though, forget it. Everything's expensive. You get hit with all kinds of charges, no matter where you go, and forget trying to buy a house. Oh, you can get a house, but it's gonna cost you 500 Gs for your neighbor to be on top of you. So things in Las Vegas are not that rosy. And I have several friends that have had to get roommates throughout this whole entire thing. So things are not looking great for people in Las Vegas as far as average folks. And then don't even get me started on the homeless encampments everywhere you look. It doesn't matter where you go in town. There are homeless encampments popping up. Down on Boulder Highway, it looks like the beginning scenes from the walking dead. There are people down there that have the fentanyl bends. There are people down there that are in just such terrible shape, and there's no resources for anybody. There is no resources for anybody to use to get off these drugs. And even if there were, let's be very clear and very honest, a lot of these people wouldn't wanna get off them anyway. So you have not only the fact that everything is going sky-high through the roof as far as pricing, but you have this issue where you have the haves and the have-nots basically living on top of each other. Because you could go to a place like Summerlin even in Las Vegas, and you'll find homeless people. These encampments are everywhere, and not everybody is on drugs or mentally ill, the vast majority are, but there's some people out there that are the working-class poor folks. They have a job, but they can't afford a place to live. So they live in their car, they save up a few bucks, get a hotel, whatever it might be. And there's a whole class of people out there like that that we don't even talk about. So when people tell you that things are great with the economy, maybe they're great for rich people, maybe they're great in the suburbs, but people who are struggling to begin with, I can promise you, shit is not great for them. So let's dive into this article from the Daily Mail and let's see what they came up with. Headline Las Vegas locals say they've been priced out of a once-affordable city, as housing costs soar 35% in four years with fed up locals turning on the Democrats for abandoning them. And look, the truth is the truth. The local Democrats here, they don't care about the people, they care about enriching themselves and grabbing more power. That's all they care about. If they cared about the people, well, they do shit to show us that they cared about us. And if you want some affordable housing in Nevada, here's an idea. Open up some of that public land that we have here and let's get some really affordable housing built. Some really affordable housing that people can afford to move into because the land is available. The problem is most of its own by the federal government. Nevada is sparsely populated, besides a few centers where there is population in the south, Las Vegas, et cetera, and then up north Reno, Tahoe, besides that, there's like nobody in this state. If you drive from Las Vegas to Reno, it is like a scene from Desolation in the Stephen King book. So there's like nothing there. You mean to tell me that we can't build further out and build some new property? Or here's an even better idea. How about a new Homestead Act where people who have never owned a home before can get 10, 20 acres. And then from there, they can build up their own farm, whatever it is and start building generational wealth because that's what it's all about, people, generational wealth. The job that you're at right now, fuck that job. Unless you're making big dough, forget that job. They don't care about you. You're gonna be replaced next week. Now, if you have something that's yours to leave to your kids, well, that's different, right? A farm, a convenience store, whatever it might be. But if they do a Homestead Act in Nevada, forget it. It would really help out with A, the homelessness. And B, it would help out a lot of people who are never gonna be able to afford a house in Las Vegas. And there is a lot of people who are never gonna be able to afford a house here now. But unfortunately, our local politicians are a way too concerned with other bullshit. This article was authored by Martha Williams. Las Vegas is known for its glitzy casinos and glamorous hotels, but behind the flashy facade is a much more grim reality of life as a local in Sin City, as prices skyrocket, and politicians continuously disappoint the swing state. And I have to tell you, if politics wasn't such a contact sport these days, and I wasn't so worried about my family being attacked mercilessly, I'd run for office here locally. Because shit needs to change, man. And the only way to do that is to do it at the local level. Everybody's focused on federal politics and the politics of the nation, and I get it. It's very important. But if your local area isn't correct, if you guys aren't doing things right, if your councilmen are all corrupt, well, shit's not gonna be good for you. That's for damn sure. And for me, I see the way Las Vegas has just completely been peeled back like an onion at this point, and it's disgusting. And a lot of it is directly at the feet of these politicians. But time and time again, they continue to screw things up. I know most of you have seen the Godfather part two. You remember when Michael Corleone is in Nevada, up in Tahoe talking to the guy from the gaming commission? Yeah, well, that's Nevada in a nutshell for you. Maybe not wearing the five gallon hat anymore, but still the same thing. It's a yokels love yokels kind of situation. And there's a lot of people here that just don't care about the state of Nevada, the city of Las Vegas, and certainly about the people who live here. But the unfortunate reality is, if you try to run for office these days, you're gonna get absolutely destroyed. And that's too heavy of a burden to a shoulder for my family and my friends, because they're not the ones choosing to run for office, right? But that's what happens. You know, inevitably, it's your family and your friends who end up getting targeted. So I would never even bother. And I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way. How many people wanna have their life put under a microscope so they can run for office? Unless you're a power hungry, right? What do they say people who want power should never have it? Well, the people who want power, unfortunately, in this country, they always get it. People from California and other expensive states have flocked to Nevada for more affordable housing, causing the home prices to soar even more. And look, I'm not against people moving to Las Vegas like some folks are, I'm all for it. But I don't like how corporations are swooping up houses. There has to be some sort of limit to that. And what happens is it just bumps the price up for everybody else. So maybe there should be some kind of corridor where that happens and there's only a certain area where corporations can buy houses like that because at some point, we're gonna have to address this. If corporations own all the houses and nobody can afford to move into those houses, then what? What happens next? Because we all know that owning a home is the goal, right? Owning a home is the way to wealth. Owning something is the way to wealth. But if you're X'd out of that and you can't afford to even get in on the ground level, well, now you see the hustle is real. And the board is completely tilted. When you have people who are making close to 100 G's a year who can't afford a house, things are broken, folks. Rent in Las Vegas is 35% higher now than in December 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. And I have a lot of friends who are really struggling right now to pay their bills. Thankfully, the person that we rent our town home from, he didn't raise our rent one single time throughout this whole thing. And in fact, during the pandemic, he called us and asked us if we needed some time. Give us a couple of free months, whatever. Thankfully, we were in a position where we didn't need to do that. But I'm very lucky because the person who owns the townhouse that I live in right now, as I continue to save up to buy some land up north, he's just a great guy. But I have so many friends who have had their rent increased on them, have their rent just blasted through the roof. And we're talking about people with kids and good jobs, and they're really struggling. So I know that people out here who can't make a dollar out of 50 cents, they're really up against it. Las Vegas Realtors found that tight inventory and high interest rates are shaping the market in their most recent report. And they have a chart here showing you how quickly the home prices have risen. And in 2020, you could get a house for $250,000. Then in 2021, 325,000. Now it's 461,000. And just to give you a little bit of context, back in the day, you could get a house here, a five bedroom home. That's about 2,300 square feet with a junior Olympic sized swimming pool in the backyard for $125,000. Now think about how quick things have changed. That was in 1994. Now we're looking at $461,000 for a home much less than what I just told you about. So tell me, how have people's lives gotten better? And how the hell is anything like this even close to sustainable? We have people now digging into their credit cards, their savings and it's gonna be all bad. I'm telling you right now, it's going to be all bad. According to the housing market statistics, the average house price of a single family home is around $821,000 while a condo townhouse comes in at $335,000. Now, how in the fuck are people supposed to afford that? Even if you're making 30 bucks an hour, 40 bucks an hour, you have to make 160 jeez a year to get yourself a house these days. It's just crazy. And that's why I'd be all over the Homestead Act that I was just talking about. I mean, how much more teed up does it have to be? The circumstances are ripe for it. And you know, I know that it's something that's counter to the way we usually do things, but we have to think outside of the box, folks. We can't just do things that we've always done and hope that the results are the same because times have changed. And the hustle is real. There is a lick being put on us right now by the financial sector like you wouldn't believe. And while everybody was busy having fights over Donald Trump or whoever they were voting for, this is the kind of shit that these people were up to behind the scenes. And that's why I avoid the political quagmire for the most part, meaning the back and forth, you did this, you did that because both sides are equal to blame. Now, of course, when you have one side that's in power, they're gonna get the blame. And there's no doubt that the Democrats have earned their fair share. But when you get out here and you really look at it, should we be fighting against each other? Should we be lined up? You know, the pitchforks and the torches against one another? Or should we be focusing on the crazy-ass mad scientist who lives in the castle? Me, I think that the mad scientist who lives in the castle is a much bigger problem than my neighbor who might have a different political view than me. But you can't even have different political views these days without people trying to castigate you and put you into one box or the other. And that kind of shit directly leads to gridlock where we get nothing done ever. Like we're seeing, currently in DC and in most places. Voters in Las Vegas are struggling to cling on to their middle-class lifestyles, which has left them feeling politically confused. And Nevada is a purple state and a very independent-minded population for the most part when you get outside of the cities. So there are a lot of differing political opinions in this state and sometimes it swings to the left and sometimes it swings to the right. And right now, the Democrats are in serious jeopardy of losing the state of Nevada. When you have the working class coming out the way that the working class is coming out, I have to tell you it's no good. And I know my friends personally who voted for Biden the last time around, they're having second thoughts because we have to remember at the end of the day, it's the economy is stupid. That's how elections are won and lost mostly. And if the economy is not working out in your city and people aren't reaping the benefits that all of the rich people are reaping, then there's gonna be an issue. And that's exactly what's happening here in Nevada. Nevada had its primary yesterday and Nikki Haley lost to none of these candidates. So that shows you how people are feeling right now in Nevada. People are hoping for a change and the Democrats better be aware of it and they better not take Nevada for granted. Vegas residents primarily dislike the Republican Party and don't wanna see Trump back in office. However, voters are beginning to question how in tune with their needs Washington DC politicians are. And that is a big problem here. And I'll be the first to tell you, it doesn't mean that people are gonna run out and vote for Trump, but it does mean that the Democrats have some problems here and the firewall that they've built recently is definitely in jeopardy of being penetrated. - I've got Dan Morgan here on the pod. Say hi, Dan. - Hey, how's it going today? - It's going good, man. Tell us who you are and what you do. - I'm Dan Morgan. I'm an attorney and a managing partner at Morgan and Morgan, which is America's largest injury law firm. - That's pretty awesome. I think I saw a billboard of yours recently that said 20 billion won. 20 billion is an insane number. - Yeah, 20 billion recovered. It's actually, I think somewhere north, probably closer to 22, 23 after this year. And each year we get bigger and better and our army grows. So the number will hopefully keep getting bigger and bigger as time goes on. - Awesome. So how does someone get in contact with Morgan and Morgan? What would I do if I got into an accident? - Probably the easiest way is dialing pound law. That's pound 529 from your cell phone. We are always open. Our call center is always waiting to take your call. 24/7, 365. - Wow, Dan Morgan. From Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury law firm. Thanks for coming by the show. - Thanks for having me. - Visit ForThePeople.com for an office near you. - Okay, round two. Name something that's not boring. - Laundry? Ooh, a book club. Computer solitaire, huh? (buzzer) - Ah, sorry. We were looking for Chumba Casino. (upbeat music) - Chumba. - That's right. ChumbaCasino.com has over 100 casino style games. Join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. (upbeat music) ChumbaCasino.com. No more specific, or we'll leave it by law. 80 plus turns the kitchen supply seat website for details. - Democrats have performed well in Nevada in recent elections, but their victories have been too close for comfort and voters are losing the will to get out to the polls. And that's a huge issue in Nevada. You got to get people out. If the Democrats want to win in Nevada, they have to turn out the voters. And if they don't do that, they will lose because their only hope is to win in the city centers. They're not going to win in the more rural areas in the north or in the center of the state. So their only hope is to have a gigantic turnout in the city centers. And the Democrats have been very good at doing that in Nevada for the past few elections, as this article says. They have been able to rally the unions, rally the working class. But if the working class is feeling jaded and the working class is feeling like they've been forgotten about, well, what then? Jen Evans, 49, told the New York Times that despite voting for Biden in 2020, she might stay home in November. Las Vegas is a blue collar town that doesn't know it's blue collar. You used to be able to make a lot of money as a valet, a cocktail waitress, as a gaming bartender. It's changed, Evan said. And there's no doubt it has. When I was working in the sports book, I was making a ton of money, money hand over fist. We're talking about gigantic tips from gigantic players. Shit's not like that no more. And forget what the cocktail waitresses were making. We had cocktail waitresses working with me at the Hard Rock who were making 200 grand a year, and I'm not even kidding you. They were making so much money from tips that it would knock your socks off. And Vegas has really changed. And that's because everybody's getting nickeled and dined. It's no longer a place where people can come and get value. And now it caters to the big shot. It caters to the, you know, the guy coming for Formula One. It no longer caters to the man coming for the weekend. And that's a big problem with Las Vegas. And it's something that has to be addressed at some point. I don't know that the Democrats stand for what I thought that they stood for as she continued. Evans isn't the only one contemplating sitting the next election out. I don't see the point. Christine Nguyen, 26 said. It doesn't seem to make a difference. She's not wrong, right? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I say this all the time. Now some policies will change, no doubt about that. And the geopolitical wins will shift, but our day-to-day life for the most part, it's gonna be the same. I mean, the BS might be packaged a bit differently, but at the end of the day, it's all the same shit, right? No matter who the president is for the most part. Now, of course, there are exceptions when people are making bad decisions all over the place. Well, that's not a good thing for anybody. But generally speaking, your life isn't gonna change for the most part, no matter who gets elected president. However, if you flip the script, your life is gonna dramatically change if you get a bunch of weirdos in office locally. They're gonna make things much more difficult for you. They're gonna make your life difficult. They're gonna make making money difficult, whatever it may be. So that's why local politics are so important. And that's why we see the issues that we see here in Las Vegas, because we have neglected putting in good politicians for all these years. Instead, what we see are the incumbents being sent back time and time again, which is crazy. Imagine being that bad at your job and continuing to be employed and people supporting your work, because a lot of these politicians that we send to DC or send locally here to Carson City, I wouldn't even let them pair my socks in the morning. Never mind, make decisions for me and decisions about my life, but here we are. Shana Rodriguez 42 said she stopped voting several years ago after politics failed her and her seven children. No matter who I was voting for, I wasn't getting help. The dental assistant and single mother said, Democratic campaign veterans reported that Nevada is one of the hardest states to win because of its transient nature and young demographic. Las Vegas only has a small coalition of reliable voters, mostly stemming from workers unions, of which there are 146,000 in all of Nevada. And again, we don't have a huge population center here. Las Vegas is the extent of it. After Las Vegas, I mean, you have Reno up north, but besides that, you don't have much going on here. Carlos Padilla, a pastry chef at Treasure Island, on the Las Vegas strip shared his voting enthusiasm. Easy, I'm voting for Biden. Padilla said, he's the most pro-union president I've experienced, he cares, yeah, when he can remember. Residents of Las Vegas are complaining across the board that the state of Nevada is becoming infiltrated by Californian transplants. A worker complained on X, formerly Twitter, that all these people from California came here and said everything is too cheap. Those with businesses started to buy homes and raise the rent. He said, adding that his customers from California had told him that, on Reddit, a user complained that people from California got remote jobs and moved to Nevada during the pandemic to save rent. That's a fact too, they most certainly did. A lot of people got remote jobs from Cali, so they get to keep making 100K plus while living in Vegas. Some have two people making six figures remote, they said, adding that people are selling their homes in LA, as well as using the leftover money to probably start a business. And there's no doubt that's what's happening. People from California, they realized the market is just crazy there, they're selling their homes, coming to Vegas and pocketing a bunch of profit. Everything here in Vegas is going up. Another user complained, all the new attraction things will only go up. My two bedroom, two bath apartment, is going up to 1900 for us in August, we're only getting more poor here. Our city is becoming bigger and bigger, yet the employment wages are not going up for us locals, who have been here our whole lives. And unfortunately, this is what happens when cities go through a growth. There's gonna be a lot of people who are from Vegas that end up getting priced out, the same way people got priced out in the Bay Area. So that's certainly something on the horizon. Residents of Las Vegas are now planning on getting out of the city as it's becoming unaffordable. When I moved here, it was a great deal, but even renting is high right now, a Reddit user said. I'm thinking of moving somewhere else if I don't get a better job. A renter who moved to Las Vegas from Seattle for better weather and more activities said they got a quick reality check. Cost of living has skyrocketed across the city, but the wages are meager, they said on Reddit. This is why half of Las Vegas is still closed. It isn't because of COVID, it's because people don't wanna work for $13 an hour, knowing they won't be able to afford their rent anyway. Lines are out the door at grocery stores, due to the lack of workers, gases as high as it is, where I live currently. And on top of all of that, you're still dealing with the incredible high dirty transient atmosphere that comes with Vegas living. I ran with my tail between my legs back to Bellevue, Washington. Look, Vegas isn't for everybody. Vegas is a grimy, chew you up and spit you out kind of place. And if you can make it in Vegas, you could probably make it anywhere. And you see a lot of people come here and they think they're gonna have some kind of dream or whatever, and that dream gets shattered real fucking quick. It's not just the residents of Las Vegas who have noticed the soaring prices, regular tourists of Sin City have picked up on the increasingly expensive lifestyle as well. One tourist said that they packed a $20 collapsible kettle in their luggage so they can make instant oatmeal for breakfast every morning because the food on the strip was so expensive, adding that they think it saved them $250 over their five day trip. The visitor said that they even bought a collapsible cooler so that they didn't have to buy soda or adult beverages during the vacation. So when I was at the hard rock, they started a new rule that you couldn't bring a cooler up to your room. They wanted you to buy shit on property. So go down by soda, whatever it is, and spend all this money, and you can have a cooler up in your room. And they had security at the elevators making sure nobody brought coolers up to their room. Now imagine that shit, talk about greed. We were there in March and spent almost three times more than we did for the same duration trip in March of 2020. It will be a while until we return. Another tourist on Reddit said, a Wall Street-backed corporate landlord snapped up hundreds of homes in Las Vegas in a mammoth one-off residential sale last summer. Dallas-based invitation homes shelled out 98 million to buy 264 homes in Clark County, property record show. The deal forms part of a $650 million swap of a portfolio of close to 1900 single-family rental homes between billionaires Barry Sternlick's private equity fund and Starwood Capital and Invitation Homes. Invitation homes now owns 3,500 homes in Clark County, making it the second largest owner of single-family rental homes, according to data from the Las Vegas Review Journal. It comes as the Nevada City struggles with an acute shortage of housing with evictions on the rise. Las Vegas has the worst shortage of affordable housing of any US city. Well, folks, all of that's true. I can tell you that all of that's true because I'm living through it right now. It is almost impossible to buy a home here unless you got big money. And even if you do get a home, it's not gonna be what you want in that price range. So something has to give. And in my opinion, the best way to do that would be to enact the Homestead Act once again and let people finally get in on the game and get something of their own. But they won't do that because they love to keep us poor. So instead, what you're gonna see is a bunch of high-ass rent and a bunch of corporations continuing to move in and take over big chunks of the housing in cities. And what that means for the rest of us, well, it means exactly what we're seeing in Las Vegas right now. People are gonna be pushed out, people are gonna have to find new places to live, and people are gonna have to find new places to set down their roots. Because what we're seeing right now is unsustainable. And eventually the dam is going the bust. All right, folks, that's gonna do it for this one. All the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box. - Hey everyone, it is Ryan Seacrest here, ready to heat up your summer vacation. 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