Kinja reply list

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Montauk MonsterHamilton Nolan
8/20/13 1:19pm
I get why Vegas is there. Crime, sin, money. Duh. But why is Phoenix so big? Is there some kind of industry the city specializes in that I'm not aware of?
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  김치전!Montauk Monster
  8/20/13 1:26pm
  As far as I can tell every time I'm dragged north by a good concert or medical procedure, Phoenix specializes in freeway dust storms, mediocre food and accommodations, and stupid-but-beautiful ASU students.
  
  #FreeBajaArizona
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  For Fuck's SakeMontauk Monster
  8/20/13 1:33pm
  Phoenix is what I like to call a hub city. This means there are a lot of companies which have regional headquarters here, because housing (and for that matter, commercial office space) is relatively inexpensive (compared with California, or sometimes Texas).
  
  Also, about 10 months a year the weather is decent, which makes it a nice place to retire or live part of the year. The most oppressive heat is primarily mid-May through mid-July.
  
  But yeah, we'll all regret it when the water wars come.
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raincoasterHamilton Nolan
8/20/13 2:00pm
It really is just a horror show waiting to happen. Ten years ago I had a shitty job writing shitty blog posts about these shitty, speculative McMansions in shitty sunbelt cities. It was soul-killing, but I knew they were going to make a lot of money while ruining countless futures. And they did. Looks like they're still at it.

For the curious: $5 a post, for 200-250 original words. Twelve posts a day.
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  leftinvtraincoaster
  8/20/13 2:49pm
  ...so how long does it take you to earn a Big Mac at that rate?
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  Citizen-Kangraincoaster
  8/20/13 2:58pm
  OK...maybe my math is off, but you made $60 a day? How does a person survive on $60 a day?
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TP3DHamilton Nolan
8/20/13 12:57pm
Gawker, rooting for our county to fail.
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  fstop4TP3D
  8/20/13 1:05pm
  Gotta burn out the bad before we can rebuild anew.
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  BacksliderIVTP3D
  8/20/13 1:05pm
  You're the same kind of person who will say no one saw this coming in a year after the bottom falls out. Or you blame Hamilton Nolan.
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mar1111Hamilton Nolan
8/20/13 1:04pm
Phoenix is actually kind of a real city, though.
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  sigmaoctansmar1111
  8/20/13 1:08pm
  I live downtown, and its OK, there's plenty to do, its actually improved a lot in the last 5 years or so, and we have the light rail now. I also live in a high-rise, so no lawn to water.
  
  But I stay the hell away from the west and east valleys - there is a direct linear relationship between your distance from central avenue and the likelihood you'll be attacked by some species of chain restaurant.
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  dscsdcsdksdfxcvxcsigmaoctans
  8/20/13 1:21pm
  +1
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bipolar-copHamilton Nolan
8/20/13 1:22pm
I am not a Vegas booster (been there once in my 41 years on this planet and I live in California) but to me the recipe for this post would be:

Mix 2 parts "snooty judgmental NYC east coast hipster" with 1 part "jealous of people who actually buy homes still" with 1 part "angry that I can't afford to buy anything in my beloved metropolis" and bake for 2 minutes at 100 degrees.
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  김치전!bipolar-cop
  8/20/13 1:30pm
  Or, in Phoenix's case, 110 degrees for six months a year.
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  HoorayBeer!!bipolar-cop
  8/20/13 1:59pm
  Yep. It's funny coming from someone who pays $3k a month to share a tiny apartment with 4 other people just for the privilege to live in NYC.
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SpangarangHamilton Nolan
8/20/13 1:12pm

GIF

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  RussianistSpangarang
  8/20/13 2:16pm
  Some musical accompaniment to that gif:
  
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Governor McCheeseHamilton Nolan
8/20/13 1:16pm
Housing prices also jump because of a lack of housing supply. There is a front page story on the Wall Street Journal as we speak about the housing supply crunch in Houston. The housing supply crunch in North Dakota caused by the huge influx of gas workers has also been well documented. These are just two examples. Moreover, Phoenix and Las Vegas were two of the cities hardest hit by the housing market crash, so as prices return to "normal", the bounce will appear more dramatic in those places than in others. We are still very far from the prices we saw during the bubble. The biggest threat to the housing market is the inability for Millenials, who are saddled with student loan debt, to purchase, not easy credit. Interest rates are the highest they have been in two years and are still rising; this is not a recipe for a housing bubble.
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  DuchessGeekGovernor McCheese
  8/20/13 1:32pm
  Shhhh... Your logic has no place here, where words like'bubble' are applied indiscriminately with no idea what the term actually means.
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x1jdbHamilton Nolan
8/20/13 1:26pm
Can we get a bubble nomination for San Francisco Bay area housing? The valuation of my house in the ghetto in Oakland is up 250% from what I bought it for almost 3 years ago. That's 3 years of rehab and remodeling later, but that's a lot of price rise in a short time. And people are paying crazy money for real estate and rent now.
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  Cherith Cutestoryx1jdb
  8/20/13 2:49pm
  Sell!!!
  
  (San Francisco is on the cusp of two potential bubbles. Housing and the tech bubble. So, yeah, definitely. I have no real say so my definitely is meaningless but yeah.)
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Crestfallen CommenterHamilton Nolan
8/20/13 1:10pm
I still don't really understand what qualifies as a McMansion to be honest - can anybody enlighten me?
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  JerrysackCrestfallen Commenter
  8/20/13 1:19pm
  A large, boxy, model home, its not a custom home, so the the neighborhood is comprised of similarly styled houses, that sit on a smaller parcel of land. When you drive through the neighborhood it feels like you are going in circles because every street looks the same.
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  Citizen-KangCrestfallen Commenter
  8/20/13 1:19pm
  I have a pretty simple rule of thumb when it comes to what constitutes a McMansion. Anything with more square footage than where I am currently living is a McMansion. When I was living in the dorms at UCLA, anything larger than a shoebox was a McMansion. These days, a double-wide and larger is the new gold standard.
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G BurnerHamilton Nolan
8/20/13 1:42pm
I'll just leave this here- Living in LV

It's not so bad when you head into the better parts of Summerlin and Green Valley. Other than pure economics, why anyone would live in North LV or anywhere else is beyond me. Among the locals, people who don't live in either of the two livable areas are constantly defending their rationale for living in a craptacular forced community like 'Mountain's Edge' and 'Southern Highlands'. No. These places are clapboard ticky-tacky crap festooned with strip malls and devoid of any livable amenities.

The RE market out here is nothing short of insane recently. You really can't help but watch it and think "What the... Did we NOT learn our lesson?" (hint: 50th in the nation for public education, so in all likelihood, no, we weren't even aware there was a lesson). But the issue is not the locals, unfortunately, it's California and China. Yep. Tour buses of Chinese visitors go through the (low-end) neighborhoods and buy up houses with cash to rent back. Heck, if there's anyone that knows about wise RE purchases and definitely doesn't irrationally over-expand, it's California and China!
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  La.M.G Burner
  8/20/13 3:39pm
  My landlord lives in Israel.
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  anonlvG Burner
  8/20/13 5:16pm
  DTLV resident here. You can keep your suburbs, because everything that matters in this city is happening downtown.
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