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I would think that having such close access to the amazing Rocky Mountains, the unique town of Boulder, and all the skiing/ski towns would put Denver in that category of a city with lasting power as a desirable place. I find the weather here to be pretty amazing with the lack of humidity, cool evenings, 4 seasons, and mostly sunny winters. Denver has its own unique vibe, and there's a lot to do with the arts, music scene, restaurants etc. I just can't imagine that this city is going to stop its momentum forward with people moving in from much less desirable places.
I think people who absolutely LOVE mountain activities stay, but once most people get it out of their system it isn't that big of a deal. Other metro areas offer something that people experience every day of their lives, i.e. the weather in Socal or working for top tech companies etc.... Of course if that is not why you like living there I guess it really doesn't matter, but I have talked to so many people that say they won't leave because of it, no matter the cost of living. I guess it is true considering how many people are living in these areas regardless of COL.
I agree with you about the weather in Denver, I personally love it, snow and cold, but I meet a lot of people all the time who don't like the snow or cold. I haven't met too many people in Socal that say the weather sucks and they can't stand it. There definitely are some who don't like the lack of 4 seasons, but not too many.
No doubt the Denver area is a great place to live, but right now IMO it is more hype that is bringing the people in than anything else. It is just the popular thing to do right now.
Last edited by High Altitude; 08-03-2016 at 12:03 PM..
You have to provide proof of income to get a mortgage on a home. Why shouldn't you to rent a place?
It's pretty simple, really...if I'm a landlord renting a $1,000 a month apartment, I don't want someone (or a combination of people) who makes only $1,500 a month renting it. There's a good chance that they aren't going to be able to pay it, meaning that the landlord gets the fun of late payments/eviction notices/etc. But if the person (or combination of people) making $3,000 a month after taxes probably aren't going to have too many problems paying the rent. I don't need to check constantly after that, but I want some basic reassurance. For the self-employed or recently-moved-and-living-off-their-savings, there might be some different standards and ways to work around it, but there still will be some standards.
I lived at a complex that only required 2X the rent to rent there. There were months where I'd walk up to my place on the 2nd floor and see that all but 4 out of the 12 apartments on that floor had late notices placed on their doors. The ones that didn't were the leasing office worker, the person who did the deep cleans on apartments when people moved out, the guy who did some weird combination of day trading and running a dry cleaning business, and me (who spent about 25% of their income on rent and a hard and fast rule that the day I got my 2nd paycheck of the month, I'd go pay my rent before anything else).
There are some massive problems with housing availability and affordability throughout the metro area. But I still completely understand requiring submitting income information to rent a place.
It's actually simpler than that. If the tenants applying for rent have a good-to-great credit score, that means they are RESPONSIBLE people, and will never apply for a place that they wouldn't afford to pay. Easy as that. Had they done the opposite, they wouldn't have had such good credit history in the 1st place.
At the end of the day, it is a matter of TRUST. The Credit Reporting Agencies and various credit scoring models were invented as some means of TRUST. And you, as a landlord do NOT seem to TRUST THAT TRUST and are being .... a bit paranoid.
Asking for my exact yearly, before-taxes income is an INVASION OF MY PRIVACY. Why the heck can't you trust the third-party agency that was created in the 1st place as a buffer between the tenant and the landlord?
It's actually simpler than that. If the tenants applying for rent have a good-to-great credit score, that means they are RESPONSIBLE people, and will never apply for a place that they wouldn't afford to pay. Easy as that. Had they done the opposite, they wouldn't have had such good credit history in the 1st place.
At the end of the day, it is a matter of TRUST. The Credit Reporting Agencies and various credit scoring models were invented as some means of TRUST. And you, as a landlord do NOT seem to TRUST THAT TRUST and are being .... a bit paranoid.
Asking for my exact yearly, before-taxes income is an INVASION OF MY PRIVACY. Why the heck can't you trust the third-party agency that was created in the 1st place as a buffer between the tenant and the landlord?
Good credit in no way proves you have the income to afford something, it just shows that in the past, you paid your bills on time - but not necessarily ALL of your bills. As long as you make the minimum payment on your debts, that's a positive report to the credit agencies. It might take you a dozen years to pay off a credit card, even if you never charged anything else on it, but as long as you send in that $25 every month, your credit stays good. But that's not the same thing as showing you can afford the monthly rent on a $2000 apartment. And why should a landlord trust you when they know nothing about you other than your apparently reluctance to prove that you can pay the rent?
I have worked for Equifax for 5 years and I think I'm having an informative opinion on the subject of credit.
Sir, a personal credit information does not include only a credit score (actually the detailed info on the credit activity is more useful and granular than an overall score). A lender or landlord has the ability to see the ACTUAL balances for any debt instrument that the borrower/tenant is having / servicing in his/her name.
A good-to-great credit info does not necessarily imply that the person is "just making the minimum payments". It can also show that the person has ZERO, nada, zilch debt (or a current, minor debt is active, due the last credit card's monthly bill not being yet reported as being paid in the system).
I have never owned to anyone A CENT in my life (my house back in Canada was also purchased without any bankster involved, if you understand what I mean). I refuse to be treated as "guilty until proven innocent" by obtuse landlords, and being asked to show my exact yearly income (up to the very last cents) AND my job title. The credit keeping and reporting system was designed exactly to prevent that.
If you do not trust me as your tenant and are obtuse and ask for such financial info from me (due to un-founded lack of trust), then I would ALSO like to ask you how much you make, okay? Let the LACK of trust and paranoia be mutual then.
Btw, you want to know such un-necessary info ALSO because you want to separate me from MORE money on the next lease year period. Admit that, if you are honest.
"Bankster"? Because people take out a mortgage to buy a home? Sorry, but I'm bowing out of this conversation as I prefer to deal in reality. Good luck with your demands to a landlord for them to demonstrate their income to you as a requirement for you to rent a place. That's going to go over so well in Denver where landlords of desirable properties have more potential tenants than they even want.
No worries, I hope that this house bubble will not last longer in the Denver area. It is unsustainable what is going on.
Rents were actually affordable in Canada (in both the provinces of Quebec and Ontario at least). And not so crazy high so that they are actually NOT higher than a house mortgage payment!
If the real estate situation comes eventually to a pace here, no worries, I shall cease being a renter - it seems that being a renter here has some kind of negative connotation - to the tune of being a kind of "sucker" or something. Shame!
You also seemed to mention about preference to talk about reality. Yes, it's the reality that I was talking about. I was able to afford purchasing a home with 100% cash, and being a sole breadwinner in a family of 4, and without any money or help from anyone else. No relatives or friends with "financial help". All was saved with patience, sacrifice and hard work. Being frugal has become my (and my family's) second nature...If more people would be disciplined and living within their means, things like this will happen more often than one may imagine.
No worries, I hope that this house bubble will not last longer in the Denver area. It is unsustainable what is going on.
Rents were actually affordable in Canada (in both the provinces of Quebec and Ontario at least). And not so crazy high so that they are actually NOT higher than a house mortgage payment!
If the real estate situation comes eventually to a pace here, no worries, I shall cease being a renter - it seems that being a renter here has some kind of negative connotation - to the tune of being a kind of "sucker" or something. Shame!
You also seemed to mention about preference to talk about reality. Yes, it's the reality that I was talking about. I was able to afford purchasing a home with 100% cash, and being a sole breadwinner in a family of 4, and without any money or help from anyone else. No relatives or friends with "financial help". All was saved with patience, sacrifice and hard work. Being frugal has become my (and my family's) second nature...If more people would be disciplined and living within their means, things like this will happen more often than one may imagine.
I have noticed more and more 1 bedroom and studio apartment rentals for less then $1000 a month in the area then I did several months ago.
It certainly seems like the apartment rental market in the Denver area is softening in demand.
It seems more and more vacancies seem to be advertised in the Capitol Hill area and the neighborhods along Colfax.
I don't know about the single family home market, but just from short amounts of research I have done it seems like there are more listings then there were in the Denver area.
Colorado Springs has alot of demand for apartments, but it seems like in the more expensive neighborhoods there are lots of "for sale" signs.
Colorado Springs is a good city for retiree's as they have lots and lots of large single-family homes that have been reduced in price multiple times.
I have noticed more and more out-of-state plates in the cheaper areas of Colorado Springs and in my opinion apartment rents are very high compared to what they have been historically.
In the areas of Colorado Springs that are more expensive there are more and more for sale signs and it is uncommon to see out of state plates.
No worries, I hope that this house bubble will not last longer in the Denver area. It is unsustainable what is going on.
Amen to that, you can only have a situation where average rent is $1200-$2000/month..... but average millennial is only making $10-$14/hour at some low-pay job (while shacking up w/ multiple roommates to cope) for so long. And of course, simply living w/ parents or renting from parents is also a very popular strategy for coping w/ the economy.
This isn't California where wages/jobs generally *match* the high cost-of-living, this is Colorado where outside of the general downtown/DTC area and a few small pockets here and there most jobs just don't pay that much. Around Denver it seems there is an ever-widening "disconnect" between COL and wages, that gets worse year-over-year. Average working folks are being charged "luxury apartment prices" for what amount to poverty-segment apartment units in NON-luxury, run-down, aging, creaky 70's-era buildings. I think $1600-$2000/month for a decent LUXURY apartment is reasonable, but $2000/month for a run-down apartment in the bad part of town - with crime, welfare, drugs, and gunshots heard off in the distance - is just ridiculous
I notice a lot of local employers lately seem to be "throwing people a bone" by increasing their starting wage "of their own volition" and without being "forced" to by the government or some other entity. For example a McDonald's I frequent for coffee has raised it's starting wage to $10/hr, up from $8.75/hr. Another burger place has raised it's wage to $9/hr, up from $8/hr. Walmart is now offering $12.50/hr for night shifts, up from $11/hr. While it's a nice gesture, the new wages are still a pittance in the face of the 50%-60% hike to housing in the last 4 years, (now mandatory) health insurance, student loans, etc.
Yeah, millennials like "hip" and "trendy" locales, but sooner or later the basic math of rent + health insurance + student loans + auto costs + food + etc catches up and they either have to add more roommates (and accept a lower level of privacy/quality-of-life ) or move somewhere cheaper (usually back home).
If Colorado care passes, all bets are off. A large amount of people from all over the country will be running towards Colorado and I doubt those people will be high salary earners. Rents will explode.
If Colorado care passes, all bets are off. A large amount of people from all over the country will be running towards Colorado and I doubt those people will be high salary earners. Rents will explode.
I will bet a large portion of those with money will be running the other way as well.
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