Denver housing market crash? (Boulder: apartment, rental market, insurance)

[emm74]

Thank John Denver. Rocky Mountain High was too good a joke to pass up.

[Timmyy]

Originally Posted by Katarina Witt

Washington and Colorado both legalized recreational marijuana in 2012. However, Colorado got the rep. I remember when some friends visited us from New England right after legalization. That's literally almost all they wanted to talk about!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeli..._United_States

I think Washington didn't allow sales until 6 months after us though. Either way Denver was the face of legalization at the time.

[JrzDefector]

Originally Posted by Best_Coast

Because the "everyone moved here for pot" narrative is totally accurate...

Hah! When I moved here 7 years ago, I kept wondering if Denver had a massive skunk infestation. Didn't even realize that it was legal (then) for medical use until I was here a month! I thought all the pot leaves just meant there were a lot of former hippies.

I know one guy who moved here for the pot, and he has MS.

[JrzDefector]

On the housing market, from my perspective it is as others have said an issue of demand. I'm in Edgewater. My house is probably currently worth twice what I paid for it five years ago. I got in just before things really exploded. As part of my job I occasionally speak with a well-known economist and he gave me the advice that tipped the scales - he pointed out that Denver had weathered the last housing meltdown fairly well and was growing like crazy. If I could get something at a reasonable price, he told me to go for it.

I honestly don't know what I would do in the current environment. Currently, I know that if I meet with financial disaster, I can sell my house pretty easily at a significant profit, pay off all my debts, and take off for some place like Ohio, where properties are dirt cheap and start over. My work is not location dependent, so it's just a matter of getting out of here.

[MN_Ski]

I'm only saying it had some influence, not even a significant amount.

Honestly...if your an older, family oriented person (has kids, live in the burbs, commute to work everyday, don't really go out), you will never get exposure to those who do in fact move here for weed. Go to...say Viewhouse, 1Up, Forest Room 5, etc on a Saturday night. Talk to people who are under the age of 30. Within mins, you will come across people who only moved here for weed. There are the 21-26 year olds who are living 5+ people in a house, or the ones who sleep in their cars, or the ones who only stay around for 6 months or so. Unless you get into these environments, you will NEVER get exposure to those people.

The jobs argument is also kind of misleading. If someone wants to move here for weed, they find a job they qualify for online, end up moving here for it...did they really move here for weed, or the job? There is no way to collect data on this topic.

I have a friend from Atlanta who had 5 buddies of his all rent a house last summer. They all found jobs right away, and they all moved here because pot...sure they said "mountains and jobs", but they would have never ended up coming here if rec wasn't legal. They all moved back to Atlanta last month.

I'll even admit it's a very small demographic (like the 21-26 year olds). Talk to the people out at the kids bars on a weekend, talk to the people in line at the dispensaries, talk to your servers...you will come across many who have had some motive to move for the weed. Just because no data exists doesn't mean it's not true.

I'll even give you that those who do move here for weed are not the ones buying homes...

There are what, 150,000+ total employees in the MJ industry of CO today? I'll make a strong bet that less than 50% of those were CO residents before 2014.

[Best_Coast]

Weed can be bought all over the country. Easily. I don't see people moving here just to do it legally. Most employers still test for it. Most apartments don't allow you to smoke it, nor can you smoke it in public.

And regarding jobs in the pot industry, the most common dispensary job, budtender, pays $12 an hour. Like I stated previously, you can make more than that working in retail or fast food. Budtender positions are also highly competitive and only the most educated on marijuana are typically hired. It would be quite ignorant to move to Colorado solely for pot-related reasons.

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by MN_Ski

There are what, 150,000+ total employees in the MJ industry of CO today? I'll make a strong bet that less than 50% of those were CO residents before 2014.

What are you smoking?? That would be 5% of the entire Colorado working population.

It’s 0.7% of ~3,000,000 or about 21,000 jobs.

[MN_Ski]

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

What are you smoking?? That would be 5% of the entire Colorado working population.

It’s 0.7% of ~3,000,000 or about 21,000 jobs.

Hmmm, I wonder

Yeah that's my bad, the stat is for the country.

So I'm actually curious, how many of those who do not believe people move here for MJ actually participate or go out with 20 somethings? I've talked to dozens of bud-tenders over the years, they do in fact move here for the MJ jobs. If fact, the women I talked to 2 weeks ago moved here from Florida and is working at a dispensary and a coffee shop part time. Last month, a college friend from Chicago posted about how she could move to Denver. 5 of her friends commented saying how easy it was to find bud tender jobs, and recommended apartments with roomates You can get by making $12 and hour with roommates. People are very very determined to break into the industry. There are also those who come for the MJ tourism, realize it's a cool place to live, and then end up moving here.

Do you guys ever read Reddit? The demographic is mainly millennial's. Do a quick search about "moving to Denver" threads, and you will find hundreds of people moving here to MJ jobs....sure, they probably go broke and move back home eventually, but they are there. I think people are really underestimating just how influential legalization was for millennial's. And if you are not part of the MJ demographic, you will never see it.

Another demographic that people forget about are those on disability, who want to use MJ for pain, but want to do it legally (like my neighbor).

I like this topic, it's fun, but feel free to lock at anytime.

[headingtoDenver]

Funny about the talk of people moving here for $12 dollar an hour jobs, yet we are talking about a shortage of homes 300K and up.

[MN_Ski]

Originally Posted by headingtoDenver

Funny about the talk of people moving here for $12 dollar an hour jobs, yet we are talking about a shortage of homes 300K and up.

They are partially related. Those making $12 end up renting homes from private home owners renting out their second/third/investment property. As rental prices creep up, inventory shrinks, the profits and benifits of being a landlord increase.