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Location: The Biggest Little Meth Lab In The World
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How is it that wages are so low here, and housing costs are outrageous?
To help me better understand can some of you give me a ballpark of your salary vs home cost? Sure there are people here who make big money and can afford to live in the Galena area. But I think the high rollers would have to be the minority. Look at how many people in this city work retail, fast food, warehouse jobs, casino jobs, etc. Those jobs don't pay jack sh*t.
I recently looked at the MLS in ascending order and it appears 300K is where "starter homes" start at. And I'm talking more about actually in the Reno area and excluding the north valleys (which are still expensive I might add). I just can't fathom there are that many high paying jobs out there to allow this many people to afford 3K dollar mortgages. I was laid off my job a couple months ago and have been looking, and there are a f*ckload of jobs in the sub 20/hr category. In fact I'd say that would be the pay scale across the majority of the jobs in the area. I was making a little under 20/hr when I moved here and there's no chance in hell I could have afforded a mortgage on what I was bringing home. I was having a hard time just finding a decent place to rent on what I made. So where the hell are all the retail and fast food workers living? I'm expected to believe that many people live at home with their parents? It just doesn't add up.
How is it that wages are so low here, and housing costs are outrageous?
To help me better understand can some of you give me a ballpark of your salary vs home cost? Sure there are people here who make big money and can afford to live in the Galena area. But I think the high rollers would have to be the minority. Look at how many people in this city work retail, fast food, warehouse jobs, casino jobs, etc. Those jobs don't pay jack sh*t.
I recently looked at the MLS in ascending order and it appears 300K is where "starter homes" start at. And I'm talking more about actually in the Reno area and excluding the north valleys (which are still expensive I might add). I just can't fathom there are that many high paying jobs out there to allow this many people to afford 3K dollar mortgages. I was laid off my job a couple months ago and have been looking, and there are a f*ckload of jobs in the sub 20/hr category. In fact I'd say that would be the pay scale across the majority of the jobs in the area. I was making a little under 20/hr when I moved here and there's no chance in hell I could have afforded a mortgage on what I was bringing home. I was having a hard time just finding a decent place to rent on what I made. So where the hell are all the retail and fast food workers living? I'm expected to believe that many people live at home with their parents? It just doesn't add up.
Apartments are still more affordable in Reno than in most parts of California, and Reno has been like that for at least 30 years, a good number of the people living in the nicer homes are retirees from California. And you can buy a condo or townhouse in a number of areas in Reno for < 100k. But with that said, it's not a place known for paying high wages, after my son graduated from UNR with a degree in accounting he worked at three different jobs in Reno, none paid more than $23 an hour. He loved Reno but ended up taking a job with in Northern California, I think his starting salary was $30 an hour.
As far as I can tell it's simply a supply and demand issue. The supply of housing is still very low, driving prices up for what's available. We purchased our house in NW Reno for $125k in 2013, pretty much perfect timing. Comps in our area are selling for about $220k now, maybe more.
Realtor.com is likely filtering out properties that the realtor isn't paying them to showcase or the like. There are several houses in the old NW (built in the early 70's mostly I think) for less than $200k. Asking prices to seem to be all over the map though. It's not as simple as 'houses are going for x', a lot depends on what you want, where you look, etc..
I would say that most households in the Reno area are depending on two sub-$20/hour wages to make the mortgage. I know a few couples making $15-20 each, a car payment, and qualify for about $250k. Houses in that price range are all over the board. Some are in the old NW, there are a fair number in the north valleys, and some in 89512.But you won't be finding any in the south end of town at the price.
Real estate IS stupidly expensive here. We were fortunate to be able to rent a house for about $1400 per month almost 2 years ago. I say "fortunate" because the landlord hasn't bothered to make us sign a new lease and hasn't tried to raise our rent - now we can't find anything in the same size for less than $1700 per month.
My son is buying a house for me here and our only choices ended up all being North in Stead, Sun Valley, or even further north in Cold Springs (which is WAY to high in elevation for my tastes, they have about no growing season there due to continued low night-time temps way into the late summer/early spring). They get more snow there as well.
Other than that you have to go far afield into Fallon or other small desert towns before you can find affordable housing (livable for under $150k).
We just made an offer on a house that listed for $145k, but it was super hard to find anything that would pass inspection in that price range. The offer hasn't been accepted yet, either, so we could still lose it. Houses in the under $150k price range usually don't spend more than a few days on the market - some never even make it to market. Not even when they have fairly worrisome problems.
Some of the problems we came across include:
Damaged peeling collapsing soffet
Roof damage, missing shingles
Hole knocked in the garage that they simply covered with plywood
broken siding
60 to 80A ungrounded electrical service - this is nearly ubiquitous in most lower cost housing
Tubs that need replaced or refinished
cracked plaster walls - cracked all the way back to the lathe, not spidering
cheap laminate floor that had been improperly installed and popped and buckled as you walked across it
Mold. Yup, in the Reno High Sierra Desert area - mold. How they managed that is beyond me, but there it is
Windows that had broken seals and needed replaced
Old aluminum windows that needed replaced for a variety of reasons
Odor problems, mostly from smokers
Dirty, broken kitchen cabinets with multiple layers of paint that has built up over the past 60 years until its practically an archaeological site with the many layers.
Yards full of pea gravel dumped over black plastic. That is not xeriscaping. Its just hideous and hot and hard to fix because having all that pea gravel scraped up and hauled off costs even more than having it dumped there in the first place.
Crappy neighborhoods - one place we looked at had been bought for $48k, gutted, retrofitted, and is now on the market for $145K - but there were a lot of problems with it, including needing a new roof and the fact that when she gutted and rebuilt the house, she turned double-sliding-door closets into closets with a regular swing-out door- so you can't even get at half the closet rod because its behind drywall. She also built over the back door so there is only one door. FHA won't approve a loan on a house that doesn't meet acceptable fire codes, including having 2 doors that open to the outside for better egress in case of fire. To get into the back yard you have to go out the FRONT door, and walk all the way around the house. But this was literally the BEST house in a neighborhood of houses with half the roofs missing, ditto siding, junk in the yards, peeling paint, and just generally really really REALLY run down.
No central heat
No AC nor even swamp coolers
One way people get around this is to share living space. One place I looked at was on a tiny tiny cul-de-sac where the houses were literally only about 2' apart from each other at the fronts of their wedge-shaped lots. And each and every house on the cul-de-sac had 3 or 4 cars in the driveways or parked pointing in towards the house so they stick way out in the street. I counted 19 cars between 4 houses. Granted, each house was a duplex, but that was still way too many cars and people in such a small space. There were signs in front of the drive of the other half of the duplex we were looking at that said "Parking for XXXX ONLY" - and there was someone parked in front of his drive so he couldn't get out anyway.
The real estate person was pretty miffed when I utterly refused to even consider that house. Tried to do an end run around me by suggesting to my son sotto-voce that they should check it again during the week to see if all those cars would still be there. Yeah, I heard that! I'm disabled, not deaf and stupid. I nixed that right away. "Maybe there won't be so many cars then" my sweet white fanny, LOL!
Well of course there wouldn't. Everybody will be at school or work then. I'm sure it looks entirely normal at 10 AM on a weekday. The house next door was also a junkyard, and yet this house was being pushed at me as being "super nice" - which is was anything BUT. Unless your definition of "super-nice" means "probably - PROBABLY - will pass a basic inspection". But the market at the low end is so tight that this house, even with 19 cars filling up the cul-de-sac (it took the realtor forever to back the SUV out of the already-too-narrow driveway because of the cars parked nose-in all around the circle) is considered "super-nice". And the realtor was actually insulted that I would reject this wonderful domicile merely because of crowding, impossible parking, and junk all up and down my property line from the neighbor.
"But its nice INSIDE!" Except it wasn't. It had super cheap old 70s style kitchen cabinets that don't even have wood doors, but that printed wood-grain vinyl stuff on some kind of manufactured wood, probably particle board. The stove was so old the lettering had worn off around the dials. You couldn't even get at the so-called utility closet because it was nailed shut.
Oh yeah, and it had a door that was literally nailed shut, for no apparent reason. No clue what horribleness that is hiding. Made me wonder if I should call the local gendarmes and ask if anyone living in that house had disappeared in the last 10 years or so.
Last edited by Pyewackette; 04-11-2016 at 08:17 PM..
Since Tesla is setting up outside of Reno and expecting to open its doors in a few years, rents have been skyrocketing. Before, average rent used to be 7-800. Now it runs up from 800-1000+ and increasing. Meanwhile, wages remain the same and hasn't kept up with the rent.
Since Tesla is setting up outside of Reno and expecting to open its doors in a few years, rents have been skyrocketing. Before, average rent used to be 7-800. Now it runs up from 800-1000+ and increasing. Meanwhile, wages remain the same and hasn't kept up with the rent.
Actually just registered to respond to this thread.
I have been dealing with property management companies and they are now "worried" that the Tesla boom isn't really happening as expected. The apartment complexes which have raised their prices $100 to even $300/month are now seeing renters move out and they are having higher vacancy rates. Kinda don't feel bad for them since that's what they get for being greedy but at that same time, businesses have to turn profit right?
On a more interesting note, the market is seeing more and more houses up for auction. Working with a real estate agent, owners/sellers are opting for this scheme since it brings out the people/corporations with cash and for someone not familiar with real estate transactions: Cash is always easier to close since there are little to no contingency.
The wages are definitely not keeping up with the rent/housing costs increase but at the same time, we have to consider the artificial inflation brought about by the Tesla speculation. Hopefully it will level itself out soon.
How is it that wages are so low here, and housing costs are outrageous?
To help me better understand can some of you give me a ballpark of your salary vs home cost? Sure there are people here who make big money and can afford to live in the Galena area. But I think the high rollers would have to be the minority. Look at how many people in this city work retail, fast food, warehouse jobs, casino jobs, etc. Those jobs don't pay jack sh*t.
I recently looked at the MLS in ascending order and it appears 300K is where "starter homes" start at. And I'm talking more about actually in the Reno area and excluding the north valleys (which are still expensive I might add). I just can't fathom there are that many high paying jobs out there to allow this many people to afford 3K dollar mortgages. I was laid off my job a couple months ago and have been looking, and there are a f*ckload of jobs in the sub 20/hr category. In fact I'd say that would be the pay scale across the majority of the jobs in the area. I was making a little under 20/hr when I moved here and there's no chance in hell I could have afforded a mortgage on what I was bringing home. I was having a hard time just finding a decent place to rent on what I made. So where the hell are all the retail and fast food workers living? I'm expected to believe that many people live at home with their parents? It just doesn't add up.
I've been moaning about this. You come here either having made your money already - in other states, and now want a tax haven on personal income, or you are a snowbird, owning a house here but living the majority of the time in CA. Most of the "working" people here either commute, have a job that isn't dependent on Reno itself or are in very specific fields. Or you live in an apartment or dwelling with many other people.
The retail and other people are living in crappy apartments. Think Brinkby ave, and all that stuff behind the Peppermill. Or they live in Sparks, the lower, poorer section of it. My daughter and her boyfriend are living in a big complex, no washer dryer, have had huge problems with bed bugs because of the problems with like 8 people living in one unit - and these critters travel through the walls. They pay almost $800 for an old run down unit. I pay nearly $1200 for a very old unit...the baseboards literally have duct tape on them.
People buying the homes here - really never made or are making their money here. If you work for certain state jobs, you can do very well, but mainly those folks live in areas like Carson, Dayton, Fernley. I don't think they realize that as they age - there is next to no health care in those areas. Carson Tahoe hospital is a joke.
I need to add something also - as I've complained in other posts about how tax heavy Reno is (taxes on gas, sales tax poss going up, DMV costs, etc) - I'm looking at getting a used minivan and I'm totally shocked how much more expensive cars are in Reno and the state. You can save $2,000 to $8000 by going down to Sacramento areas - just doing some quick searches. Subarus are way way over priced up here. Used cars are way over priced.
My daughter and I know a large amount of people that do not own a car due to expense - they use public transit, rely on others for rides, even take taxis occasionally - or they live in bad areas that are close to work so they can walk. Bikes and scooters are regularly stolen - as my daughter's boyfriend just had one stolen (was bolted to a post).
The people who are doing "okay" or good here - don't like to hear the sad, scary other side to life here. They prefer to stay in lala land. I have a special needs child and have to get out to find services and better rent.
And is you go to any Walmart or Winco around the 1st of the month, you see the large amount of people on food stamps here. That is NOT a healthy sign for a region.
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