The emptiest city in America

Hey PC ... are all of those pre-planned communities up in Anthem thriving or are they part of the problem. When I lived there, I always thought it was way too much to have that many houses up there, especially since 17 was a bottleneck north of Deer Valley. I couldn't imagine wanting to commute 35 miles each way to go to downtown from Anthem ...

 

At least Vegas/Phoenix have tourism and people looking for vacation homes. I think the prospects might be bleaker in some of the California communities that are in areas that have no industry or tourist attractions. Not only are they remote and surrounded by agriculture or open desert, but they're saddled with all the tax negatives of California. Seems a harder sell than a decent condo/house in Vegas or Phoenix for 100-200 grand.

 

I've heard too many ugly first-person stories about the increased crime rates in borderline-or-worse areas of Vegas (and I'm including the busiest parts of Downtown here, in a significant way, not to mention too many parking lots serving some of the
off-strip joints) to make me comfortable. To make a long story short,
the desparados are loose, they're packing, and it's your money or your life, in too
many cases. There's no confusing the Bellagio with Deadwood -- yet -- but
things are getting far dicier than the genteel would like.

 

Have you been commenting on my paper's website lately?

 

They're not necessarily the worst spots, but they're part of the problem. They've had a lot of foreclosures up there.

The crazy part is, there are similar developments that are a hell of a lot farther out from the city center than Anthem. At least it's on I-17. They built a second Anthem near Florence, close to 90 minutes from downtown Phoenix. Places like that are really getting their asses kicked. There are people who were the first to buy in a new development.. and damn near the last to buy. They're stuck in a neighborhood of empty and half-finished homes.

Before the bubble burst the developers were pushing Casa Grande as a convenient Phoenix suburb. It's halfway to Tucson.

 

The vacation home industry is bleak. If you don't have the money for a first home, you certainly don't for a second. Plus, there are amateur investors who thought they were junior Tommy Wus and thought they were going to have a boat and hot chicks if they bought real estate. My mother-in-law was lucky to sell her condo on the west coast of Florida (and still make money in the process), because at least two units in her 50-unit building were in foreclosure. A lot of the retirees are moving back home because their investments went kaput and they can't afford to pay the mortgage on the condo anymore.

 

As we all know, Phoenix is VERY spread out, for what it is, but that's stretching it.

 

Too late. LOL

 

$2.1M in LA.

 

Unfortunately, this beautiful estate is not in LaLa land.

 

Baltimore, Newark, Detroit it's all on the same street

 

Definitely not Newark or Baltimore. Could be Detroit, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse. I'd even throw in Boston. Chicago might be stretching it a bit.