Homebuilders are busy once again in Las Vegas

[Torie]

This is not good.

A) Which sicko wants to live in a desert ?

B) Aren't they running out of water there at some point in the next few years if this growth continues ?

A) Me.  I'd love to live there.  LOW humidity and sitting by the pool at 90 degrees with a 5% humidity is awesome.

You can have humidity that low?  As a resident of South Carolina's 2nd Congressional District, I say that "You Lie!"

Chapped lips, guys.  Chapped lips and premature wrinkling.

As for the subject of the thread - it is really astounding that they are building homes again.  I would have thought the only homes to be built nowadays would be for the very high-end luxury market - say at least 800,000-1,000,000 dollar plus houses (double that for CA, etc.).  This income bracket is doing well as is this housing bracket.  But everything below is sheer deflation.

Upper middle class neighborhoods in Socal are in rather pronounced price upswing at the moment actually. I even see signs of life out in the desert in those gated golfing communities. Indio however is still prostrate.

[Torie]

I would have thought the only homes to be built nowadays would be for the very high-end luxury market - say at least 800,000-1,000,000 dollar plus houses (double that for CA, etc.).  This income bracket is doing well as is this housing bracket.  But everything below is sheer deflation.

Upper middle class neighborhoods in Socal are in rather pronounced price upswing at the moment actually. I even see signs of life out in the desert in those gated golfing communities. Indio however is still prostrate.

I don't know 'Indio' but I would assume it is the area out in the Eastern part of the LA metro.  But when you say 'upper middle class' in Socal what is the price range?  Does that designation fit my $1.6-2 million conjecture above?

Oh, areas where lower end houses are around 750K or so might be near the break point as a guess. It is amazing to look at an LA County map. The areas with appreciation are very tightly correlated with chic.

[Torie]

I would have thought the only homes to be built nowadays would be for the very high-end luxury market - say at least 800,000-1,000,000 dollar plus houses (double that for CA, etc.).  This income bracket is doing well as is this housing bracket.  But everything below is sheer deflation.

Upper middle class neighborhoods in Socal are in rather pronounced price upswing at the moment actually. I even see signs of life out in the desert in those gated golfing communities. Indio however is still prostrate.

I don't know 'Indio' but I would assume it is the area out in the Eastern part of the LA metro.  But when you say 'upper middle class' in Socal what is the price range?  Does that designation fit my $1.6-2 million conjecture above?

Indio

[Torie]

I would have thought the only homes to be built nowadays would be for the very high-end luxury market - say at least 800,000-1,000,000 dollar plus houses (double that for CA, etc.).  This income bracket is doing well as is this housing bracket.  But everything below is sheer deflation.

Upper middle class neighborhoods in Socal are in rather pronounced price upswing at the moment actually. I even see signs of life out in the desert in those gated golfing communities. Indio however is still prostrate.

I don't know 'Indio' but I would assume it is the area out in the Eastern part of the LA metro.  But when you say 'upper middle class' in Socal what is the price range?  Does that designation fit my $1.6-2 million conjecture above?

Oh, areas where lower end houses are around 750K or so might be near the break point as a guess. It is amazing to look at an LA County map. The areas with appreciation are very tightly correlated with chic.

Where are you seeing this map of price changes?

Here is a toy you can play with.

[Torie]

Oops, I meant to say nobody commutes from Indio. Anyways, basically nobody commutes from that area across the mountains into Riverside or San Bernardino. Except in the rate case where one spouse works in Indio and another works in Riverside/San Bernardino. It's just too far to go and the cost differential in houses is not that high. And indeed there are places like Banning and Beaumont in between where you could live cheaply (another disaster zone).

A lot of folks in Indio, and next door even more downmarket Coachella, service folks who live in places like the below, about 5 miles away from the snap of downtown Indio I posted above. I cannot imagine an area in the US with a higher GINI coefficient. It's the next "best" thing to Mexico. After Lehman however, folks living to the south and SW of Indio near the base of the Santa Rosa Mountains, required less of those services, and had less money to pay for them. Many simply did not show up at all for "the season." (The monied zones are mostly empty in the summer.) So that along with the end of construction, caused the area to just basically shut down for awhile. I would guess about three quarters of the more upscale restaurants failed in the area for example, causing more job losses for the Indio area folks.

But things are picking up now rather substantially - other than construction of course which is still at a standstill.