Vegas Baby! How do I pay for a room?

So it looks like I'll be moving to Vegas in mid-to-late February.

Like Alice Cooper with Milwaukee, I'm a frequent visitor . . . but know very little about the place as it pertains to living there. I know there are at least a few LV BF’ers whose expertise I can tap into.

Based on my initial research, either the Summerlin or Henderson areas seem to be likely destinations. But I can be talked into looking at other places.

My work will be about a 60/40 split between working from home and going to the airport – so I have some freedom in selecting a location.

For now I’m just looking for someplace to rent. It’s just me and I don’t have that much stuff, so a 1-BR apartment will be fine (or even a 2-BR is the price is right). I tentatively plan to make a house-hunting trip around Jan 24-27th-ish.

So . . . any info/advice from locals is welcome. Areas to look at, areas to avoid, specific apt. complexes you’d suggest, tips, warnings . . . anything you think would be helpful.

So much deja vu! But in all seriousness, I'd talk to one of the locals. Paging balut Bill Dungsroman

Ah, I'd completely forgotten about the summoning feature of this forum. Thanks Ryan.

balut is my favorite esper, I think.

Yeah man those are both good places to live. I live in Henderson myself. Some parts of it can be pretty funky but not compared to some parts of town.

Look at some places and feel free to PM me about them. I'll shoot you straight, promise!

In Vegas since 2007? Wow, it's been a little while.

Summerlin and Henderson are good/richer areas to live in. Henderson is in the southeast.. but really, anywhere south of the 215 is fine so long as you're not right by Las Vegas Blvd. Some decent little apts in the Rainbow & Robindale area, and it's an easy jump to the 215 to McCarran.

Some tips:

• Learn to like walking through casinos to go to a movie, Tropicana Cinemas is a great cheesy $1.50 cash theater
• Town Square's Blue Martini is a hot spot for the town on Fri/Sat nights if you're into that
• Archi's Thai is probably the best thai food in town, used to be cheaper, still good
• You are 1-4 hours from some fantastic weekend destinations: Mt Charleston, Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, Brianhead UT
• Lots of places discount for locals with ID (strip clubs, movie theaters on certain days, 2for1 shows, etc)
• First Friday is worth checking out for artsy / local stuff at least once
• Pub grub is surprisingly decent and cheap here (as it's subsidized by gaming)

Warnings:

• This place drinks like it's going out of style. I'd never had coworkers without cars because of DUIs before. Your intake will likely go up, just be aware that this town lends itself to excess very easily and of course this leads into:
• Driving. Not only do we get California and NY imports both trying to kill each other on the same roads with very different driving styles, there is a scary high level of DUIs, your car insurance may jump a bit
• Your summer electric bill will be 1.5x to 3x your winter bill because of AC
• Vegas is very transient, so getting to know your neighbors can be a rougher or nonexistent process
• When cars are stolen, they frequently end up in North Las Vegas, just sayin'

Hope this helps.

Random thoughts on the subject:

• Henderson is closer to McCarran Airport than Summerlin. Cheaper, too, in general.
• North Las Vegas is probably the cheapest major area, but yeah, don't live/go there.
• The housing crash hit Vegas hard, and it's just starting to show signs of recovery. You could probably find good deals on house rentals if you're looking for short-term digs, and even better deals on houses, if you're looking more permanent. There are $600k+ homes that are on the market for ~$200k in some areas, and ~$200k homes on the market for ~$80k.
• Make sure you have under/uninsured motorist coverage for your car. Vegas is filthy with uninsured drivers. Also filthy with shitty local drivers, shitty out-of-town-drivers, and shitty drunk drivers. You will learn to hate every BMW, Audi, and Cadillac on the road.
• Vegas is a 24-hour town, so the whole "no last call" thing can be a bit of a shock when you first move here. Especially when you go out drinking at night and then end up completely disoriented when you walk out at 9 am with the sun in the sky.
• IIRC, there's a growing hipster community floating over to Downtown Las Vegas, what with the renovation/reinvigoration efforts there and the Zappos headquarters move there. You know, if that's your thing.
• Downtown is more interesting/more fun/more affordable than the Strip. I don't know any locals that really enjoy going to the Strip.
• Make sure you have extra money saved up for summer A/C. My August and September electric bills are roughly 4-5x higher than my December and January bills.
• Vegas has pretty great, temperate weather for 8 months of the year. One month is usually chilly and windy (and by "chilly," I mean ~40-degrees F). The other 3 months are like living in a convection oven on the light side of Mercury.
• Vegas is open-carry, so get used to occasionally seeing people packing pistols on hip holsters. It's not common, but it happens. Just Vegas being Vegas.

balut and coldcontrol's advice is good except Tropicana Cinemas is a shit hole don't go near them.

Aw, I consider it a charming kind of shithole, heh. They used to do midnight Saturday showings of cult classics. Once you see Army of Darkness, Starship Troopers, and Princess Bride on the big screen in a place..

Thanks so much guys. Really useful info.

• I think I may focus on the Henderson area. There seem to be some decent places around Green Valley. Is that an OK area?
• Uninsured motorist coverage. Pretty sure I have that, but will definitely look at my policy again to be certain. I'm prepared for the premiums to be higher.
• I lived in Texas for several years, and it actually gets pretty warm here (Denver) in the summer. Neither of those are "Vegas-hot", of course . . . but I think I'll be OK with it.

Yeah, GV is nice. That's where Zappos is (until they move downtown sometime next year). I know plenty of folks that live over there and like it fine.

Henderson area is where I live. It can be a bit hit or miss. Like, where I live is hit and a half mile down the road is totally miss, both are in 89014.

Basically the more south you go from Sunset Boulevard, the better things get. Prices tend to go up too, though (natch). Anything west of Sunset before the bend and anything north of Sunset after the bend is bleah. Anything too close to Boulder Highway is bleah. Once you go south enough that you're are Horizon Ridge, it might be too pricey but it's one of the best areas in town.

For realsies, PM me places you're looking at and Ill tell tell you what I know.

Thanks Bill, and I do plan on shooting you a list of locations once I narrow things down a bit. I've been plotting them out in Google Earth - when I get home tonight I'll check it out against your suggestions.

I don't mind paying a little extra for a nicer place/area since I'll be working out of there a chunk of the time. And also, what seem to be the "higher prices" I've been finding so far are still lower than what I'm used to around here. (I guess the auto insurance bump will offset that somewhat, though. Oh well.)

Looks like Jan 14-17th will be my home-hunting trip, with a move date around Feb 15 or so. Many many* cat-in-moving box photos to follow.



*OK, maybe just one

Well my packing effort is off to an amazing start . . .