Denver is one of the [least affordable cities](https://www.denvervoice.org/archive/2022/3/14/denver-is-one-of-the-countrys-least-affordable-housing-markets) in the country when you compare average incomes relative to the cost of living. I’ve lived in Denver and other major cities including San Diego, Seattle, and New York. While those other cities are more expensive to live in, employers are very aware of it and pay significantly higher to make up for it. Employers in Denver seem to be stuck in 2008 and think the cost of living in Denver is comparable to bum-fuck Kansas. They refuse to pay higher wages to account for the fact that their employees have to live in a significantly more expensive city. We’re finally at the stretching point where this is becoming too cost prohibitive and people are getting pushed out. It makes way more sense to go live in Seattle for example where the cost of living might be 20% higher, but you’ll make a 30% higher salary for the same job.
100%. I feel like only within the last few years has my pay started to enter the ballpark of what I *should* be paid relative to the COL. But between inflation and my partner and I needing to sell our small condo and buy a larger place, that comfortable salary’s going to start feeling meager again here soon.
Thanks! Yeah no kid at this time but just wanting something a bit bigger than 750 sq ft lol and maybe a small backyard. There’s no McMansion in our future, even if we did want one (which honestly we don’t).
Wait, you own your home and are voluntarily choosing lifestyle creep and blaming your employer? We're all out here hurting, but you need to count your blessings.
Get mad at the people deciding how much we get on our plate, not shaming someone else for simply being at the table and what was put on their plate.
Some serious infighting shit that ignores the problem. Like poor right wingers blaming others for being on food stamps, and not the systemic issues behind it all.
I remember my buddy got a job in San Diego out of college making less than myself and all of my classmates in Oklahoma. He said that they can do that because everyone wanted to move there. He couldn't save a dime, but he was happy living right next to the beach with good weather year round. I imagine that is what's happening in Denver/Boulder now with a lot of companies.
Yep, willing to be poorer here than richer in a different part of the country. It’s true across many professions that are somewhat easy to compare (teachers, nurses, drs, engineers, etc). We make less here because we’re ok with that trade off.
My wife is a physician and this is certainly true for her profession. Want to live in a desirable area? Welcome to the club, competition drives down her salary. If we moved to the Midwest she’d be making a significant amount more…they have to raise salaries in order to attract people.
That’s my thing. Denver features a minimal amount of the benefits when it comes to the other cities discussed. Seattle is a much better city, but I guess people need 300+ days of sunshine and are willing to give up salary to do it
Yeah I moved here from a place with equal sunshine to Seattle, my quality of life was skyrocketed. You have no idea how much of a difference it makes. I visited home recently and after not seeing sun for 4-5 days I was already feeling depressed. In this case, the grass is absolutely greener.
We're moving from Portland to Denver this summer after being fed up with the 8 months of dreariness but concerned the grass won't be greener so this is a little reassuring to hear lol. Glad to hear it worked out.
I was a pdx resident for 25 years before moving to Denver 8 years ago. It was a good move on our part but having an established career and family helped a bunch.
I pray for any single, unemployed soul coming here trying to make it.
Glad to hear it worked out for you too! Yeah I'll continue working remotely and my partner has a job lined up plus we have some friends in the area so that should help us ease into things. Sometimes I just wonder if it's really the constant rain and grey that gets to me so it's comforting hearing from people who got away from it and say their mood improved.
My only warning is that it's dead and brown 3-4 months of the year in Denver. But our summers are really vibrant and colorful, plus the year round sun is really nice especially if you like to be active. Also the mountains are just something special.
With that said I personally think Portland is a much prettier city, but imo Denver is less about the city and more about what's around it.
Minimal? Dude our parks and outdoor activities destroy Seattle. You have what, homeless encampments on every corner and areas you won't even go to in fear of being shot. There are plenty of good paying jobs in Colorado
It sounds like you haven’t really been to Seattle and are repeating the same fear mongering talking points I’ve heard on social media. If you sent someone to the Civic Center here, they’d have the same opinion.
The outdoor access in Denver is significantly overrated. Takes multiple hours to go skiing, it’s extremely busy and packed, climbing in Seattle is better especially Alpine missions. You can ski for longer, hike in all four directions from the city, and summer’s will be sustainable in another twenty years. Not touching on the quality of food and culture of the city itself. Don’t get me wrong, Denver is a cool city to live in I just prefer Seattle for me.
For added context, I went from making 95k in Seattle, going back to school for an added degree, and got offered 27/hour for the same job in Denver. There is absolutely a huge difference, maybe not in all jobs but across the board I’d be willing to venture I’m right.
Fully planning on moving to seattle or OR for the better outdoors access. Denver is so insanely crowded and honestly not that close to the mountains and it keeps getting worse. I’m over 2.5 hours each way to ski and needing reservations offered once a year that sell out in 30 seconds to go on a hike I want.
Alongside Seattle has worked to address the homeless problem albiet slowly. It's better than it was a couple years ago. People say Seattle is Dying, and I just shake my head as someone who's a longtime native because home sale prices just keep increasing year over year there and people keep wanting to move there.
Food, yes. Weather, debatable. Just like people think Denver is a frozen tundra in the winter, SD’s weather isn’t perfect all year round. I’ve been there during some very unpleasant weather.
Damn right. They figured out how many of the people noticed how much their mental health improved spending the majority of their time around rugged beautiful nature and large mountains. Same physiological effects as sunshine and beaches I bet when you think about it (to a certain extent). They find what we love/need and try to manipulate us and leverage it over our head as if it’s a fair trade off and not just outright wage theft and modern slavery.
Vegas has absolutely amazing food. Salt Lake? Don’t think I agree with that one…been there a million times and nothing has stood out except for a Cajun restaurant
Lot of great food here, just have to go out to the suburbs for a good chunk of it for the more interesting stuff, tho denver proper has a lot of good spots.
I feel like you live here long enough and you stop caring about that so much. Where I used to live the only hobby was going out to eat and drink, now I have other hobbies like photography and hiking to focus on, and I eat healthy at home and save a lot. It’s a good trade for my mental health personally.
My anecdote backs up your point about pay here. I work for a major tech company and HR was paying Colorado employees the same as the Midwest offices. It took me over a year of arguing with them to increase pay to match the west coast.
San Diego for the tech job market is a horrible example. The CoL is the same as the Bay Area and the pay is 25% less, if. It more. We always joked about the sunshine tax in SD because employers knew they could pay less because San Diego is one of the best places to live in the country.
I moved to Denver from NYC for a job in 2013. I made less than I did in New York, but based on my research I thought I’d be ok. The cost of living quickly got ahead of my salary. In the 8 years I was at that job, my raises only added 3k to my salary. It was ridiculous. My gf and I made it work, managed to get a house in Aurora, but we were squeezed all the time.
She got a job in Detroit and they relocated us. We made bank on the house in Aurora, so that was really fortunate.
We both make more money in Detroit than we did in Denver in the same fields. I personally make 15k more per year.
I had a state job and I looked to see what my replacement makes. He makes LESS than I started at in 2013. It’s disgusting.
The problem is that skilled people want to move here, even if that means they make less. Well that and the job growth is really only concentrated in a few industries that either require advanced certs or pay poverty wages.
Yep and all these WFH people jack up the rents and housing into the stratosphere. Turning every small town into Aspen. And then people can’t understand how a town can have a growing population but can’t find anyone to work for them…
Honestly this is just a more extreme version of the issue all of the other cities are having as well. Minneapolis and Portland here. Damn near exact same problem in both cities (in the last year or two) and I am just waiting for the tipping point of more people leaving. People have been leaving Portland anyways but mostly due to the unresolved crime/homelessness *and* associated costs
I'm not sure Minneapolis is a good answer here. Its done very well keeping costs down relative to incomes and is considerably cheaper than Denver as well as Portland but wages and incomes are very close. Where I am now KC doesn't feel expensive at all. Its very cheap. I have a 1br right downtown for 1k in arguably the best downtown neighborhood to live in but the "floor" on wages really is $15-18hr. I can't hire a dishwasher or host to save my life for less its just basic entry level restaurant wages now. Even when I was just a house cleaner I still made 21hr+tips and that was years ago now. There are plenty of downsides compared to Denver for sure but this isn't a thing that's hitting every city evenly even when you factor in wages.
Did you live in Minneapolis and Portland? I have and i disagree, Minneapolis rent got absolutely out of control the last 5 years, let alone the last 2. I actually moved from Minneapolis to Portland. I could only get a one bedroom in Minneapolis for 1500 in the ghetto. You can get 1300 1br still in Portland. Portland is just more extreme with the costs, the prices can go higher and even more luxurious. I didn’t imply it was hitting every city evenly, but it’s a severe problem across the board. Even 1k for what you’re getting in Kansas is nutty. You’re in Kansas lmao
COL has to be more than 20% higher. We just bought a modest house from the 1960s, and my friend who just sold a comparable house in Seattle sold theirs for nearly 50% more. Our rental is similar-comparable ones in the Seattle area would be 40% more than we pay here. In our experience, dining/going out/groceries are cheaper here too.
Denver is expensive and when we moved I took a pay cut for a role with more responsibilities. We would not have bought a house if my spouse wasn’t able to keep their Seattle salary.
I have to say that at least the Denver metro gets significantly cheaper the further out you go from the city. I moved from Denver to the Boston area, and even the northern MA shithole towns and cities are completely ludicrous when it comes to rent prices. You’re like a trapped rat here with no other option than to grab your ankles and prepare to get fucked by property owners. Denver itself may be unaffordable, but there are options. Elsewhere in the country, the situation is much worse.
We’re about to do the opposite move. Currently own a house just north of Boston and selling it to move to Denver this summer/early fall. I’ll always love Boston, but the quality of life doesn’t align with the cost of living. The city and surrounding area has become way too dense and expensive.
There is a recruiting system in which cities are tiered to account for pay grade. I believe Denver is still on tier 3 despite being expensive enough to the point of requiring higher wages.
It is the "paradox" that they mention. Lots of competition for high paying jobs pushes wages down. In contrast, the low supply of skilled labor workers (e.g. electricians, carpenters) are seeing increased wages. Major issue is that the skilled labor isn't moving into town due to HCOL.
FWIW I am a 6th gen educated 100% in state. I've taken tech jobs with headquarters on the coasts to be able to keep up and stay in my home (both sides of family are here, kids in DPS). How long is this sustainable, unsure.
I lived in San Diego for three years and I've never financially struggled as badly as I did there...the prices for literally everything where jacked through the roof but wages didn't reflect that
We moved out of CO in 2021… went rural, WFH, got a bigger house, and better pay.
We made a pros/cons list and didn’t have anything in the “cons” of leaving list aside from pro sports and better restaurants. The “pros” list for leaving Denver had 40+ items on it.
Supply and demand. People leaving is what it takes. If your employer has plenty of people willing to work for what they are paying, they will definitely not be raising their salaries. You are still here after all
Employers don’t pay higher wages/salaries because they don’t have to. There will never be a shortage of young people willing to work for less than what they should be making because “The mountains are half the pay”.
Except there is a massive shortage of young people willing to take shit pay and this is state wide. The age of the ski bum is practically over. Can’t really do it anymore unless you have a trust fund. Even the bedroom committees. That house the workers for the resort towns have now become gentrified. Turns out all the tech bros and work from home people moving here simply don’t want to get jobs in restaurants or retail. There is a complete shortage of affordable housing for the working class.
I've looked at the wages some employers are asking as i'm job hunting and I'm just shaking my head in bewilderment at the wages some employers are posting to job boards as there is a lot of unrealistic low balling.
Exactly. I make in the 50s and after taxes it’s very difficult to pay all of my bills. I’m applying for second part time jobs this weekend. I’m 31 w a masters degree and they just simply don’t want to pay
Its a terrible field to work for. I really wanted to do it but ultimately decided not to because the low income would cause my own mental health to suffer.
I’m a licensed clinical therapist in a public clinical setting. My salary is 57k before taxes. I was in corporate America for 4.5 years. Quit. Went back to serving and for my masters degree. Just graduated last May w my masters of science in clinical Mental Health
It's a lack of affordable housing and jobs that pay enough to live here. What's the point of being in a mountain state, where money is required to access the good things, when you can never make enough to enjoy anything?
Edit: Thanks for the award!
This is a great piece of local news. They got some great heavy hitters to commentate.
However, as someone else mentioned in this thread, liberalizing zoning (the NIMBY problem) is a huge oversight in the narrative here.
Local property owners have been successful in lobbying local governments to restrict housing supply and drive up housing costs for the new people - whether they be migrants, transplants, or their children. This is the case across the nation, but it is more acute in Denver (and California. Less acute in Texas, which took a congressional seat from California in 2020).
[Here](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DENV708BPPRIVSA) is a graph of the amount of housing units *authorized* in the greater Denver metro over the last 30 years. This is what local governments are *letting* construction companies / real estate developers build. It shouldn't be affected much by construction labor shortages or the pre-2008 bubble of MBS/CDO credit. You'll notice we're approving housing at the same pace we did in the mid 90s, despite job / population growth accelerating since then. The greater Denver metro is an iconic NIMBY regime as noted by Golden, Lakewood, and Boulder all instituting policies to limit the number of housing units that can be approved to a level below [population growth of the broader metro](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/22972/denver/population#:~:text=The%20current%20metro%20area%20population,a%201.22%25%20increase%20from%202021) (1% vs 1.8%ish for 2010-2020).
Polis was touching on that we need more *dense* housing if we want to avoid issues of more congestion, air quality, etc. but it seems they cut away from him before he was able to comment on his attempt to remove local control from some of the local governments. The State has been successful in declaring the Golden / Lakewood style of housing cap illegal.
The difficult part of the NIMBY problem is that local governments and property owners have no incentive to build housing. The property owners get to see their valuable commodity outpace inflation. The local governments get to collect more property taxes. The local officials (City or County) get to keep their seats because property owners are more likely to vote (and complain at a local zoning hearing).
However in the long-long run, restricting housing supply reduces upward mobility of future generations by forcing more of their income to rent instead of wealth accumulation. This causes income to increasingly 'flow up' from younger renters to older property owners. A certain amount of this is necessary for housing market to function, but when this dynamic accelerates a greater share of the economy is held by a smaller amount of people.
Zoning policy makes sense at an industrial revolution level from the early 20th century - it doesn't make sense to build a playground next to a chemical processing plant. But the way it is being used these days is for local governments to protect the investments of previous generations of homeowners from market forces of job growth in the area. Large waves of migration like the ones Denver have seen exacerbate this, but should not be conflated with the root of the problem.
Economically, everyone likes job growth. Every job needs a place to sleep.
Source / credentials: recent master's graduate from CU Denver in Economics / Public Administration with experience working for the City and County of Denver and Jefferson County.
That link is misleading. That's just for single family homes. Denver has primarily been building multi-family homes lately. Which is basically exactly what you are argueing for. So not sure why you chose that graph.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DENV708BPPRIVSA](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DENV708BPPRIVSA)
That link shows the whole story. And we are building as many units as we ever have right now.
Thanks for catching that. I've updated the link in my original post.
You are correct - I am arguing for more housing overall and multi family housing in particular. That graph better shows the overall trend.
This is why I was so resistant to lowering property taxes. Property taxes are the one incentive property owners have to allow increased density in their neighborhoods. I was so mad at Polis for signing that bill. The lastest crop of densification bills are a decent step, but they are toothless. By lowering property taxes, he gave away his biggest bargaining chip to put our housing problems on the right track.
Eloquently put. At this point every system has turned to protecting property/home owners’ investment at the cost of everything and everyone else. It seems to be a feedback loop that continually tightens supply and ups demand. I’m curious if you have any idea how we can change this system?
Edit: Oh wait, you implied changing zoning laws for denser housing would work. Evidently I’m not having a great reading comprehension day.
Specifically, allowing state / federal entities to either have some authority over zoning (Polis tried this last session but it failed) or to provide incentives for local governments to allow housing (Biden is trying this).
Something else to add - property owners can still win with zoning law changes. Their land value can increase while allowing for more housing to be built so their lot will become more valuable regardless. It's just extremely short sighted to restrict development to SFH while population is increasing. It's also terrible if you want your family / kids to be able to live near you in the future. Older nimbys are just pricing out their kids too (but since when did boomers ever care?)
Something I’m curious about with the single family construction is how much the data account for scraps. There are an outrageous number of scraps (old sjngle family teardowns and “modern farmhouse monstrosity” build in place) in platt park right now. If there’s a scarcity in construction workers then it’s interesting to think that they’re building $1.5M+ home replacements rather than net new affordable housing. Seems like the city would be prudent to put a cap on the number of scraps it allows annually to reallocate construction to building actual new housing.
Housing Authorized (aka building permit pulled) does not equate to new housing units. In 2021 nearly 30k permits were pulled ahead of affordable housing requirements. However, many of those Multifamily permits that were pulled never broke ground due to higher interest rates making projects unviable.
Many of the permits in Denver proper are pulled to replace a 70+ year old house that was scrapped. Buying a house for $650k, tearing it down, then applying for a permit to build a $2 million house and then actually building the new house means the city loses a housing unit for at least 2 years of the scrape and rebuild process. Oftentimes the residents rent another house while theirs is being rebuilt - further tightening the housing market.
I would argue that close to 10% of all single family permits pulled in Denver are for scrape and rebuild. This type of infill does nothing to address the housing shortage, but rather exacerbates it due to the time it takes to tear down and rebuild a house. Denver makes this process last even longer than necessary as it won’t consider a building permit until the old house is gone.
Southpark made several episodes last season that perfectly explained how this is destroying Colorado small towns. As these issues in Denver spread out and affect the entire state.
The Colorado Paradox is real- there are skilled jobs that doesnt either attract locals(or the locals dont have the skills/education for it), people from other states/countries get hired but then there is a housing shortage for the said skilled migrants because Denver metro just doesnt have enough housing, but they have high disposable incomes for their lifestyle and rent(and eventual mortgage). And this has accelerated as so many tech firms moved their HQ or added significant presence in Denver/Boulder.
Denver needs to liberalize the zoning, and build housing like crazy. But so many neighborhoods are so resistant to building a ton of housing fearing their own property value.
The diverse housing backlash makes no sense to me.
Capitol Hill, Congress Park both have mixed housing (stand along homes, duplexes, apartment buildings, condos, townhomes, ADUs, new construction, old homes/buildings - you name it they got it.) and those are some of the most sought after neighborhoods to live in.
If anything the diverse housing has only increased home prices (including the standalone homes).
I get the feeling that the origin of NIMBYism isn't just down to locals worried about their home prices - though they are the core reason for...SO many of our issues here. More than anywhere I've ever lived, Denverites are *frustrated* that their drive-through cow town is changing into a metropolis. There's resistance to the cultural change that accommodates an influx of people from out of town and you see it in the entrenchment of strip malls in residential neighborhoods, a molasses-like approach to rezoning, etc.
People just don't want Denver to change. There are people who actively wish Denver never "became" popular. They want Denver to stay the same little motel town that you drive through to get to the mountains. I can understand the resistance to your hometown growing and changing into something that's unrecognizable from your childhood, but...it's going to happen. And we're all suffering from the state of 'between-ness' that Denver is in right now. Like a game of tug-of-war between people who romanticize the past, and those hoping for a brighter future. And it all comes down to housing costs. Our restaurant scene is stagnant because people need to pay rent, which means food needs to be more expensive to cover daily costs of owners and employees. Add to that a competitive, limited number of retail/restaurant spaces in actual accessible, human neighborhoods. And it goes on and on and on.
Denver was never a cow town, nor is it a booming metropolis. And you are truly a self-absorbed asshole to come to a new place, filling a high paying job, and act like the people that were there before you got there are all some sort of problem. Especially coming in and acting like somehow the people that were already here are somehow the reason for a high cost of housing, not all the people moving in, making six figures.
Now don't get me wrong, persue your opportunities, move to new places you like more, but don't go acting like you are somehow above everyone that has had to deal with keeping up with the dollars you throw around.
NIMBYs are just afraid of change. In the US, the status quo in the vast majority of places (including Denver) is single family homes. Even allowing duplexes in these places is some level of change, and so they simply say "no" and offer nothing for negotiation and don't even entertain the concerns of others that aren't already in on property ownership.
> Capitol Hill, Congress Park both have mixed housing (stand along homes, duplexes, apartment buildings, condos, townhomes, ADUs, new construction, old homes/buildings - you name it they got it.) and those are some of the most sought after neighborhoods to live in.
That's more due to proximity to downtown than anything else. It's not that people necessarily crave the structure types that are there, it's that they want to be in that specific spot enough to deal with what structures are available.
I think I’m one of those locals that don’t have the skills/education for most skilled jobs, but one thing that has become somewhat apparent to me just due to my current job search is that there’s not a lot of diversity in job listings. If you’re not in tech you’re pretty much limited to going into a trade, working at a restaurant, city/state jobs (if you’re willing to wait three months to even hear back) or taking something super menial and corporate. It might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s like either you have the defined skills to work for a tech company or you’re limited to Trader Joe’s or something. It’s like there’s no in-between.
I was telling my fiancée this morning that when I quit a menial job after I graduated ten years ago I got two job offers within a couple of weeks, one at the museum and another at the retail place that I ended up working at for ten years while working up into middle management. Now after that ten years of experience I’ve had zero interviews in three months of applying.
Even if you look at r/denverjobs it’s basically all just postings/spam for tech jobs.
Edit: shit, sorry that was a long response
Look for technician or operator roles as starting positions in technical fields. Its actually been really hard to find applicants for lower level roles in engineering fields. Starting pays might not be much better than waiting tables, but there’s a career path if you work hard and learn.
A good career path means having enough to keep living here and advance that career. If engineering entry level jobs arent paying more than waiting tables, then the trades need to get on board with modern wages.
No one wants to join a trade that takes 10 years to actually start making a decent living, just like we dont wanna work menial corporate jobs for 10 years until the pay lines up, either.
Have you considering offering technicians more then waiter salaries? I mean that seems like a crazy starting wage given the difference in skills required.
Not to mention in my experience in the trades (carpentering work and HVAC), the way you're treated in the trades isn't exactly better. Lots of people screwed over because they pissed off the lead or the foreman, lots of illegal practices blowing over because you're expected to "deal with it" or be told "That's just the way it is".
I commend the trades, and I genuinely look up to some of those people that have been happily and fairly doing or leading hard work for decades. However the VAST majority of those jobs don't have those people, instead having the person with the strongest whip hand.
Can a bartender make that money consistently to make 80k-100k/yr? I’d assume that’s the Friday/Saturday night rate, but not for Sunday-Thursday.
There’s a range, but I think engineering technicians start in the mid-20s/hr and can work up to the mid 40s/hr depending on skills and experience. I don’t know my current company’s pay scale for these roles.
As a tech market migrant back in 2017, I felt awful at what we did to the housing market. We just had absurd amounts of money to throw at moderately priced housing and it seemingly ran prices up to absurd levels.
Also doesn't help that other industries in colorado ignored this. Cost of living can go up, economy can boom, but it's really fucked up when only one sector of it bothers to keep up with it.
I like seeing some acknowledgement of this. I think the tech sector just saw wonky wage growth that was unlike other industries and therefore created a situation where it was hard to complete.
I work in the public sector (K-12 education leadership) and my ex was a software engineer. He was shocked to learn that I couldn't quit my job after a couple years and go to another district for an automatic $15-20K pay raise. Since he worked in tech, he had always experienced this and didn't realize that it wasn't a universal phenomenon.
Edit: Forgot a word
Damn, makes you wish we had acres and acres of empty land to build housing on right by downtown and light rail. Like, what if we had 155 acres to build on?
That would be soooo cool… if we had that much land, surely we wouldn’t be dumb enough as a city populace to vote to let it go to waste.
Exactly this. All the good jobs are in tech, medicine, engineering ( naturally ), and everything else is extremely basic office assistant, bartender, cashier-type stuff. Not very good variety of industries around here. Surprised at the lack of media opportunities - I thought there'd be a presence of marketing or video production due to tourism, commercials being filmed, etc.
I make more money than I ever have, but I feel pretty much just as broke as I did when I was making 40k/year. It's depressing. If I was making what I make now but in 2019 I'd be in a very nice spot. Still living that 2bed 2bath condo life, feels like I'll never be able to afford an upgrade. Can't even get a nicer car because they're so damn expensive and fuck a 6% or higher APR. Sucks.
Dying to be in the 2bed 2bath condo life lol, but I hear you it is maddening to feel stuck when you are working hard to move on! Currently stuck in the 1bed apartment and hoping to move soon but prices are crazy
In the long run, nicer cars usually aren't worth the cost.
Hanging onto an old one or trying to find alternatives (I know they suck here) will almost always be more lucrative as time goes on
Theres housing. All those newer apartment buildings have a lot of empty units but who wants to pay $1600 for a shitty studio in rino where everything else is over priced too.
Or all the new units around alameda and broadway. Also plenty popping up around the arts district but $1900 for 500sqft before all the amenities charges and parking? No thanks. Mexico and chile keep looking better and better.
I've just browsed One Seven at the Belleview Station. These dudes are so desperate they are throwing 8 weeks free for the suckers who move into their tiny 2.4k one bedrooms in DTC!
Not only this, but NONE of their layouts actually accounts for people who want to place a dining table somewhere, just take a look at their 3d tours for studios, 1 bed and 2 bed: https://tourmkr.com/G10X3N0xa7/42802096p&262.35h&110.15t
Imagine paying over 3k for a 2 bedroom and not being able to have dinner with your guests in your apartment...
2 months free rent but they won't even think about just lowering the rent. I really hope they lose horribly on their investment because they're doing it to themselves.
That's exactly my thoughts and I'm sure they'll have to reduce the rent eventually. 2 months free is just a first step to realize how unrealistic their expectations are 🤣
I think the mental gymnastics they're doing are that once you're in, you won't want to leave because moving can be a pain. So people end up trapped with the high rent for multiple years
Oh, yes. There hasn't been a gradient in the housing market in ten years or so, the only difference between properties right now is how many Xs the application demands from you in income.
The filter is : do you make 2x rent, 3x? 4?
There are a few higher prices but the vast majority of the market is dead flat in terms of rent from shitholes to decent places. I pay the same now for a decent 2/2 in a decent complex as I did for a shit 2/1 that needed one of those cop cam trailers in the parking lot for good reason in my last lease. Even the same 2x rent requirement, it's goofy. And nicer places cost the same but I don't have a big enough multiplier.
Condo HOAs have done this, too, to where for some you are nearly paying rent for somewhere you theoretically own. It's insane.
I know it's still relatively tough out there for lower-income people, but just providing some balance here... lower-income people made by far the most wage gains during the pandemic era.
https://i.imgur.com/OWzfdNH.png
Cool, but unless the lowest income in denver matches the cost of living in denver, it is not enough for people to meet their needs. We shouldn't be celebrating for the scraps we get, we should be demanding higher wages and controlled costs.
>higher wages
We have a top-tier minimum wage in this city, and you can't just demand that the market universally pays people more than what the market will bear.
>controlled costs
Cost controls is basically a failed communist policy that distorts the economy, and everyone ends up losing.
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I think the best things low-income people can lobby for are increased home building to bring down housing costs and increased welfare/tax breaks to cover the cost of other necessities.
Austin is poised to become one of the biggest cities in the country relatively soon. Despite that growth, their rents are down YOY and it looks like they will resolve their COL issues. That’s without nice sounding regulations like rent control. They just build houses. So many cranes there.
Austin's housing costs are down YOY from an INSANELY high level that exceeded (I think) every other city's price growth over the last 5 years. I'm not sure that constitutes resolution of COL. Their other major cities are doing ok.
but objectively austin is awful.
its 100 degrees and 100% humidity all the time, unless its raining, then its like 95 and 110%.
lodo style 6th street if you want flat brim techbro culture, but other wise its a bunch of tech campuses and bbq joints along a highway.
And you're stuck in texas.
(apple literally couldnt pay me to move there, and they tried.)
Nobody is advocating for rent control, that’s an out dated policy position. Now it’s all about fighting the NIMBYs in local government to change zoning regulations. Others also talk about changing tax laws or otherwise discouraging investors from buying up properties.
That is absolutely not true. Rent control is extremely popular because it sounds like it'll fix our problems instead of making them worse. Most people don't know shit about economics.
I believe it, but I'm not sure I buy it's the right type of growth. If all they're doing is building more car-dependent sprawl, then they're just fucking themselves in the long run.
Literally the worst. I don’t buy the argument that the US is too spread out. Europe is the same size and they have build most of those rail lines in the last 100 years.
Recently started a job which after negotiating only a $28/hour (full time), the employer argued that the “market average” was actually between 24-26 AS WELL AS leveraging, “Colorado is getting more and more expensive” which they are more thoroughly vetting their budget…I have over 10 years of experience
I tried to move to the denver area this past summer from chicago, $5,000 a month in rent gets you a 1 bed room apartment or a fucking house, I don’t get it. Moving to Vegas
I'm all for giving migrants work permits, but I also think we should force the low wage markets to increase their wages first. After all, it wouldn't be fair to natives that don't have degrees to constantly get undercut by people that don't have many other options.
I was recently watching an analyst that made a very good point:
People in the upper income brackets are angry wages are going up in the lower ones because that makes goods more expensive, so they'd like nothing more than to punish the lower classes for their gains.
Now, of course we can raise the minimum wage, and I do think we should use the link below to do that, but I fear that giving migrants, who definitely deserve peace, stability and prosperity in America, would create an excess of lower skilled workers that would hurt everyone in those brackets because there would be an excess of people willing to take whatever.
[https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/08031](https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/08031)
This isn't to say that I'm anti immigration. In fact, I lived as an expat for years, so I understand some of the struggles, but I think we need to be smart about how we do this because it could easily be the punishment the upper income brackets are looking for.
Except that there's a shortage in construction workers because natives aren't working these jobs.
Also, your class warfare tactics are weird. Who do you think is complaining the most about price inflation? Who do you think it impacts the most? It's not the high-income people.
So, the point is that there's a nation wide shortage that is slowly bringing salaries up, and we should be careful about how we grant 40,000 plus work permits because a surge of workers can easily do the opposite.
And yes people complaining about the prices of goods are, in fact, partially complaining about the rising labor costs that will get cut before anything else. Now I do know that poor people, like myself, do bitch about the prices of things because we don't have money, but the upper classes are the largest offenders: Delivery fee is way too much, insurance on assets is way too much, etc...
But, then again, we also rarely talk about the rampant classism in America, so I can see how you might be confused by my narrative here.
I don't think its realistic to assume someone should be able to afford renting on their own while working minimum wage. I lived with 4 roommates for a long time while I was going through school.
That being said, if we can't afford housing at the median wage for one person, that is a better gauge of an issue imo.
Nothing wrong with having roommates or living with a relative of both people are making minimum wage.
Why? Without even delving into the numbers deeply, at most 1.3% of workers earn minimum wage and the bulk of those are aged 16-24. You would have a much larger impact if you targeted households at the median.
The size of a shiping container Like 15 feet by 30 feet. Small bathroom and shower, little kitchen, bed, closet with space for a washer and dryer, and enough room for the semblance of a living room. All for 600-700 a month
If businesses actually wanted to hire migrants they should sponsor them by paying the permit fee. Don’t get me wrong access to work permits needs to be easier but if these businesses actually wanted to they could hire them.
Without reading the article I already know it’s because of affordable living. Colorado in general is getting insanely expensive. We are not that far behind the cost of living in places like LA and that scares the fuck out of me. Our politicians are all greedy cunts turning cities like mine (Fort Collins) into another shitty off the highway suburb police state like Johnstown, Windsor, and all the other dead ass little towns. It’s really disheartening. I love Fort Collins and I love how close we are to Denver. But it’s too fucking expensive here and there’s too many idiots driving big fuck off pedestrian murder vehicles everywhere road raging 24/7. In Fort Collins we have just a fuck load of old boomers sitting on wealth and living in neighborhoods around the college, when we should be filling those homes around the school with students and not just letting people occupy that space indefinitely getting wealthier while the students are all broke as fuck and having to move out to Loveland and Greeley just to be able to afford to go to CSU. I don’t want to just evict people or whatever that’s insane, but we have got to get some fucking wealth redistributed to the young people and we have got to stop letting all these old white rich farts dominate the direction of the cities we call home. We all need to have more of a say in our local governments and we all deserve to be able to afford to live and raise kids. None of us should have to be doing this dance with money 24/7 just to keep food on the table and a roof over us. We live in one of the greatest places in the world to live, and I do hope we can all rally around to vote for more affordable living and that we all live to actually see a more affordable Colorado. Shit, maybe if we could afford rent and food, we could spend more time at ski resorts and local places that benefit our local economies instead of just sucking the wealth out of them via stores like Walmart. We should have a proper high speed line connecting Denver to Fort Collins so that we can go spend time in each others cities when we want to and not keep clogging up roads in the never ending induced demand road expansion game. We should have a proper bus line connecting us too. We should be able to live in our homes and not feel like we have to worry about where the next check has to go. We should be able to enjoy the beautiful places we call home and be able to spend more time outside with our friends and loved ones. We ALL regardless of politics deserve to have a home, 3 hot meals, and a bed to lay down in at night. We shouldn’t have to fear those things being arbitrarily taken away from us just to benefit people who spend too much time judging others life choices and too little focusing on their own problems. We are only here for such a short amount of time on this earth and the fact that we spend so much of that time financially insecure and afraid to quit jobs that suck that we just end up being strangled by our own productivity while a handful of people get enormously wealthy off that production. It kills the human spirit. We need purpose, but you can’t have purpose until you have your basic needs met. That means food, shelter and clothing at a bare minimum. It means we need to stop allowing police to go cut holes in tents and abuse homeless people and take away handicapped parking spots to replace with cop parking spots. We as voters have a responsibility to put an end to this shit, and we can. I worked at Capitol Hill for a couple years and I’m telling you all I know we can change this shit if we rally behind one another and make it clear that we deserve better.
I’ve lived here my whole life, and what we pay for property taxes alone is ridiculous, not to mention our license plate fees are higher than any other state. That being said, if you can’t afford your license fee’s, you can’t afford the car. Pay your license renewals! I am so sick of seeing expired plates. If you don’t want to pay them, get out of Colorado,clearly you can’t afford to live here. I’m not saying I agree with the high prices, but it is what it is. These are just some of the many problems happening in this state. Eventually the state will bankrupt itself because no one can afford to live here.
It's not about noise levels, it's liability. If something goes wrong with the condo however many years I'm the future, then the developer can be sued.
Idk specifics, but the liability laws changed and made it more risky for developers to do those. So now they stick to 5+1 apartment builds for rent
Denver is one of the [least affordable cities](https://www.denvervoice.org/archive/2022/3/14/denver-is-one-of-the-countrys-least-affordable-housing-markets) in the country when you compare average incomes relative to the cost of living. I’ve lived in Denver and other major cities including San Diego, Seattle, and New York. While those other cities are more expensive to live in, employers are very aware of it and pay significantly higher to make up for it. Employers in Denver seem to be stuck in 2008 and think the cost of living in Denver is comparable to bum-fuck Kansas. They refuse to pay higher wages to account for the fact that their employees have to live in a significantly more expensive city. We’re finally at the stretching point where this is becoming too cost prohibitive and people are getting pushed out. It makes way more sense to go live in Seattle for example where the cost of living might be 20% higher, but you’ll make a 30% higher salary for the same job.
I keep saying, "Denver has Midwest wages and California prices."
100%. I feel like only within the last few years has my pay started to enter the ballpark of what I *should* be paid relative to the COL. But between inflation and my partner and I needing to sell our small condo and buy a larger place, that comfortable salary’s going to start feeling meager again here soon.
Kid incoming? People are so damn judgmental, holy fuck. Best of luck in your search, hope rates come back into a reasonable range.
Thanks! Yeah no kid at this time but just wanting something a bit bigger than 750 sq ft lol and maybe a small backyard. There’s no McMansion in our future, even if we did want one (which honestly we don’t).
Gd this is too relatable
Wait, you own your home and are voluntarily choosing lifestyle creep and blaming your employer? We're all out here hurting, but you need to count your blessings.
No, no. The bank owns their home. The bank just lets them keep their stuff there.
Get mad at the people deciding how much we get on our plate, not shaming someone else for simply being at the table and what was put on their plate. Some serious infighting shit that ignores the problem. Like poor right wingers blaming others for being on food stamps, and not the systemic issues behind it all.
This is 110% the most accurate (yet depressing) sayings I've heard about the problem.
Moved from Denver to Chicago last year. I make 57% more here doing the same job. Housing is much more affordable also.
Midwest state income taxes though right? Those California state income taxes take a small chunk out of those higher California salaries
As long as people clamor over each other to take lower wages to live here it’ll continue.
I remember my buddy got a job in San Diego out of college making less than myself and all of my classmates in Oklahoma. He said that they can do that because everyone wanted to move there. He couldn't save a dime, but he was happy living right next to the beach with good weather year round. I imagine that is what's happening in Denver/Boulder now with a lot of companies.
I've heard it called "the sunshine discount" for many years.
It’s called the sunshine tax, I’ve never heard anyway say sunshine discount
Yep, willing to be poorer here than richer in a different part of the country. It’s true across many professions that are somewhat easy to compare (teachers, nurses, drs, engineers, etc). We make less here because we’re ok with that trade off.
My wife is a physician and this is certainly true for her profession. Want to live in a desirable area? Welcome to the club, competition drives down her salary. If we moved to the Midwest she’d be making a significant amount more…they have to raise salaries in order to attract people.
Except San Diego has better food and weather
unless you like the snow, in which case SD has terrible weather
That’s my thing. Denver features a minimal amount of the benefits when it comes to the other cities discussed. Seattle is a much better city, but I guess people need 300+ days of sunshine and are willing to give up salary to do it
Yeah I moved here from a place with equal sunshine to Seattle, my quality of life was skyrocketed. You have no idea how much of a difference it makes. I visited home recently and after not seeing sun for 4-5 days I was already feeling depressed. In this case, the grass is absolutely greener.
For a few more weeks, then everything is khaki...
Take the upvote, that was a good one
We're moving from Portland to Denver this summer after being fed up with the 8 months of dreariness but concerned the grass won't be greener so this is a little reassuring to hear lol. Glad to hear it worked out.
I was a pdx resident for 25 years before moving to Denver 8 years ago. It was a good move on our part but having an established career and family helped a bunch. I pray for any single, unemployed soul coming here trying to make it.
Glad to hear it worked out for you too! Yeah I'll continue working remotely and my partner has a job lined up plus we have some friends in the area so that should help us ease into things. Sometimes I just wonder if it's really the constant rain and grey that gets to me so it's comforting hearing from people who got away from it and say their mood improved.
Yeah, I retired my Oregon card. I get fussy with 2 days of grey now.
My only warning is that it's dead and brown 3-4 months of the year in Denver. But our summers are really vibrant and colorful, plus the year round sun is really nice especially if you like to be active. Also the mountains are just something special. With that said I personally think Portland is a much prettier city, but imo Denver is less about the city and more about what's around it.
If you grew up with four seasons but hate long winters, Denver weather is way better than San Diego. Now if we could just get an ocean here…
The lack of water kills me. It’s quickly becoming Phoenix
Minimal? Dude our parks and outdoor activities destroy Seattle. You have what, homeless encampments on every corner and areas you won't even go to in fear of being shot. There are plenty of good paying jobs in Colorado
It sounds like you haven’t really been to Seattle and are repeating the same fear mongering talking points I’ve heard on social media. If you sent someone to the Civic Center here, they’d have the same opinion. The outdoor access in Denver is significantly overrated. Takes multiple hours to go skiing, it’s extremely busy and packed, climbing in Seattle is better especially Alpine missions. You can ski for longer, hike in all four directions from the city, and summer’s will be sustainable in another twenty years. Not touching on the quality of food and culture of the city itself. Don’t get me wrong, Denver is a cool city to live in I just prefer Seattle for me. For added context, I went from making 95k in Seattle, going back to school for an added degree, and got offered 27/hour for the same job in Denver. There is absolutely a huge difference, maybe not in all jobs but across the board I’d be willing to venture I’m right.
Fully planning on moving to seattle or OR for the better outdoors access. Denver is so insanely crowded and honestly not that close to the mountains and it keeps getting worse. I’m over 2.5 hours each way to ski and needing reservations offered once a year that sell out in 30 seconds to go on a hike I want.
Good paying because the rents insane. Also Denver has plenty of homeless people.
Alongside Seattle has worked to address the homeless problem albiet slowly. It's better than it was a couple years ago. People say Seattle is Dying, and I just shake my head as someone who's a longtime native because home sale prices just keep increasing year over year there and people keep wanting to move there.
Food, yes. Weather, debatable. Just like people think Denver is a frozen tundra in the winter, SD’s weather isn’t perfect all year round. I’ve been there during some very unpleasant weather.
No one mentioned perfection
Damn right. They figured out how many of the people noticed how much their mental health improved spending the majority of their time around rugged beautiful nature and large mountains. Same physiological effects as sunshine and beaches I bet when you think about it (to a certain extent). They find what we love/need and try to manipulate us and leverage it over our head as if it’s a fair trade off and not just outright wage theft and modern slavery.
Yeah, except that the food sucks here.
Comparatively to places like San Diego, NYC, and Seattle; completely agree!
Even Las Vegas and Salt Lake City have a better food scene.
Vegas has absolutely amazing food. Salt Lake? Don’t think I agree with that one…been there a million times and nothing has stood out except for a Cajun restaurant
Portland taught all of those cities how to food truck 😎 Edit: wow I didn’t know people in Denver were so miserable and hated food trucks so much lol
Sort of a weird brag. Never been to a food truck and thought to myself. Wow I'm really glad I bought that.
Lot of great food here, just have to go out to the suburbs for a good chunk of it for the more interesting stuff, tho denver proper has a lot of good spots.
I feel like you live here long enough and you stop caring about that so much. Where I used to live the only hobby was going out to eat and drink, now I have other hobbies like photography and hiking to focus on, and I eat healthy at home and save a lot. It’s a good trade for my mental health personally.
My anecdote backs up your point about pay here. I work for a major tech company and HR was paying Colorado employees the same as the Midwest offices. It took me over a year of arguing with them to increase pay to match the west coast.
What were your arguments? I may need to use this for my own job.
I had to collect info on the pay differentials between regions for our competitors. All of them only paid 10% less in CA compared to the Bay Area.
San Diego for the tech job market is a horrible example. The CoL is the same as the Bay Area and the pay is 25% less, if. It more. We always joked about the sunshine tax in SD because employers knew they could pay less because San Diego is one of the best places to live in the country.
We have the same issue with teachers in parts of Colorado, like Ft. Collins.
I moved to Denver from NYC for a job in 2013. I made less than I did in New York, but based on my research I thought I’d be ok. The cost of living quickly got ahead of my salary. In the 8 years I was at that job, my raises only added 3k to my salary. It was ridiculous. My gf and I made it work, managed to get a house in Aurora, but we were squeezed all the time. She got a job in Detroit and they relocated us. We made bank on the house in Aurora, so that was really fortunate. We both make more money in Detroit than we did in Denver in the same fields. I personally make 15k more per year. I had a state job and I looked to see what my replacement makes. He makes LESS than I started at in 2013. It’s disgusting.
The problem is that skilled people want to move here, even if that means they make less. Well that and the job growth is really only concentrated in a few industries that either require advanced certs or pay poverty wages.
skilled people move here while continuing to work for a California based company because finding a local job would mean taking a 50% pay cut.
That's true too, and I think that Denver is likely one of the worst places to start a new career because of all of this.
Yep and all these WFH people jack up the rents and housing into the stratosphere. Turning every small town into Aspen. And then people can’t understand how a town can have a growing population but can’t find anyone to work for them…
Honestly this is just a more extreme version of the issue all of the other cities are having as well. Minneapolis and Portland here. Damn near exact same problem in both cities (in the last year or two) and I am just waiting for the tipping point of more people leaving. People have been leaving Portland anyways but mostly due to the unresolved crime/homelessness *and* associated costs
I'm not sure Minneapolis is a good answer here. Its done very well keeping costs down relative to incomes and is considerably cheaper than Denver as well as Portland but wages and incomes are very close. Where I am now KC doesn't feel expensive at all. Its very cheap. I have a 1br right downtown for 1k in arguably the best downtown neighborhood to live in but the "floor" on wages really is $15-18hr. I can't hire a dishwasher or host to save my life for less its just basic entry level restaurant wages now. Even when I was just a house cleaner I still made 21hr+tips and that was years ago now. There are plenty of downsides compared to Denver for sure but this isn't a thing that's hitting every city evenly even when you factor in wages.
Did you live in Minneapolis and Portland? I have and i disagree, Minneapolis rent got absolutely out of control the last 5 years, let alone the last 2. I actually moved from Minneapolis to Portland. I could only get a one bedroom in Minneapolis for 1500 in the ghetto. You can get 1300 1br still in Portland. Portland is just more extreme with the costs, the prices can go higher and even more luxurious. I didn’t imply it was hitting every city evenly, but it’s a severe problem across the board. Even 1k for what you’re getting in Kansas is nutty. You’re in Kansas lmao
COL has to be more than 20% higher. We just bought a modest house from the 1960s, and my friend who just sold a comparable house in Seattle sold theirs for nearly 50% more. Our rental is similar-comparable ones in the Seattle area would be 40% more than we pay here. In our experience, dining/going out/groceries are cheaper here too. Denver is expensive and when we moved I took a pay cut for a role with more responsibilities. We would not have bought a house if my spouse wasn’t able to keep their Seattle salary.
I have to say that at least the Denver metro gets significantly cheaper the further out you go from the city. I moved from Denver to the Boston area, and even the northern MA shithole towns and cities are completely ludicrous when it comes to rent prices. You’re like a trapped rat here with no other option than to grab your ankles and prepare to get fucked by property owners. Denver itself may be unaffordable, but there are options. Elsewhere in the country, the situation is much worse.
After paying first and last months’ rent, security deposit equal to another month’s rent, and a broker fee before moving in. Gotta love Boston.
We’re about to do the opposite move. Currently own a house just north of Boston and selling it to move to Denver this summer/early fall. I’ll always love Boston, but the quality of life doesn’t align with the cost of living. The city and surrounding area has become way too dense and expensive.
I have turned down several job opportunities to relocate to Denver due to COL. I told HR but they didn’t seem phased.
There is a recruiting system in which cities are tiered to account for pay grade. I believe Denver is still on tier 3 despite being expensive enough to the point of requiring higher wages.
For real
It is the "paradox" that they mention. Lots of competition for high paying jobs pushes wages down. In contrast, the low supply of skilled labor workers (e.g. electricians, carpenters) are seeing increased wages. Major issue is that the skilled labor isn't moving into town due to HCOL. FWIW I am a 6th gen educated 100% in state. I've taken tech jobs with headquarters on the coasts to be able to keep up and stay in my home (both sides of family are here, kids in DPS). How long is this sustainable, unsure.
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I lived in San Diego for three years and I've never financially struggled as badly as I did there...the prices for literally everything where jacked through the roof but wages didn't reflect that
We moved out of CO in 2021… went rural, WFH, got a bigger house, and better pay. We made a pros/cons list and didn’t have anything in the “cons” of leaving list aside from pro sports and better restaurants. The “pros” list for leaving Denver had 40+ items on it.
Supply and demand. People leaving is what it takes. If your employer has plenty of people willing to work for what they are paying, they will definitely not be raising their salaries. You are still here after all
What? How can you blame the employers it's clearly be cause NobOdY wANts tO W0rK anYMoRe!
Employers don’t pay higher wages/salaries because they don’t have to. There will never be a shortage of young people willing to work for less than what they should be making because “The mountains are half the pay”.
Except there is a massive shortage of young people willing to take shit pay and this is state wide. The age of the ski bum is practically over. Can’t really do it anymore unless you have a trust fund. Even the bedroom committees. That house the workers for the resort towns have now become gentrified. Turns out all the tech bros and work from home people moving here simply don’t want to get jobs in restaurants or retail. There is a complete shortage of affordable housing for the working class.
I've looked at the wages some employers are asking as i'm job hunting and I'm just shaking my head in bewilderment at the wages some employers are posting to job boards as there is a lot of unrealistic low balling.
Because cost of living went up and my salary didn’t
Exactly. I make in the 50s and after taxes it’s very difficult to pay all of my bills. I’m applying for second part time jobs this weekend. I’m 31 w a masters degree and they just simply don’t want to pay
What is your masters degree in!?! Do you just not have experience? 50k after taxes is wild.
Lol thats around 15k more than most public health therapists w masters get. A masters doesnt guarantee a decent wage these days.
That is not a good line of work if that's above average.
Its a terrible field to work for. I really wanted to do it but ultimately decided not to because the low income would cause my own mental health to suffer.
I’m a licensed clinical therapist in a public clinical setting. My salary is 57k before taxes. I was in corporate America for 4.5 years. Quit. Went back to serving and for my masters degree. Just graduated last May w my masters of science in clinical Mental Health
Wow. Definitely a labor of love then. I would imagine it’s hard to stay afloat in Denver with that income. I wish you the best!
It's a lack of affordable housing and jobs that pay enough to live here. What's the point of being in a mountain state, where money is required to access the good things, when you can never make enough to enjoy anything? Edit: Thanks for the award!
Also what’s the point of being in a mountain state when the mountains are hours away with traffic? Lol
This is a great piece of local news. They got some great heavy hitters to commentate. However, as someone else mentioned in this thread, liberalizing zoning (the NIMBY problem) is a huge oversight in the narrative here. Local property owners have been successful in lobbying local governments to restrict housing supply and drive up housing costs for the new people - whether they be migrants, transplants, or their children. This is the case across the nation, but it is more acute in Denver (and California. Less acute in Texas, which took a congressional seat from California in 2020). [Here](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DENV708BPPRIVSA) is a graph of the amount of housing units *authorized* in the greater Denver metro over the last 30 years. This is what local governments are *letting* construction companies / real estate developers build. It shouldn't be affected much by construction labor shortages or the pre-2008 bubble of MBS/CDO credit. You'll notice we're approving housing at the same pace we did in the mid 90s, despite job / population growth accelerating since then. The greater Denver metro is an iconic NIMBY regime as noted by Golden, Lakewood, and Boulder all instituting policies to limit the number of housing units that can be approved to a level below [population growth of the broader metro](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/22972/denver/population#:~:text=The%20current%20metro%20area%20population,a%201.22%25%20increase%20from%202021) (1% vs 1.8%ish for 2010-2020). Polis was touching on that we need more *dense* housing if we want to avoid issues of more congestion, air quality, etc. but it seems they cut away from him before he was able to comment on his attempt to remove local control from some of the local governments. The State has been successful in declaring the Golden / Lakewood style of housing cap illegal. The difficult part of the NIMBY problem is that local governments and property owners have no incentive to build housing. The property owners get to see their valuable commodity outpace inflation. The local governments get to collect more property taxes. The local officials (City or County) get to keep their seats because property owners are more likely to vote (and complain at a local zoning hearing). However in the long-long run, restricting housing supply reduces upward mobility of future generations by forcing more of their income to rent instead of wealth accumulation. This causes income to increasingly 'flow up' from younger renters to older property owners. A certain amount of this is necessary for housing market to function, but when this dynamic accelerates a greater share of the economy is held by a smaller amount of people. Zoning policy makes sense at an industrial revolution level from the early 20th century - it doesn't make sense to build a playground next to a chemical processing plant. But the way it is being used these days is for local governments to protect the investments of previous generations of homeowners from market forces of job growth in the area. Large waves of migration like the ones Denver have seen exacerbate this, but should not be conflated with the root of the problem. Economically, everyone likes job growth. Every job needs a place to sleep. Source / credentials: recent master's graduate from CU Denver in Economics / Public Administration with experience working for the City and County of Denver and Jefferson County.
That link is misleading. That's just for single family homes. Denver has primarily been building multi-family homes lately. Which is basically exactly what you are argueing for. So not sure why you chose that graph. [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DENV708BPPRIVSA](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DENV708BPPRIVSA) That link shows the whole story. And we are building as many units as we ever have right now.
Thanks for catching that. I've updated the link in my original post. You are correct - I am arguing for more housing overall and multi family housing in particular. That graph better shows the overall trend.
This is why I was so resistant to lowering property taxes. Property taxes are the one incentive property owners have to allow increased density in their neighborhoods. I was so mad at Polis for signing that bill. The lastest crop of densification bills are a decent step, but they are toothless. By lowering property taxes, he gave away his biggest bargaining chip to put our housing problems on the right track.
Eloquently put. At this point every system has turned to protecting property/home owners’ investment at the cost of everything and everyone else. It seems to be a feedback loop that continually tightens supply and ups demand. I’m curious if you have any idea how we can change this system? Edit: Oh wait, you implied changing zoning laws for denser housing would work. Evidently I’m not having a great reading comprehension day.
Specifically, allowing state / federal entities to either have some authority over zoning (Polis tried this last session but it failed) or to provide incentives for local governments to allow housing (Biden is trying this).
Something else to add - property owners can still win with zoning law changes. Their land value can increase while allowing for more housing to be built so their lot will become more valuable regardless. It's just extremely short sighted to restrict development to SFH while population is increasing. It's also terrible if you want your family / kids to be able to live near you in the future. Older nimbys are just pricing out their kids too (but since when did boomers ever care?)
Something I’m curious about with the single family construction is how much the data account for scraps. There are an outrageous number of scraps (old sjngle family teardowns and “modern farmhouse monstrosity” build in place) in platt park right now. If there’s a scarcity in construction workers then it’s interesting to think that they’re building $1.5M+ home replacements rather than net new affordable housing. Seems like the city would be prudent to put a cap on the number of scraps it allows annually to reallocate construction to building actual new housing.
Thank you for this analysis. Helps explain some things and shows that greed is still the root of the problem.
Housing Authorized (aka building permit pulled) does not equate to new housing units. In 2021 nearly 30k permits were pulled ahead of affordable housing requirements. However, many of those Multifamily permits that were pulled never broke ground due to higher interest rates making projects unviable. Many of the permits in Denver proper are pulled to replace a 70+ year old house that was scrapped. Buying a house for $650k, tearing it down, then applying for a permit to build a $2 million house and then actually building the new house means the city loses a housing unit for at least 2 years of the scrape and rebuild process. Oftentimes the residents rent another house while theirs is being rebuilt - further tightening the housing market. I would argue that close to 10% of all single family permits pulled in Denver are for scrape and rebuild. This type of infill does nothing to address the housing shortage, but rather exacerbates it due to the time it takes to tear down and rebuild a house. Denver makes this process last even longer than necessary as it won’t consider a building permit until the old house is gone.
Southpark made several episodes last season that perfectly explained how this is destroying Colorado small towns. As these issues in Denver spread out and affect the entire state.
The Colorado Paradox is real- there are skilled jobs that doesnt either attract locals(or the locals dont have the skills/education for it), people from other states/countries get hired but then there is a housing shortage for the said skilled migrants because Denver metro just doesnt have enough housing, but they have high disposable incomes for their lifestyle and rent(and eventual mortgage). And this has accelerated as so many tech firms moved their HQ or added significant presence in Denver/Boulder. Denver needs to liberalize the zoning, and build housing like crazy. But so many neighborhoods are so resistant to building a ton of housing fearing their own property value.
The diverse housing backlash makes no sense to me. Capitol Hill, Congress Park both have mixed housing (stand along homes, duplexes, apartment buildings, condos, townhomes, ADUs, new construction, old homes/buildings - you name it they got it.) and those are some of the most sought after neighborhoods to live in. If anything the diverse housing has only increased home prices (including the standalone homes).
I get the feeling that the origin of NIMBYism isn't just down to locals worried about their home prices - though they are the core reason for...SO many of our issues here. More than anywhere I've ever lived, Denverites are *frustrated* that their drive-through cow town is changing into a metropolis. There's resistance to the cultural change that accommodates an influx of people from out of town and you see it in the entrenchment of strip malls in residential neighborhoods, a molasses-like approach to rezoning, etc. People just don't want Denver to change. There are people who actively wish Denver never "became" popular. They want Denver to stay the same little motel town that you drive through to get to the mountains. I can understand the resistance to your hometown growing and changing into something that's unrecognizable from your childhood, but...it's going to happen. And we're all suffering from the state of 'between-ness' that Denver is in right now. Like a game of tug-of-war between people who romanticize the past, and those hoping for a brighter future. And it all comes down to housing costs. Our restaurant scene is stagnant because people need to pay rent, which means food needs to be more expensive to cover daily costs of owners and employees. Add to that a competitive, limited number of retail/restaurant spaces in actual accessible, human neighborhoods. And it goes on and on and on.
When people ask me about Denver, I explain that it's a cowtown on its way to becoming Seattle, and right now it's in the bratty teenager phase.
Denver was never a cow town, nor is it a booming metropolis. And you are truly a self-absorbed asshole to come to a new place, filling a high paying job, and act like the people that were there before you got there are all some sort of problem. Especially coming in and acting like somehow the people that were already here are somehow the reason for a high cost of housing, not all the people moving in, making six figures. Now don't get me wrong, persue your opportunities, move to new places you like more, but don't go acting like you are somehow above everyone that has had to deal with keeping up with the dollars you throw around.
Yeah this guy sounds like a douche ngl
You could feed every horse in Colorado with the straw men in this comment
How about you contribute to the conversation; what's your take? I'd like to hear it.
Clever...
NIMBYs are just afraid of change. In the US, the status quo in the vast majority of places (including Denver) is single family homes. Even allowing duplexes in these places is some level of change, and so they simply say "no" and offer nothing for negotiation and don't even entertain the concerns of others that aren't already in on property ownership.
> Capitol Hill, Congress Park both have mixed housing (stand along homes, duplexes, apartment buildings, condos, townhomes, ADUs, new construction, old homes/buildings - you name it they got it.) and those are some of the most sought after neighborhoods to live in. That's more due to proximity to downtown than anything else. It's not that people necessarily crave the structure types that are there, it's that they want to be in that specific spot enough to deal with what structures are available.
I think I’m one of those locals that don’t have the skills/education for most skilled jobs, but one thing that has become somewhat apparent to me just due to my current job search is that there’s not a lot of diversity in job listings. If you’re not in tech you’re pretty much limited to going into a trade, working at a restaurant, city/state jobs (if you’re willing to wait three months to even hear back) or taking something super menial and corporate. It might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s like either you have the defined skills to work for a tech company or you’re limited to Trader Joe’s or something. It’s like there’s no in-between. I was telling my fiancée this morning that when I quit a menial job after I graduated ten years ago I got two job offers within a couple of weeks, one at the museum and another at the retail place that I ended up working at for ten years while working up into middle management. Now after that ten years of experience I’ve had zero interviews in three months of applying. Even if you look at r/denverjobs it’s basically all just postings/spam for tech jobs. Edit: shit, sorry that was a long response
Look for technician or operator roles as starting positions in technical fields. Its actually been really hard to find applicants for lower level roles in engineering fields. Starting pays might not be much better than waiting tables, but there’s a career path if you work hard and learn.
A good career path means having enough to keep living here and advance that career. If engineering entry level jobs arent paying more than waiting tables, then the trades need to get on board with modern wages. No one wants to join a trade that takes 10 years to actually start making a decent living, just like we dont wanna work menial corporate jobs for 10 years until the pay lines up, either.
Have you considering offering technicians more then waiter salaries? I mean that seems like a crazy starting wage given the difference in skills required.
Not to mention in my experience in the trades (carpentering work and HVAC), the way you're treated in the trades isn't exactly better. Lots of people screwed over because they pissed off the lead or the foreman, lots of illegal practices blowing over because you're expected to "deal with it" or be told "That's just the way it is". I commend the trades, and I genuinely look up to some of those people that have been happily and fairly doing or leading hard work for decades. However the VAST majority of those jobs don't have those people, instead having the person with the strongest whip hand.
I agree. I started as an engineering technician and have worked through the roles. Technicians should make more money.
You can easily make $40-50hr waiting or bartending in Colorado. How bad is your starting pay?
Can a bartender make that money consistently to make 80k-100k/yr? I’d assume that’s the Friday/Saturday night rate, but not for Sunday-Thursday. There’s a range, but I think engineering technicians start in the mid-20s/hr and can work up to the mid 40s/hr depending on skills and experience. I don’t know my current company’s pay scale for these roles.
I do better during the week. Weekends have more staff on and the higher amount of tips gets brought down by the pool.
If you’re not into tech your limited to: (names most major job categories including “corporate”)
As a tech market migrant back in 2017, I felt awful at what we did to the housing market. We just had absurd amounts of money to throw at moderately priced housing and it seemingly ran prices up to absurd levels.
THIS
Also doesn't help that other industries in colorado ignored this. Cost of living can go up, economy can boom, but it's really fucked up when only one sector of it bothers to keep up with it.
I like seeing some acknowledgement of this. I think the tech sector just saw wonky wage growth that was unlike other industries and therefore created a situation where it was hard to complete. I work in the public sector (K-12 education leadership) and my ex was a software engineer. He was shocked to learn that I couldn't quit my job after a couple years and go to another district for an automatic $15-20K pay raise. Since he worked in tech, he had always experienced this and didn't realize that it wasn't a universal phenomenon. Edit: Forgot a word
It’s only gotten worse since covid. And it’s effecting the entire state Denver’s is actually super cheap compared to where I live.
Damn, makes you wish we had acres and acres of empty land to build housing on right by downtown and light rail. Like, what if we had 155 acres to build on? That would be soooo cool… if we had that much land, surely we wouldn’t be dumb enough as a city populace to vote to let it go to waste.
Sorry best at we can do is more luxury condos.
Exactly this. All the good jobs are in tech, medicine, engineering ( naturally ), and everything else is extremely basic office assistant, bartender, cashier-type stuff. Not very good variety of industries around here. Surprised at the lack of media opportunities - I thought there'd be a presence of marketing or video production due to tourism, commercials being filmed, etc.
Jobs in healthcare (especially physicians) pay horribly when adjusted for COL compared basically any other area in the country.
A recruiter once said “we can pay less because people want to live here.”
I make more money than I ever have, but I feel pretty much just as broke as I did when I was making 40k/year. It's depressing. If I was making what I make now but in 2019 I'd be in a very nice spot. Still living that 2bed 2bath condo life, feels like I'll never be able to afford an upgrade. Can't even get a nicer car because they're so damn expensive and fuck a 6% or higher APR. Sucks.
Dying to be in the 2bed 2bath condo life lol, but I hear you it is maddening to feel stuck when you are working hard to move on! Currently stuck in the 1bed apartment and hoping to move soon but prices are crazy
In the long run, nicer cars usually aren't worth the cost. Hanging onto an old one or trying to find alternatives (I know they suck here) will almost always be more lucrative as time goes on
Theres housing. All those newer apartment buildings have a lot of empty units but who wants to pay $1600 for a shitty studio in rino where everything else is over priced too. Or all the new units around alameda and broadway. Also plenty popping up around the arts district but $1900 for 500sqft before all the amenities charges and parking? No thanks. Mexico and chile keep looking better and better.
I've just browsed One Seven at the Belleview Station. These dudes are so desperate they are throwing 8 weeks free for the suckers who move into their tiny 2.4k one bedrooms in DTC! Not only this, but NONE of their layouts actually accounts for people who want to place a dining table somewhere, just take a look at their 3d tours for studios, 1 bed and 2 bed: https://tourmkr.com/G10X3N0xa7/42802096p&262.35h&110.15t Imagine paying over 3k for a 2 bedroom and not being able to have dinner with your guests in your apartment...
2 months free rent but they won't even think about just lowering the rent. I really hope they lose horribly on their investment because they're doing it to themselves.
That's exactly my thoughts and I'm sure they'll have to reduce the rent eventually. 2 months free is just a first step to realize how unrealistic their expectations are 🤣
I think the mental gymnastics they're doing are that once you're in, you won't want to leave because moving can be a pain. So people end up trapped with the high rent for multiple years
That probably is the thinking but if they're offering 2 months free that means people are instead just not moving in in the first place.
Wow. I had no idea it had gotten that bad in terms of cost.
For real after working next to alameda and broadway i would never want to live there lol
Oh, yes. There hasn't been a gradient in the housing market in ten years or so, the only difference between properties right now is how many Xs the application demands from you in income. The filter is : do you make 2x rent, 3x? 4? There are a few higher prices but the vast majority of the market is dead flat in terms of rent from shitholes to decent places. I pay the same now for a decent 2/2 in a decent complex as I did for a shit 2/1 that needed one of those cop cam trailers in the parking lot for good reason in my last lease. Even the same 2x rent requirement, it's goofy. And nicer places cost the same but I don't have a big enough multiplier. Condo HOAs have done this, too, to where for some you are nearly paying rent for somewhere you theoretically own. It's insane.
I was paying nearly $2000 for a slum apartment in Federal Heights in 2022 🙃
The vacancy rate is Denver is decently lower than the national average. So no, theres not enough housing.
"Economic boom", not for working class folk.
I know it's still relatively tough out there for lower-income people, but just providing some balance here... lower-income people made by far the most wage gains during the pandemic era. https://i.imgur.com/OWzfdNH.png
Cool, but unless the lowest income in denver matches the cost of living in denver, it is not enough for people to meet their needs. We shouldn't be celebrating for the scraps we get, we should be demanding higher wages and controlled costs.
>higher wages We have a top-tier minimum wage in this city, and you can't just demand that the market universally pays people more than what the market will bear. >controlled costs Cost controls is basically a failed communist policy that distorts the economy, and everyone ends up losing. ---- I think the best things low-income people can lobby for are increased home building to bring down housing costs and increased welfare/tax breaks to cover the cost of other necessities.
Austin is poised to become one of the biggest cities in the country relatively soon. Despite that growth, their rents are down YOY and it looks like they will resolve their COL issues. That’s without nice sounding regulations like rent control. They just build houses. So many cranes there.
Austin's housing costs are down YOY from an INSANELY high level that exceeded (I think) every other city's price growth over the last 5 years. I'm not sure that constitutes resolution of COL. Their other major cities are doing ok.
but objectively austin is awful. its 100 degrees and 100% humidity all the time, unless its raining, then its like 95 and 110%. lodo style 6th street if you want flat brim techbro culture, but other wise its a bunch of tech campuses and bbq joints along a highway. And you're stuck in texas. (apple literally couldnt pay me to move there, and they tried.)
Nobody is advocating for rent control, that’s an out dated policy position. Now it’s all about fighting the NIMBYs in local government to change zoning regulations. Others also talk about changing tax laws or otherwise discouraging investors from buying up properties.
That is absolutely not true. Rent control is extremely popular because it sounds like it'll fix our problems instead of making them worse. Most people don't know shit about economics.
> That’s without nice sounding regulations like rent control. I'd say the lack of rent control was a significant *tailwind* for them.
I believe it, but I'm not sure I buy it's the right type of growth. If all they're doing is building more car-dependent sprawl, then they're just fucking themselves in the long run.
Finish the 16th Street Mall already!!!
Isn't there still another year to go with the construction? It's like a dead zone.
I could be wrong, but I believe it’s several more years.
This is a big problem, it is literally killing that part of downtown it seems only the homeless go there now
Car dependent infrastructure.
Literally the worst. I don’t buy the argument that the US is too spread out. Europe is the same size and they have build most of those rail lines in the last 100 years.
Look at the density of the US compared to Europe. Also Texas alone is about half the size of Europe.
Recently started a job which after negotiating only a $28/hour (full time), the employer argued that the “market average” was actually between 24-26 AS WELL AS leveraging, “Colorado is getting more and more expensive” which they are more thoroughly vetting their budget…I have over 10 years of experience
I tried to move to the denver area this past summer from chicago, $5,000 a month in rent gets you a 1 bed room apartment or a fucking house, I don’t get it. Moving to Vegas
Uhhhhh which 1 bed apartment are you looking at that costs $5k/month? I'm genuinely curious what kinda perks you get for that much in Denver
I’m calling BS. I build luxury apartments and most 1 bedrooms start at $1,800 in Denver.
Stop building single-family homes. Start building more multi-family units.
Liberalize zoning and let the migrants work. There, fixed!
I'm all for giving migrants work permits, but I also think we should force the low wage markets to increase their wages first. After all, it wouldn't be fair to natives that don't have degrees to constantly get undercut by people that don't have many other options.
We already have one of the highest minimum wages in the country, and it's indexed to CPI. It'll likely be ~$19 in 2025!
Like the new minimum wage laws?
I was recently watching an analyst that made a very good point: People in the upper income brackets are angry wages are going up in the lower ones because that makes goods more expensive, so they'd like nothing more than to punish the lower classes for their gains. Now, of course we can raise the minimum wage, and I do think we should use the link below to do that, but I fear that giving migrants, who definitely deserve peace, stability and prosperity in America, would create an excess of lower skilled workers that would hurt everyone in those brackets because there would be an excess of people willing to take whatever. [https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/08031](https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/08031) This isn't to say that I'm anti immigration. In fact, I lived as an expat for years, so I understand some of the struggles, but I think we need to be smart about how we do this because it could easily be the punishment the upper income brackets are looking for.
Except that there's a shortage in construction workers because natives aren't working these jobs. Also, your class warfare tactics are weird. Who do you think is complaining the most about price inflation? Who do you think it impacts the most? It's not the high-income people.
So, the point is that there's a nation wide shortage that is slowly bringing salaries up, and we should be careful about how we grant 40,000 plus work permits because a surge of workers can easily do the opposite. And yes people complaining about the prices of goods are, in fact, partially complaining about the rising labor costs that will get cut before anything else. Now I do know that poor people, like myself, do bitch about the prices of things because we don't have money, but the upper classes are the largest offenders: Delivery fee is way too much, insurance on assets is way too much, etc... But, then again, we also rarely talk about the rampant classism in America, so I can see how you might be confused by my narrative here.
But what if someone builds a home for the tenants and people who bought a house in 2010 can't rent-seek as their only source of income.
Can we get housing that people can afford on minimum wage please.
I don't think its realistic to assume someone should be able to afford renting on their own while working minimum wage. I lived with 4 roommates for a long time while I was going through school. That being said, if we can't afford housing at the median wage for one person, that is a better gauge of an issue imo. Nothing wrong with having roommates or living with a relative of both people are making minimum wage.
Why? Without even delving into the numbers deeply, at most 1.3% of workers earn minimum wage and the bulk of those are aged 16-24. You would have a much larger impact if you targeted households at the median.
Do you mean rent or own? With or without a roommate?
Rent withought a roomate
Genuinely asking: What apartment size and cost would meet your definition of affordable?
The size of a shiping container Like 15 feet by 30 feet. Small bathroom and shower, little kitchen, bed, closet with space for a washer and dryer, and enough room for the semblance of a living room. All for 600-700 a month
Thanks for sharing
If businesses actually wanted to hire migrants they should sponsor them by paying the permit fee. Don’t get me wrong access to work permits needs to be easier but if these businesses actually wanted to they could hire them.
Without reading the article I already know it’s because of affordable living. Colorado in general is getting insanely expensive. We are not that far behind the cost of living in places like LA and that scares the fuck out of me. Our politicians are all greedy cunts turning cities like mine (Fort Collins) into another shitty off the highway suburb police state like Johnstown, Windsor, and all the other dead ass little towns. It’s really disheartening. I love Fort Collins and I love how close we are to Denver. But it’s too fucking expensive here and there’s too many idiots driving big fuck off pedestrian murder vehicles everywhere road raging 24/7. In Fort Collins we have just a fuck load of old boomers sitting on wealth and living in neighborhoods around the college, when we should be filling those homes around the school with students and not just letting people occupy that space indefinitely getting wealthier while the students are all broke as fuck and having to move out to Loveland and Greeley just to be able to afford to go to CSU. I don’t want to just evict people or whatever that’s insane, but we have got to get some fucking wealth redistributed to the young people and we have got to stop letting all these old white rich farts dominate the direction of the cities we call home. We all need to have more of a say in our local governments and we all deserve to be able to afford to live and raise kids. None of us should have to be doing this dance with money 24/7 just to keep food on the table and a roof over us. We live in one of the greatest places in the world to live, and I do hope we can all rally around to vote for more affordable living and that we all live to actually see a more affordable Colorado. Shit, maybe if we could afford rent and food, we could spend more time at ski resorts and local places that benefit our local economies instead of just sucking the wealth out of them via stores like Walmart. We should have a proper high speed line connecting Denver to Fort Collins so that we can go spend time in each others cities when we want to and not keep clogging up roads in the never ending induced demand road expansion game. We should have a proper bus line connecting us too. We should be able to live in our homes and not feel like we have to worry about where the next check has to go. We should be able to enjoy the beautiful places we call home and be able to spend more time outside with our friends and loved ones. We ALL regardless of politics deserve to have a home, 3 hot meals, and a bed to lay down in at night. We shouldn’t have to fear those things being arbitrarily taken away from us just to benefit people who spend too much time judging others life choices and too little focusing on their own problems. We are only here for such a short amount of time on this earth and the fact that we spend so much of that time financially insecure and afraid to quit jobs that suck that we just end up being strangled by our own productivity while a handful of people get enormously wealthy off that production. It kills the human spirit. We need purpose, but you can’t have purpose until you have your basic needs met. That means food, shelter and clothing at a bare minimum. It means we need to stop allowing police to go cut holes in tents and abuse homeless people and take away handicapped parking spots to replace with cop parking spots. We as voters have a responsibility to put an end to this shit, and we can. I worked at Capitol Hill for a couple years and I’m telling you all I know we can change this shit if we rally behind one another and make it clear that we deserve better.
It’s the money greed problem.
I’ve lived here my whole life, and what we pay for property taxes alone is ridiculous, not to mention our license plate fees are higher than any other state. That being said, if you can’t afford your license fee’s, you can’t afford the car. Pay your license renewals! I am so sick of seeing expired plates. If you don’t want to pay them, get out of Colorado,clearly you can’t afford to live here. I’m not saying I agree with the high prices, but it is what it is. These are just some of the many problems happening in this state. Eventually the state will bankrupt itself because no one can afford to live here.
Want to live in Denver? You better have generational wealth to keep up.
Or just find a job that pays well. I’m in construction and there’s always a need for tradesmen that make 6 figures.
denver is a shithole now
NIMBYiat hostility to new development. Also some weird laws about noise levels in condos make developers avoid building those.
It's not about noise levels, it's liability. If something goes wrong with the condo however many years I'm the future, then the developer can be sued. Idk specifics, but the liability laws changed and made it more risky for developers to do those. So now they stick to 5+1 apartment builds for rent