Is Las Vegas An Affordable Place To Live?

The question of whether a city is affordable or not is, and continues to be, a tricky one to answer because it depends on such a wide range of factors and variables. Obviously, certain types of jobs offer higher salaries no matter where you live, which can make almost any city affordable to individuals with those types of jobs. In addition, the cost of living is also highly dependent on the desirability of a given area. For instance, the cost of living in even a small town or city can be quite high if there is a large corporate headquarters there or lots of jobs. On the other hand, a beachside paradise may have an extremely high cost of living even without a large corporate employer nearby.

What affordability really boils down to is not the cost of homes or other living accommodations but rather the relationship between median incomes in the area versus home prices and other living expenses. For instance, while a small apartment in New York City might cost as much as a sprawling mini-mansion in another city, wages and salaries also tend to be much higher in New York City. In addition, due to the abundance of jobs in New York City, if you lose one job, you generally won’t have to pick up and move in order to get another one and it may not take you as long to find a replacement job. As a result, calculating the affordability of living in a large city versus a small town is also not as simple as looking at the cost of homes versus average salaries for a given occupation.

Although the cost of living in Las Vegas is actually lower than much of the U.S., there are a number of other factors to consider when it comes to evaluating the true cost of living there. While this may be slowly changing, it cannot be denied that the largest industry by far in Las Vegas is the casino industry, which is something of a hybrid between the hospitality and entertainment industries. This also means that hotels and casinos tend to be the largest employers in the area. If you are comfortable working in a casino or casino environment, there are plenty of jobs to be had and in many cases they can pay quite well. Not all of these jobs are necessarily typical hospitality jobs either. Accounting and other cash handling jobs are also in fairly high demand, as are more traditional jobs such as teachers and health care workers.

Needless to say, Las Vegas is still a large city and all of the people that live there also have the same needs as anyone in any other city, so there are plenty of non-casino jobs and employment opportunities available. That being said, however, it is always an important point to consider that the entire city depends heavily on tourism dollars. Without those dollars coming in, unemployment can run rampant, which can have a direct impact on all of the other businesses in the city, which can also have a direct impact on the affordability of Las Vegas.

Other factors to consider

Although Las Vegas is considered to be a more affordable place to live than many cities in the U.S. from a strictly financial perspective, not all costs have a specific dollar value attached to them but they still need to be considered. One of these factors is the specific types of jobs that are most readily available. Another factor to consider is the desert climate of Las Vegas, which is not an environment everyone thrives in. That being said, there are also many people that do, in fact, thrive in the desert.

From a straight dollar-for-dollar financial perspective, however, Las Vegas is considered to have a slightly lower cost of living and slightly higher wages than most U.S. cities of its size, which makes it a very affordable place to live.

If you are thinking of moving to Las Vegas, give us a call today at 702-840-4415 and let us help you find the home of your dreams here.