…according to Realtor.com it is.
In Realtor.com’s most recent (2nd-quarter) list of Top Turnaround Towns, Reno moved up from 78th to 38th. See the RGJ story here: Reno considered a boomtown, Realtor.com report says
What do you think? Do you consider Reno a boomtown?
Matthew
I think statistics do funny things when governments abrogate property rights and change the rules mid-game….
Driveby Poster
Let me know when you find a place where government doesn’t intervene in the workings of the economy. As a head start, I’ll point in you the right direction. I’m sure Somalia is an excellent place to do business where government sure isn’t going to interfere with property rights.
Matthew
@Driveby… I’ve seen that talking point before, did you get a new e-mail forward recently?
I never said anything about no government, I said they need to protect property rights. In fact, the United States is a nice place (by comparison) *because* our government worked to protect property rights. Contrast with Somalia where there is no such protection.
If you are unwilling to consider the impact that government-induced moral hazard, absent private participation in lending markets and abrogation of property rights has on things like real-estate statistics then there is nothing to discuss….
Driveby Poster
What property rights are you referring to? Is it the requirement that mortgage holders actually prove they are the mortgage holder and that a mortgage exists prior to foreclosing? If so, you’re right. That’s horrible. Mortgage holders should be able to foreclose on house, kick families out on the street and then, if it turns out they made a mistake, say “oops.”
Matthew
If a bank erroneously “takes your house” there will be lawyers lined up to get their piece of the punitive judgement.
Banks erroneously foreclosing was tiny statistical-insignificance in the broad reality of the government-loan bubble. The vast, vast, vast majority of foreclosures were warranted and justified.
Now, with accounting rules cleared at the federal level paired with a government-only lending market we meet the Nevada situation of *legitimate and warranted foreclosures* disallowed by fiat…. if you expected the charts to look like anything else you’re off your rocker.
There is no other way the charts could look (for now) because they are deliberately manipulated to look this way. You can’t take a correlative statistic and *remove the underlying rules and basis which produce the statistic* and try to show trends year over year. That’s not only bad math, it’s downright dishonesty.
Zen
It is a boom town. It’s also a bust town. Reno has often had an erratic boom/bust real estate market. The last go around being an extreme example. I wouldn’t go so far as to declare the current market as a boom just yet, but it seems to be an improvement over a couple of years ago. That’s not saying much though.
Tom
The article’s focus and the basis for its pronouncements is founded upon improvement over a previously-low reference point. In that way, the writers’ concept of a “boomtown” reflects upward mobility from a low starting point, as shown by their inclusion of Oakland as a “boomtown.” To me, the fact that a community’s economics have improved significantly from a relatively low starting point, wouldn’t necessarily make it a boomtown, compared to other places–for it could still be a community in economic difficulty. It would just show me that it has improved from where it was. That is worth noting, of course, but I would give it a different label.
BanteringBear
A “boomtown” is a place which is experiencing rapid economic growth. Reno? A “boomtown”? Puhhleeease…