May be moving to Vegas

I have a job offer in Vegas at Gaming Laboratories (GLI). If any locals can offer their take on living in Vegas, I'd appreciate it. Pros/cons, Vegas from a non tourist perspective, quality of food selection off the strip, you know....the important stuff.

There are a few good threads about this already.
Recent too.

Do you have a time range and topic I could browse Bob? Don't see a search option. Thanks.

The relevance of the advice you get will depend on your life situation. Young and single? Early 40s with middle-school kids? Are you looking for an apartment, condo, strip home in Henderson, or 7000 sqft. mansion in Queensridge?

31, not married, no kids, income in the mid 50s. Think I will be living a bit south of the airport. Won't get the full relocation offer until tomorrow, and am not starting till end of this month, at which point there is a training period in NJ. I'd be moving in around the middle of Feb.

Search is between "shows" and "about" on the menu bar at the top of the site. The member Avargov moved to vegas recently, and several members helped with neighborhood advice, etc. That was...ummm...last spring sometime?

This is an outsider's perspective, but...

Most of the comments indicate that because Vegas is still suffering from the casino bubble burst, there are a lot of foreclosures, and housing is downright cheap. On the other hand, jobs are impossible to find.

Considering that you already have a job offer, I'd say you're far ahead of the typical person thinking about moving there.

Congrats!

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Food off strip?

Locals have to eat too...

I've eaten at a couple places outside of the tourist zone. Good quality and reasonable prices are not hard to find.

And Nick just moved to Vegas in Oct, theres lots
of advice people gave him. Here's his moving
to Vegas blog

Scroll to the bottom and read up.

What will you be doing for GLI?

"A bit" south of the airport is not expensive. You can go much further south (Anthem, Seven Hills) and still find a big place within your budget. With rates right now (4%), your income, and your one-person expenses, you can afford a whole lot in Vegas right now. The fact that you're single will mean that your own spending habits will determine whether you have money left over. Family of 4 on that income is a different story, but still very doable in Vegas. By yourself, no worries. Consider: 250k property w/ 20% down = 50k down, 200k mortgage at 4% = monthly payment of $955, around 1/3 of your take-home, probably much less since I ignored the "mid" part and overestimated your pre-tax deductions at 30%. And from what I can tell (someone local correct me if I'm wrong), there are a lot of apartments where $1000/month will get you quite a lot.

Also consider whether you're likely to be a short-timer like about 2/3 of the people who move to Vegas, or whether you'd like to stay for longer. Apartments tend to be cheaper if you're not going to stay, especially if you're not sure how long or what the housing market will do. Things to think about: how transferable will your GLI skills be to other local companies, etc.? And if Tony Hsieh (Zappos CEO) has his way, downtown LV will become a tech hub and startup incubator. Is that relevant to your job or interests? Or if you keep your job at GLI, will they move you around?

Quote: CrystalMath

What will you be doing for GLI?

The position is a mathematician or math developer I. They've been using the terms kind of interchangeably. Thanks everyone for the help.