What is it with pro poker players in Las vegas and not buying houses? Maybe its not just in Vegas but in general? I have always wondered this, to me renting has always seems like pissing money away, if you can afford to buy, you baught. Yet i see all these Pro's talking about how they rent in the panorama towers or where ever, on a recent episode of 2M2MM Brian commented on how he also doesnt want to buy a house.

Do they all know something i dont? Are they thinking of a home ONLY as an investment, or are they just assuming they will make good money from poker forever and therefore they can buy a house some other time? Is owning property actually more expensive in Vegas than just renting? that cant be right.

I Have been looking online and it seems you can get a house for like $100k, this seems really cheap to me is it in a terrible area?

I think for the most part it comes down to many online pros being young people, wanting to keep their options open for the time being.

I'd guess banks are pretty loathe to give a poker player a huge loan.

But when a player like Shaun Deeb for example Makes a big score, i dunno wat he biggest is, like 200k? He already has a BR so surely he cud use that 200k, i dunno wat prices are like in USA but 200k must be a pretty heffty deposit. I think Any Bank would give any1 a loan if they had 200k deposit.

Yeah this would make a lot of sense to sane ppl. But when poker players hit a big score they think: "Ooooh I can play like super high now. Why would I cripple my roll to do something silly like buy a house that is almost certain to increase in value?" And thus the cycle of poker players renting luxury condos continues.

So its just as i suspected, Poker players are bad with money, lol. Who knew :P

Rule of thumb, you shouldn't buy instead of rent unless you plan to remain in the house 5 years. When in Vegas, we're constantly nagged about why we don't buy -- strangely enough, usually by somebody there who's eager to sell. I don't even know why people rent in Vegas. Any halfway decent advantage player can stay cheap/free/even be making a little earning hotel rooms in Vegas. I can't buy a condo, turn on the lights and water and DSL, have a maid service come in, worry about insuring the place when I travel, and come out ahead or even with just staying in hotels. Plus what's the property tax situation? There's a reason all these folks at the poker table are wanting so bad to unload their houses and condos on you. Plus if you buy a house, then you have to have a car just for Vegas (assuming you fly in, what, are you really going to drive there every time?) with those associated costs for gas, etc. Whereas I fly in, get to/from airport on a 6.50 shuttle ride, and can stay in cheap hotels with no worries right near the central strip. With flights at near record low costs, none of it makes sense to me.

A young poker player does not need to be tied to a house/condo in Vegas. He should be moving around to Los Angeles or wherever else he hears of a good game going.


Considering how many sad, sad stories I hear people tell me about all the millions they've lost in real estate in Vegas, forgive me if I don't see anything smart about buying a house/condo there. The market is overbuilt. How long did Houston take to come back after the real estate market collapsed from overbuilding in the early 1980s? That's right. It never did. Housing prices are about the same/not much better than they were then, except there's been considerable inflation since 1982. Yah, hell of a good investment, guys.

A house is NOT almost certain to increase in value after expenses. Do you people never read the financial pages at all? Or maybe you just don't have a clear understanding how expensive it is to own a house? I paid off my house some years ago, yet today, because home owners are the favorite target of every greedy local politician, about half of what I used to pay for my mortgage, insurance, taxes now still goes out of pocket just for insurance and taxes alone. Don't buy a house as an investment. Good grief. It didn't work. That's part of the reason why we're all in an economic crisis today is because idiots bought more house than they could afford (in some cases, they couldn't afford to buy ANY house) thinking they could make money by spending money. Life doesn't work that way, folks. You make money by working. Not by buying stuff. The rare exceptions that prove the rule exist to suck you in.

There's a reason an "affectionate" nickname for a house is "money pit."

1. i didint know there was a property tax? Puke

2. I was really talking about people who spend most of their time in Vegas, but i see what you mean about traveling alot.

3. These sad stories of people losing millions are probably investors. Im not talking about it as an investment, im talking as a home, long term. If you buy a house now i think you can be pretty possotive that in 10 years time it will have gone up in value, i dont live in America so i obv dont know much about the market but i doubt anywhere will stay "overbuilt" forever i mean the population aint gettin any smaller. and an even sader story in my mind is all these players with "millions" If they go broke they are left with nothing, no valuble assets.

4. I do not like your tone now, i think you are reading to much into this, I do not live in America so i do not know, hense why i asked. Now where i am from We dont need to worry about all these stupid taxes you are talking about, so buying is much better than renting, granted right now because of interest rates its probably not that much better if you have a mortgage, but for these millionaire poker players why would they need one... And again even with a mortage you still have an asset which you can call yours.

5. as to your very last point, im starting to think you are the one who needs to read up a little bit. It wasnt really the greedy investors buying houses they couldnt afford, it was the poor people believing that because the greedy banks would give them a mortgage they could afford a house. And then the banks selling these crappy mortages on to other banks when we all knew the poor cant afford the repayments.

Cliff notes: at first I thought you had good points, but now i think you are a guy with an angry tone who needs to learn that not every1 is from America.

They can also be pretty positive it will be worth less a year from now than it is now. So to answer your question, yes, you are missing something. These poker players that rent are just being smart. If you actually listen to what they said in 2M2MM, they've mentioned that they think prices are going to go lower.

Im sorry but it is YOU who is not listening, I am saying that they should not be looking at it as a short term investment, but infact more of a long term investment, or a safe guard, And i think the markets have shown that what you are saying is not the case, house prices are recovering, And even if they do go down, why wait a year to maybe save 20k wen they might rise and you have to pay out an extra 20k? I find that argument stupid, if every1 says the same thing the markets will never recover, ow we cant buy now, what if they are cheaper next year... When does it end?

OP, settle down. You asked some questions and you're getting honest responses. No one's trying to humiliate you.

Another factor, I think, is security. When you own your own home you must provide security. Home invasions are a real problem in Vegas. DB and DS both got robbed in their own homes. DS had a recent thread on this.

In a hotel or condo tower there is 24-hour security. Not a small convenience to a person who may have cash and expensive jewelry.

^ Nar man i am calm, lol. But if you read goldens comment he had a little anger in his tone, lol. Which i did not care for, and it seems the two comments i might not have liked didnt really seem to grasp the simple concept that a home was not designed to be a short term investment.

Now to your points, they would probably be a factor you are right, and thanks for your input. In Condo towers like Panorama, can you only rent or can you buy? Because obviously i dont know. I guess if i had to choose between renting in a condo tower on the strip or owning a home further away i think i too would choose to rent, especially if there is a tax for owning your own home, which again i did not know.

Post from another thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/10...vering-552565/

And another post from that thread:

Ok, you are only really in negative equity if you have a mortgage, which balla millionaires should not have, and going on the last post you quoted its going to take around 10-12 years for prices to get back to 2007 prices, which would be a higher value than the person would pay for the house today. So all you are really doing there is proving my point. They should be buying as a safe-guard, a long term investment and a home, but the concept seems to be alien to you. If you are telling me (which you didint) that you can only Rent condo's in a tower on the strip and there is a big tax for owning a property, then i would agree with you, renting would appear better. However you did not actually answer me

They probably want to live close to the strip, so they rent in those condos.

ya, ur probs right, livin on the strip wud probs be a big plus if you are a pro. Plus the towers do look nice.

That place is also filled with hookers which is a plus imo

Yes most balla millionaires I know hate being lent money at a low rate for 30 years.

in all seriousness, doubt thats even close to relevant or necessary to "pro poker players"

nobody here mentioned the biggest reason: pro poker players are L-A-Z-Y. Buying something takes way too much effort.

Meh, there are tons of reasons people don't buy.

The #1 reason is that Panorama is cheap as hell for what you get. People are living in condos that were purchased when they opened for 1-2 million dollars, for 1800-2500$ a month. They also don't have to pay the ridiculous HOA fees that the owners pay. If buying was such an easy care free way to make money, half of the towers wouldn't be empty because all of the owners got foreclosed on. You can read all of the articles about high rises or LV real estate that you want, but it's a pretty tough market to predict. The people who bought Panorama/Sky/etc. when they opened are so far upside down they may literally never get out. On top of that, since those have opened, there are a ton of new high rise developments going up as we speak, so the market is going to be even more saturated. I suppose buying a house is a slightly more stable option, but there are tons of issues there. Security, being further from the strip, being further from all of the other poker players, the fact that those houses are being foreclosed on too, etc.

To put things into perspective, as to how much value the high rises have lost, and how many people have defaulted on their loans. There are many high rise buildings in Vegas right now that you can't even take out a mortgage for. Mortgage companies won't write loans on buildings that are less than 50% occupied(I think), and right now several of the places in Vegas have fallen below that.

The #2 reason is that there aren't nearly as many balla poker players as you think...at least in the way you're speaking of them. Sure, there are guys who've made really really excellent money over the past couple of years, but the vast majority of people still need a large percentage of their winnings, in order to play the level that they need to play at to maximize their income. It's not like they need a 10K BR, but have 500K in the bank.

#3. The majority of the people I know who live in Vegas are going to get the hell out of town as soon as the poker scene begins to dry up. Very few people want to settle down and raise a family there, especially with the horrible current economic conditions. Renting out a balla high rise condo in a building with every imaginable amenity, sounds like the way to go to me.

I think everyone who knows anything about investing realizes that by renting they may be passing up a small amount of equity over the next couple of years. But that small amount of equity in most cases is not even close to worth the massive risk you could take on by paying cash for a high rise condo, or a random house in LV where your just not sure what the market is going to be like in 3-5 years. I know several people who have purchased houses in LV(with reasonable down payments), who are literally 40-50% upside down in their houses at the moment. I don't care how much of a balla you are, the potential for you to get screwed like that is very real.

Taxes, as well as massive Homeowners Association Fees are both big negatives for buying a high rise condo.

Thanks Horton. I am sold, lol. And yeah i think i heard something similar to you about a motgage on a high rise that is less than 50% occupied. Might have been on sum cardplayer show or summit. And i guess you're right about the BR thing to, plus maybe sum of them are backed so its not theirs anyway?....

Buying a house is way way different than buying a high rise condo in a trendy area.

maybe they have a better use for 100-200k than putting it into a house and waiting 12 years to make like 50k. LOL, that's like 5k/year? ) Hell of an investment that is...