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If you were going to pick from the nice neighborhoods you listed, Summerlin, Green Valley, Henderson, which one would you want to live in and why?


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I do live in the SE near Maryland/Pebble. 2 years ago after having taken nearly every vacation to Vegas for the previous few years I decided to just plop down here fulltime. I had almost exactly the same thoughts as you--easy access to the strip was important, but being in a not-crappy neighborhood was higher priority. This is a couple miles from the Henderson/GV border and seems like a nice enough neighborhood. It's kinda between the McCarran runway X's so isn't in the normal arrival/departure flight paths of the 5th busiest airport in the country. Access to I-215 is trivial and that's generally my choice for how to get around generally letting me land on the strip in about 12 minutes if the lights and traffic cooperate, but I have many alternative routes to get me to the strip (head west to LVBlvd, head east to Eastern, use I-215 to I-15, use I-215 to the airport tunnel). Basically it seemed like it met all my criteria very well, and I have no buyer's remorse.

Northeast Vegas is mostly Nellis AFB so I just didn't even look there much.

Northwest Vegas and Summerlin are nice areas, but getting in and out is rough...the highways that lead that way are always THE most congested in the entire valley; as well, the identical house in Summerlin seems like it cost 15% more than that house almost anywhere else. After spending one hour to travel 3 miles on US95 one day I crossed it off the list completely.

Southwest areas look ok and I viewed a couple houses out there, but it seemed like 'bout the only way in/out was through Blue Diamond Rd, and that backs up enormously during rush hours (but is getting better as they work on it, and add more interchanges with other major N/S streets).

That left the southeast. Lots of established neighborhoods and lots of ways to get to it. Grocery stores and Walmarts aplenty, and I don't feel like I need an armed escort to go buy milk at 10pm.

I looked at houses further out in the SE in Henderson/GV but just didn't feel like I had to go that far to be comfy. And when I found this place on a cul-du-sac, close to I-215 but just far enough away, close to the airport ($15 cab ride) but quiet, it just all clicked.

Mind you, two years ago houses were in fairly short supply. This was just after the super-boom; during the boom the average lifespan of a house on the market was like 4 days and people were making 105% offers to try to snag houses they liked before they'd disappear. That had ended, but the supply was still limited. Now, there are LOTS of houses on the market and they stay on the market for weeks before selling. You won't have any trouble finding a house that suits you in about any neighborhood, and you can offer less than the list price and probably get it.