Tag: businessweek

• Electric scooters in Los Angeles

  Bloomberg Businessweek just published this article summarizing the impact that Bird and its electric scooters are having on Los Angeles. Here are a couple of highlights:

  – Bird launched a year ago and is, today, valued at around $2 billion.

  – The company has around 15,000 scooters on the road in Los Angeles. We already know that this is making some/many people grouchy.

  – The cost to rent a scooter is $1 plus $0.15 a minute.

  – LA has an incentive program in place that allows Bird to expand its fleet within low-income areas. Still, their scooters tend to be concentrated in wealthier areas of the city.

  – Beverly Hills is trying to figure out how to handle/regulate these scooters and currently has a 6 month ban in place.

  – Supposedly, you can ride a Bird through West Hollywood but you’re not allowed to park it anywhere.

  The company is based in Santa Monica, so it’s not surprising that they have such a stronghold in the LA market. Still, there appears to be a lot of latent demand for this kind of mobility.

  

  According the US Department of Energy, almost 60% of vehicle trips in the US last year were less than 6 miles. And around 40% were less than 2 miles. 

  So these “last mile scooters” do appear to have a lot of utility. Do any of you regularly use an electric scooter to get around?

  2018.09.19

• I don’t get Las Vegas real estate

  If you had to pick an epicentre for the housing bust of 2008, I’d say that Las Vegas would be a pretty safe bet.

  Las Vegas home prices doubled between 2002 and 2006 (the peak), and then fell 62% through to 2012! According to RealtyTrac, Las Vegas saw the highest rate of foreclosure (in 2009) compared to any other major city in the US. 1 out of every 13 properties was in foreclosure. That’s pretty incredible.

  Now, hindsight is always 20/20, but from the beginning I had a hard time understanding Las Vegas from a real estate standpoint. You have a city that’s running out of water and who’s major economic drivers are tourism, gambling and conventions. Not only are these industries highly cyclical, but they don’t create a lot of high paying local jobs.

  So for home prices to double in the span of 4 years, it must mean that there’s a lot of investor activity in the market. But how much is a lot? As one example, the 678 unit Meridian Private Residences, which was a condo conversion done by American Invsco, apparently only sold 14 units to end users. The remaining 98% of the units were bought by investors.

  Those are pretty scary numbers – both for investors and end users. And while times today are certainly nowhere near as frothy, I still don’t get Las Vegas real estate.

  2013.09.14