Good. There are still places that you can get investment properties for reasonable prices... I think that would have changed if they came here. HQ2 would have just brought epic infrastructure problems. It may have been nice if you were playing an appreciation-only game, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Good. There are still places that you can get investment properties for reasonable prices... I think that would have changed if they came here. HQ2 would have just brought epic infrastructure problems. It may have been nice if you were playing an appreciation-only game, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Jim K. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Their attention has brought a lot of notoriety to Pittsburgh and additional interest. Remember there are already quite a few major players here. Pittsburgh is now being dubbed the new tech city, and that can only benefit our future. Amazon choosing another area will actually help us to remain competitive by not killing our real estate market. In other words making us still very affordable. Thank you Amazon, we truly appreciate your interest in our wonderful city!
Yeah I kind of feel like we are already a few steps down the road to being a tech hub. Working in software myself, I can speak from the experience of getting hit up my recruiters that many small-to-midsize companies (beyond Google, Uber, Facebook) that aren't on everyone's radar are already here or in the process of setting up offices. I know Amazon is more than software, but the jobs that HQ2 was gonna bring were tech.
Likewise, Google has announced a Google Village plan to create 20,000 (40% of Amzn hq2 head count) for a new local developer jobs, AI, machine learning etc. I know they paid very little for 1.5 ac (3 parcels) for first buildings to be completed around 2025. In the mean time C-, D neighborhoods homes sold several M dollars a pop for 4 plex, 1++ M for old tiny SFH that one can not get much more than 1K to section 8 tenants today. There is no question Googl or someone will build an office building someday. What goes through the investors head when they pay arm and a leg and find out Googl, Adobe, PWH decide 7 years later they want to curtail or abort the plan?
We are so used to hear announcement here and find out company had bad earnings, went offshore. In this case, FB, Amzn may ended up splitting to several companies as Trump kept making threats.
Right now if these momentum stock companies like Amzn can not sustain their performance as shown in recent weeks. The investors will punish them. Not being there can be good things to locals. Senior citizens get booted out of their apartments. Lower income residents can not all be homeless.
Would you agree or disagree with the following statement: "Pittsburgh is well-positioned to be where much of the autonomous transportation, building, and self-replicating robotic technology of the 21st and 22nd centuries will be developed."?
The more I look at the long-term prospects of the area, well after my wife and I are gone, the wilder things get. Since I can't reasonably deny that measurable climate change is happening, it's very likely that climate is not going to be nice to a lot of the coastal development happening in this country now, and especially not nice at all to the Southern states. Stable, well-protected midwest cities like Pittsburgh are going to rise in value as places to do business as things get worse elsewhere.
I think there is a good base here for robotics... Autonomous transportation maybe... Uber kind of overplayed their hand with the city, and whether you like him or not, the mayor is definitely reactive. There are certainly other autonomous driving and machine / deep learning based companies all over Pittsburgh so I think it will still be a force in the city in the future.
A lot of people just see the numbers of population decline here and don't look deeper. The population is declining because the baby boomers are getting older, passing on or retiring elsewhere (though with our low state tax and no tax on retirement benefits I don't see why... from a financial standpoint). This city didn't start attracting younger talent for medical and tech until the late 90s and the growth has been slow and steady (up until recently). There is a steady flow of young folks coming here because of the LCOL and the availability of jobs here. This certainly isn't the Pittsburgh of old where everyone worked in the mills.
@Nick Michaels Thanks for also addressing the population puzzlement. I've heard from many potential Investors who were worried about reports of Pittsburgh's declining population. And you are spot on with the baby boomer reference. I just read an article in the Post Gazette that also addresses this by saying "Due to an unusually old population, more deaths than births occur here". More young people are indeed moving into the area as additional jobs are created especially so in the medical and tech arenas. I have read that the next US census is not scheduled to be completed until 2020.