We Them Media logo We Them Media Back the work

From $850 rent to a pot real estate bubble: James.

James, Reported by Maceo, Denver, 2 min, filmed

In this video? Ask for a change or have it taken down.

Keep up with new releases. Get the newsletter, once a week

Answers How has the place you live changed in your lifetime?, see how other cities answered

To quote this piece: James, “From $850 rent to a pot real estate bubble: James,” We Them Media, filmed 2026-03-03, https://wethem.xyz/watch/from-850-rent-to-a-pot-real-estate-bubble-james-denver. Each transcript line links to its second.

James, from Virginia Beach, has been in Denver about a decade. Maceo, “here from Philly,” asks what brought him. The honest answer comes second: “Truthfully a girl.” The first is the wave he rode in on. “I feel like I came out here around the same time everybody else did, like 2015, 2016. You know, the place was booming.” He dates the influx to legalization: he does not smoke, but “with the influx of people there was also an influx of jobs, hope, opportunities.”

Was it good for Denver? “Oh gosh, no.” His evidence is a lease. “We rented a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment. It cost us about $850.” With a little yard for the dogs. Then the thesis the video’s title promises, cut off mid-sentence as part one ends: “the marijuana industry, you know, they can’t put their money in banks. So what do they do? They put their money in real estate just like everybody.”

Whether that is the whole story of Denver rents is a question for another piece; this is one resident’s account of it, from the inside. Part one of Maceo’s Denver POV series; the transcript below is from the original audio.

8 supporters at $178 a month pay for this work, on the way to $1,000 a month. Become a supporter →

Transcript

Skip the transcript ↓

Spotted a wrong word? Tap its timestamp, then tell us.

Who speaks, by their own introduction on the tape: Maceo at 0:01. Transcribed from the original audio and corrected for names. Speaker letters mark turns, not names. Search every transcript

These are the speaker’s own words. We have not checked their claims.

0:01MaceoAnd, hell yeah. So, what’s up? What’s your name? It’s James. Okay, hell yeah. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Maceo. I’m here from Philly. So, are you originally from here in Denver?

0:12BNo, I’m actually, I’m originally from the East Coast.

0:15MaceoOkay, we’re on the East Coast.

Read the full transcript ▸

0:17BOkay. We’re in Virginia. Virginia Beach. Okay, sick, sick, sick.

0:22MaceoI spent a little bit of time in Virginia. I went to like a Quaker camp in Virginia when I was a kid.

0:25BOh, no way.

0:26MaceoYeah, and like the mountains. I don’t really know where.

0:28BThe mountains of Virginia are amazing.

0:30MaceoI agree, I do agree. Some pretty cool, some pretty cool Maceo lore. So what brought you out here from Virginia? From Virginia, in the wilderness, the desert of Colorado.

0:39BYeah, I feel like I came out here around the same time everybody else did, like 2015, 2016. You know, the place was booming. I feel like ever since, like, was it 2012 that they enacted the, you know, legalized marijuana? I feel like there was a huge influx of people and I don’t really smoke marijuana but you know with the influx of people there was also an influx of jobs, hope, opportunities, things like that. Excitement. Yeah excitement there’s a lot of excitement.

1:10MaceoSome FOMO too I assume. Exactly. Oh yeah but why Colorado all the places like right you go to you go to like anywhere.

1:16BTruthfully a girl.

1:19MaceoOh yeah I got that I got that.

1:21BYeah so she wanted to come out to Colorado she was here she lived here way back in in the 90s in Colorado Springs.

1:27MaceoOkay, I got that. Being here in Colorado now, you’ve been here for a while. You said like about a decade now. About a decade, yeah. How have you seen a change in the last decade? Do you feel like that influx of people was good for Denver, Colorado?

1:39BOh gosh, no. No, and it’s kind of funny, like when I first came out here, I rented a, obviously me and my girl, but we rented a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment. It cost us about $850. Wow. If you can believe that. You can’t even do that. Two bedrooms, one bathroom. You can have a little yard, not huge, but like a little place that our dogs go outside and go to the bathroom while we’re at work.

2:04MaceoImagine. I know, right?

2:06BAnd yeah, I mean, obviously it’s become much more expensive since then. I feel like in part because of, you know, the influx of people, in part because, like I said, the marijuana industry, you know, they can’t put their money in banks. So what do they do? They put their money in real estate just like everybody

That was the whole tape.

The We Them Weekly, once a week by email What went up, and what we are asking next.

Filmed the same day.

3 March 2026

More from Denver Unfiltered.

The whole project
10:15
Denver · ETH Denver 2024

A first interview, and advice back to Newark.

By Maceo

 7:45
Denver

A content coin, and making governance a game.

 7:21
Denver · Street

A borrowed camera, and Denver block by block.

By Maceo

Keep going: Every answer to “How has the place you live changed in your lifetime?”, Everything filmed in Denver.