@Chuy Ryu
 
It’s OK. They didn’t believe me either.
 
I ended up trolling them because S1~S3’s fanbase acted like I was trolling when I was sincere and reasonable anyway. In one argument I started with “The reason only girls become god-ponies is because the show is chiefly an ad to sell toys to little girls who heavily prefer female characters” and, when this wasn’t accepted, went to “The reason only girls become god-ponies is because they represent mastery of friendship and girls are way better friends than boys are”.
 
First argument was dismissed as trolling and largely ignored. Second was taken as sincere and provoked substantial protest. Go figure.

I FUCKING TOLD YOU! but nobody believed me

@marley
 
It can easily run you $20K to hire somebody to come in and move dirt around. (Landscaping)
 
The house is clearly custom-made just for her (because this is a toy show and it’s a Rainbow Dash playset ad.) Building your own here-on-Earth house, which is ultimately made out of dirt / stone / wood, costs between $100,000 to $400,000. I highly doubt pre-S1 Rainbow Dash was elegant or artistic enough to build a functioning house out of cloud for herself, let alone one that can hold earth pones / unipones who make it up there, so she would’ve had to contract it. Thus, she not only pays for materials but also labor. $750K to $1M in bits, easily.
 
Then you have to factor in further costs after construction. As a cloud, Rainbow Dash’s house should be vulnerable to any and all variations in weather, including common winds. Her insurance premium must be through the roof (and is later joined by her health insurance as a Wonderbolt, but then she probably gets paid well by that time.)
 
There may also be additional legal complications with taking up the airspace over Ponyville, thus introducing an aviation hazard. Dash might be paying additional fees for this.
 
She appears to have the only cloud house in the Ponyville area which makes it perhaps the most premier spot in town, and we know that Mayor Mare is a bithound, so Dash’s municipal taxes must be nearly as bloated as her ego.
 
I can understand how she keeps it so clean - Rainbow Dash is rather dainty in private and only slobby in public - but how in the world did she acquire it??
 
In comparison:
 
• Twilight was effectively a vicereine of Princess Celestia, so any town she was sent to would have treated her like she was already a Princess. The treebrary was a pretty modest gift in this context; she already lived in a wizard tower.  
• Rarity is known to have started dress-making as a filly, and her family (while uncouth) seem to be decently well-off. Her parents probably helped her buy an existing, rather cheap / shoddy house, which she personally remodeled into the Carousel Boutique.  
• The Apples founded the town. We can often see them building and rebuilding most / all of their own buildings, wagons, and tools (the quality varies.)  
• I presume that Pinkie Pie ran away from home, skipped aimlessly about the countryside, wandered into Ponyville, and was taken in by the Cakes.  
• Fluttershy’s house is the closest house in Ponyville to the Everfree Forest, which she was terrified of in S1, so I doubt it was made for her. She must not have had any other option or else I doubt she would have chosen that spot. Her gigantic army of animals, who are seen helping her with tasks throughout the show, would most likely have helped with any changes she needed done to the house.

@Tirimsil  
RD’s house is made of water. Is it that expensive?

This was my view too - at the start of the show. I’m absolutely certain that at least a year or two passes over the course of the show.
 
@XD-385
 
At the start of the show…
 

Those are some ridiculously successful and overachieving teenagers.