Vegasagent’s Weblog

Las Vegas Foreclosures - Few things are as devastating as losing your home. About 30 percent to 40 percent of the people who get behind in their payments never even contact their lender. Many times they feel like the lender can’t do anything for them, and they are ashamed to admit they can’t meet their commitments. But foreclosure is not always inevitable, and in many cases it can be avoided with some outside help and a little work.

From the lender’s standpoint, it’s not uncommon that the sale of the foreclosed home is insufficient to cover the remainder of the mortgage. When the property has been damaged, or market values have dropped, the lender may end up with a bill in the tens of thousands for the difference. Despite what many people think, most lending institutions are not anxious to foreclose. It’s a last-ditch effort to recover their money and minimize their losses, and it’s an incredible hassle. Most lenders would rather avoid it, if possible.

Sometimes foreclosure can be avoided by getting on a different mortgage program with lower payments. Before you get too far behind, talk to a loan officer about the possibility of refinancing your mortgage to perhaps an adjustable rate mortgage or one with interest only payments. A few hundred dollars less on the mortgage payment may make the difference in being able to keep your home.

Many borrowers can qualify for a new payment structure with their existing lender under “special forebearance” if they’ve had an increase in their cost-of-living, such as unexpected medical expenses, or a decrease in wages. This payment structure will allow the owner to repay the lender in a given time frame.

Sometimes it is necessary to sell your home and find a new place to move into. Don’t believe that it will be better to let the foreclosure happen, because after you lose your home, you will still need to find a new place to live. All too often, the price you will need to pay in rent will be almost as high if not higher than your current mortgage payment. Remember: The owner of the rental property needs to make his mortgage payment, too, so he’s going to charge a rental payment that’s higher than his mortgage costs. If your credit is bad from a foreclosure, the landlord will charge you even more because you are now a high risk.

In this case you will need to contact your existing mortgage lender to let them know you intend to sell the home and get their cooperation to allow you the time to do it. If your home is worth less than the mortgage and closing costs, the lender may even be willing to do a “short sale,” that is take less than the property is worth, just to expedite the process and not have to go through formal foreclosure proceedings. The key thing to remember is, communicate with your lender. If they feel you are trying to do everything possible to meet your obligations they will be willing to work with you.

There are multiple sources for help that you should be aware of, and most lenders will be happy to hear that their clients are going to try to keep their home rather than just await a foreclosure. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development maintains a list of HUD-approved counseling agencies. Call (800) 569-4287 to find the agency nearest to you. FHA borrowers may even qualify to have HUD make a one-time payment to bring their mortgage current. If you need help refinancing in Las Vegas, contact Las Vegas mortgage broker Glen Tonnesen at 702-524-7216 for confidential assistance.

Luxury Las Vegas condos are quietly selling out way before the general public is even aware of them.

For example, the Conrad Majestic condos, a 654 foot tower will have a 216 room five star Conrad hotel, 696 Conrad condo hotel suites and 76 Waldorf Astoria branded residences. The 76 Waldorf Astoria luxury residential condominiums will run from 2,000 to 5,000 square feet in size on the top 10 floors of the tower. Prices started at around $1400 per foot up to $2,000 per foot or between $2.8M and $10M. These luxury residences never even hit the market and were oversubscribed just from word of mouth.

The same thing happened at the MGM City Center with the new Mandarin Oriental. The 225 residences there were also oversubscribed prior to the grand opening just through in house promotions. For more details on the Mandarin’s success, see excerpts from the Las Vegas Sun story below.

Rumors have it that the Harmon Residences, another MGM City Center upscale project, already has an oversubscribed buyer list as well. This project’s grand opening is not scheduled until fall of 2007.

It is clear that there is a lot of money being spent in Las Vegas for truly unique luxury properties on the Strip, and that the demand far exceeds the supply. Look for some of the other new projects to add boutique name brand hotels with luxury residences in the near future.

Wealthy buyers flock to Las Vegas condos
By Liz Benston
Las Vegas Sun

Consider: The most expensive condos in town, rising alongside the Strip as part of the largest private development in the nation’s history, have nearly sold out in just two weeks. And not a dime was spent to advertise them.

The brisk sales at Mandarin Oriental, at MGM CityCenter, were triggered mostly by word-of-mouth and suggest that Las Vegas Boulevard is maturing beyond a weekend playground for the rich and famous and into a chic residential address.

Many buyers of Mandarin condos didn’t bother to examine floor plans or interior design mock-ups. They simply plunked down more than $600 million in deposits for units costing up to $9 million each. That may be a bargain along the elite boulevards of New York or San Francisco but sets a new bar for Las Vegas.

The Mandarin Oriental condos – a popular super-luxury hotel in Asian capitals but with only four other U.S. locations – will feature 227 upper-floor units, separated from 400 hotel rooms below by a private lobby. It is the first and smallest collection of condos for sale at CityCenter, which when completed at the end of 2009 will feature a $7 billion collection of five hotels and condo towers at the heart of the Strip, along with high-end shopping and dining.

Prices for the Mandarin’s two- and three-bedroom units range from $3.7 million for 2,065 square feet to more than $9 million for 4,259 square feet. The average price: about $3 million, or $1,584 per square foot – well above the $1,000 per square foot average being fetched by condo towers just off the Strip.

With 61 stories and more than 2,600 vacation apartments including regular hotel rooms and lavish condo hotel suites, the Cosmopolitan will total more than four million square feet of pure luxury, and will have a 70,000-square-foot casino, Nevada’s largest 50,000 square foot fitness facility and spa, and more than 300,000-square-feet of retail and restaurant space. Also, it will feature a 3,000 car underground garage, 150,000 sq. ft. of convention space and 1800 seat theatre.

“Many influences create The Cosmopolitan’s design,” said Ian Bruce Eichner, CEO of 3700 Associates, LLC, the developer of The Cosmopolitan. “It has been carefully crafted to merge spectacular contemporary architecture with lushly stylized interior spaces. What distinguishes our condominium’s decor is the separation of spaces within each residence. Each conveys a different experience with a unique array of fine furnishings and detailed fabrics. Living above Las Vegas Boulevard, we provide each resident with terraces that take advantage of the incredible north or south views of the Strip,” said Eichner.

The Cosmopolitan condos, fully furnished condo hotel suites, will include elegant smooth 10 foot high rise ceilings, spacious walk-in closets, floor to ceiling windows, plasma TVs, kitchenettes, extra large balconies with impressive panoramic mountain and city skyline views and high-speed resident elevators. There are two different studio floor plans of about 600 sf plus 100 square foot balconies now starting from about $650,000 on up, and a 1200 sf corner one bedroom floor plan starting from approximately $1,350,000. The first tower sold out in record time, but there are still premium units remaining in the second tower right on Las Vegas Boulevard that have just been released.

This is one of the few Las Vegas high rise condos that actually has a Las Vegas Boulevard address and offers commanding views of the Las Vegas Strip.

The MGM City Center will be an upscale urban residential district complete with high end shops, gourmet restaurants, cinemas, parks and unique pedestrian environments. At the rear of the seven tower project will be a 60 story resort hotel and casino featuring two massive curved hotel towers with 4,000 rooms plus an ebony condo hotel tower with 1,543 units. At the north and south ends of the project will be two small boutique hotels including the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Residences, which is expected to draw sophisticated overseas guests, as well as the Harmon Residences which will cater to the elite of the young and hip crowd. The project’s centerpiece will be two glass residential towers and over 500,000 square feet of retail space.

Vdara will be an elegant 50 story luxury condo hotel tower rising from the MGM CityCenter project designed by RV Architecture and Rafael Vinoly. In muted shades of ebony, the Vdara tower will feature 1543 fully furnished condo hotel suites ideally located between the Bellagio and the CityCenter’s main gaming resort.

Veer will be residential condos with two distinctive leaning glass towers rising 36 feet and house more than 700 modern loft-like residences. The building’s surface will feature horizontal metal blades that slowly change color during the day and that will shade floor-to-ceiling windows from the burning Las Vegas heat.

MGM said their project will create 7,000 construction jobs. And when it opens in 2009, Project City Center will create 12,000 full-time positions - the largest single infusion of jobs in Las Vegas history. Construction is well underway and the project’s main casino is already over 12 stories high.

Welcome to our all new blog about Las Vegas high rise condos! Over the next few weeks we will be posting descriptions of the newest Las Vegas condos being built along with the economic impact they are having on our city.

The Las Vegas real estate market is truly going vertical. With the supply of land for residential development in the Las Vegas Valley expected to last only 6 1/2 years at the current rate, developers are unable to afford the cost to build single family residences. Given the valley has absorbed about 5,400 acres a year during the last three years for residential development, there won’t be any more land to build homes by early 2013, according to RGR Group of Las Vegas, a real estate consultant.

Without making more land available, Southern Nevada will become more like Southern California with its soaring prices because of limited land, said Las Vegas housing analyst Dennis Smith. Builders are having difficultly finding parcels of between 10 to 20 acres, and property owners aren’t cutting their prices, he said.

The solution for developers is to go up. And in a market where there are still more than 5,000 new residents a month moving in and will be for the foreseeable future with all the growth projected for the Las Vegas Valley, there are plenty of buyers!