Vegasagent’s Weblog

Even at the Palms Place, where most buyers were the young and the wealthy with cash to burn, there were some buyers that knew a good investment when they saw it. They took the plunge and plunked down a 20% deposit on one of the elegant Palms Place condo hotel units hoping to make a bundle by the time the property was built.

Unfortunately in the meantime the national economy stalled and the Las Vegas real estate market dropped. Now, almost four years later, many of these same buyers are unable to obtain financing in the aftermath of the subprime market debacle. They are desperate to find a buyer just to recoup part of their deposit.

The units below are all available on the pre closing market. The original purchasers of these units want to assign thier contracts prior to closing with the Palms, and these prices are far lower than the units that have closed and are already listed for resale! Check out the one bedroom unit for only $700k! Now THAT is MOTIVATED!!

                         1 Bed          Strip            700,000   -  Deal of the Day!

* All units are fully furnished
* Closing March 2008
* Studio (approx) 620 Sq. ft.
* 1 Bedroom (approx) 1,220 Sq. ft.

**Please note, the units are all on the upper level floors.  Residential units start on the 8^th floor. Floors 13, 14 and all of the 40’s have been skipped due to superstition.

If you would like to find out the details on the assignments, please give me a call at 702-985-7654 right away!

If you can’t quite afford the Palms Place but really want to buy Las Vegas high rise condos, there are also some GREAT deals to be had in the Residences at MGM starting in the high $300s.

Today’s blog is bits and pieces of things that are currently going on in the Las Vegas real estate market.

Clark County commissioners have given final approval to plans for the $6 billion Las Vegas Plaza Hotel and Casino Resort (modeled after The Plaza Hotel in New York) to be built on the site of the former Frontier Hotel and Casino. Despite earlier rumors that the project was stalling due to a shaky credit market, Elad chief Miki Naftali said the project was “forging ahead as planned.” Elad also owns The Plaza in New York and a Las Vegas spokesman for the group says groundbreaking could take place later this year on the 3,500-room Las Vegas Strip project which is slated to open in 2011.

Deutsche Bank announced that it was going to be commencing foreclosure proceedings on the Cosmopolitan Resort Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. According to Deutsche Bank, they have made arrangements with the contractor to continue with construction. And sales are still being made out of the sales center in anticipation that developer Bruce Eichner will either find additional financing or will be bought out of the project. The Las Vegas luxury condos are already more than 80% sold out and the Cosmopolitan’s location is the best on the Strip, making it desirable to potential purchasers or partners, and Eichner expects to reach an agreement before long.

Two major Las Vegas residential projects, Inspirada and Kyle Canyon Gateway, are having difficulties meeting their mortgage obligations. Inspirada, a 2,000-acre project, was supposed to give rise to as many as 13,500 homes. There have been about only about 162 homes sold so far, according to Focus Group, master developer. And some of the smaller partners that are joint venturing in the project are unable to meet their commitments, leaving the larger partners to either take on their portion of the debt and put more money in, or decide to walk away entirely. With existing Las Vegas new homes builders getting low on inventory, putting these two large projects on indefinite hold would certainly help stabilize prices.

The FBI is currently carrying out a number of investigations in the Las Vegas area, uncovering fraudulent schemes involving 14 financial institutions. Some of the schemes under scrutiny include artificially inflating home values and placing low income buyers and/or beginner investors into adjustable rate mortgages that they can’t afford when the rates reset and forcing them into foreclosure.

Currently Las Vegas foreclosures are among the highest in the nation and foreclosed inventory on the market has driven down prices in the city substantially from all time highs in 2005. Investment buyers are returning to the city to pick up great buys and benefit from the strong local rental market, while first time buyers are taking advantage of affordable housing. Lower priced single family homes under $250k are even receiving multiple offers, lending strength to the belief that the price decline may have bottomed out.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to my our new real estate blog! Our goal is to keep you updated on the Las Vegas real estate market and real estate conditions in general around the world.

The Tonnesen Team of Prudential Americana Group Realtors has been selling real estate in the Las Vegas Valley since 1983.  Prior to joining Prudential Americana in January of 2005, the team was at Century 21 and was ranked #1 in the state of Nevada and the Southwest Region for sales, as well as placing in the top 20 of all agents nationally.  The team decided to make the move to Prudential because of Prudential’s advanced technology in the Las Vegas marketplace and the company’s commitment to quality service. After being with Prudential less than a year, the team was ranked in the top 10 in the US for total homes sold out of more than 63,000 agents nationwide.

The Tonnesen Team maintains four award winning web sites in addition to numerous neighborhood sites which generate over 800 new buyers every month in the Las Vegas market. Many of these buyers are international, as the Internet is now the chosen medium for over 83% of consumers looking to purchase real estate. Because of the extensive advertising exposure they are able to offer, Tonnesen Team members are recognized as the premiere Internet specialists in Las Vegas and as top sales leaders in many of the booming new high-rise projects going up around the Las Vegas Valley as well as traditional single family homes. 

Please feel free to email us with any questions and to visit our site at www.greatlasvegashomes.com . Or if you are interested in Las Vegas condos please visit our high rise condominium site at www.greatlasvegascondos.com.

I just read this great article by Scott Burns, and thought I would like to share it with my readers! Makes great sense amid all the media hullaballoo. And for those with savvy, right now is a terrific time to buy Las Vegas real estate!

Sure, there are pockets of pain around the US, but it’s not as if most Americans are losing their homes. More than 99% of homes aren’t in foreclosure. By Scott Burns scott@scottburns.com

A recent list of year-end mortgage foreclosure rates in 100 top metropolitan areas drew a lot of attention. Released by RealtyTrac, a company that compiles data on home foreclosures, the list showed the number of foreclosure filings in each metro area, the percentage of homes being foreclosed and the percentage change from the previous year. Though the report had some dismal news — such as the nearly 4.9% foreclosure rate in the Stockton, Calif., area — a close look at the data also provides some reassuring information. It tells me, for instance, that the foreclosure crisis is a regional problem, not a systemic one. It could become a systemic problem, of course, but we’re a long way from that now.

This news will disappoint the gloom-and-doom crew and all those seeking the excitement of financial upheaval. But it may be time to temper our worry and take a closer look at some of the year-over-year foreclosure statistics: Though the national rate of foreclosure increased by a whopping 79% between December 2006 and December 2007, the rate was still only 1.033%. Because about 30% of all homes are owned mortgage-free, this means that for all the noise about a crisis, only seven-tenths of 1% of all homes were in foreclosure.

In the top 100 housing markets, the average foreclosure rate was somewhat higher — 1.38% — and it was up 78% over the previous year. (Even in the Valley, where the Las Vegas foreclosures at at 4.23%, most of those are investment properties bought in the heat of the boom.) But if you rank-ordered the list of the top 100 areas, only 34 had foreclosure rates above the group average. Fifty-one areas had rates of 1% or less. Foreclosure rates actually fell in 14 of the 100 areas. More important, many of the areas with the highest increases in foreclosure rates were rising off rates that were tiny. The Bethesda, Md., area, to offer the most extreme case, saw foreclosures rise 1,288% — to a rate of 0.682%. In other words, foreclosures there were virtually nonexistent the year before. Today they are still well below the national average. The same can be said for the Albany, N.Y., area (up 638% to 0.25%), the Baltimore area (up 544% to 0.73%) and the Providence, R.I., area (up 354% to 0.41%).

Another pattern emerges if you cross the foreclosure rates with the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) index of home prices. It shows that the top 10 foreclosure areas in America are areas of extreme price change — changes far from the national average of 46.92% over the past five years. Seven of the top 10 foreclosure areas had experienced major price spikes in the past five years. Three of the top 10 foreclosure areas had experienced price increases that were dramatically lower than the national average.

That pattern continues when you examine the top 25 foreclosure areas. The seven areas with the top price appreciation for the past five years averaged a stunning 91.6% increase, nearly double the national average. The national average, in turn, was about triple the inflation rate for the period. (Las Vegas homes increased 88.3% over the past five years.) Small wonder the foreclosure rate is booming as well. Anyone who bought in the past few years with a 5% or 10% down payment has a good chance of being upside down as froth comes off the market. In those areas the problem is about irrational price spikes and the hazards they bring to homeownership.

Some would call this “a Cadillac problem” — a great problem to have, like having more boats than you have water-skiers. Though 5% of the homeowners may be losing their homes, most of the other 95% probably feel significantly richer.

Las Vegas new homes builders are running out of inventory and lower priced housing is starting to get multiple offers again. 2008 is going to be a better year for the Las Vegas market, for sure!

During the month of March both the much anticipated Palms Place and Trump Tower will be closing on their condo hotel units. In Palms Place, which is a smaller boutique project catering to hot young celebrities, the demand for resale units is expected to be higher than the supply.

When the Palms Place originally offered their condo hotel suites for purchase to the public in 2004, they were snapped up by hotel regulars. Frustrated Palms patrons who were not among the lucky few to secure a unit drifted to the Hard Rock, the other hotel catering to the young and trendy, only to be later disappointed when that project was scrapped in a sale to the Morgan’s Hotel Group.

Now the Palms Place tower is finished and has finally opened the doors to its first luxury condo residents, including rapper Eminem, wrestler Hulk Hogan, and singer Jessica Simpson. Palms Place is a 599 unit boutique project with a mix of fully furnished 600-square-foot studio units and 1,200-square-foot one-bedroom suites, while the more exclusive clients own penthouses on the top four floors. Palms Place is associated with the Palms Hotel and Casino which boasts the city’s most popular nightclubs, arena and a PlayBoy Club.

Closings will be progressing during the month of March on the condo hotel suites, with only a small fraction expected to be put up for resale contrary to condo hotel projects like the MGM Residences where over 150 units are currently on the market. But a few over-leveraged purchasers are expected to be offering their Palms Place units for sale as they come to closing. There are currently about half a dozen units that are available with prices starting in the high $500s. With the Las Vegas homes market finally picking up momentum again in spite of the national housing bust, none of these units are projected to last long as the word spreads.

To get more information on available units or to be put on the priority interest list to receive notice of units as soon as they become listed, please contact our office at 702-985-7654 of fill out the form online at: Palms Place Registration

In the meantime, down the street at Trump Tower the first closings will also be going on during March for those who are looking for immediate possession of a Las Vegas condo hotel in a quieter atmosphere in keeping with Trump name. The Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas will contain 880 studio units and 352 one-bedroom condominiums and 50 suites of one, two, or three bedrooms on the top five floors. Other popular condo hotel projects that will not be finished until late 2009 are the MGM City Center and the Cosmopolitan Resort Hotel and Casino. Both projects are located right on the center Strip next door to the Bellagio Hotel and are currently selling preconstruction.

To get floor plans or more information on any of these properties please visit our web site at: Las Vegas High Rise Condos

Attention investors! If you have already purchased a condo hotel property or are considering buying one, we have access to 25% down condo hotel financing on full document loans or 45% on stated income loans. Please contact our office so that we can put you in touch with our Las Vegas mortgage lenders.

Apparently, people with money are willing to pay to own a piece of the Strip.The single-family housing market remains at a standstill, thanks to the stagnating local and national economies. Luxury Las Vegas High Rise Condos along the resort corridor, however, are flourishing.

The first new residents are expected to take ownership of their high-rise one- and two-bedroom units inside the Trump International and Palms Place this month. Luxury condominium sales along the resort corridor are flourishing.

Meanwhile, sales of the nearly 2,670 residential units within MGM Mirage’s $8.1 billion to $8.4 billion MGM City Center development are proceeding at a steady clip.As of last month, buyers had claimed more than half of CityCenter’s residential offerings, totaling more than $1.67 billion in sales. CityCenter, a 77-acre site that includes a 4,000-room hotel-casino, boutique hotels, and a massive retail, entertainment and dining pavilion as its centerpiece, doesn’t open until November 2009.

“Demand for the residential offerings at CityCenter continues to exceed expectations,” said Bob Hamrick, senior vice president of CityCenter Realty Corp. Several multimillion-dollar penthouses have been sold at the Harmon, one of CityCenter’s four residential offerings. Residences at the Harmon, which is owned by the Light Group, are attracting a celebrity-laden list of buyers. The Harmon, a nongaming hotel, has 207 residential units, including 15 penthouses.

In addition, the $2.2 billion Encore, CityCenter, the Cosmopolitan, and the $2.9 billion Fontainebleau are all scheduled to open in 2009. These new resorts have the potential to boost Las Vegas’ business prospects by quantum leaps as they add more than 100,000 new jobs to the local economy.

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