California Boost is Good for Las Vegas

California luxury home values have gained strength in the third quarter, which is boding well for the high-end Las Vegas market a Las Vegas home broker said Monday. First Republic bank reported that luxury home values rose to all time highs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego which is good news for Las Vegas.

High Rise Market Still Strong?

Laurence Hallier, developer of the Panorama Towers thinks that the Las Vegas high-rise market is continuing to roll on strong despite some well publicized projects folding recently. Hallier uses the success of his Panorama Towers to prove his point. It has recently exceeded $750 million in sales and moves in its first buyers this summer.

Nearly 100 high rise Las Vegas Condo projects have been announced in the last two years. 13 are complete or under construction and 6 have deals have folded.

Hard Rock Expansion Plans Over

The $1 billion expansion proposal of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino has been canceled amid rumors that owner Peter Morton is currently in negotiations to sell to an unnamed buyer. The expansion included more than 1,200 condo units, additional entertainment, and 24 acres behind the hotel which was to contain retail and pool/spas. The decision to continue the construction of the Las Vegas Condos will ultimately be that of the new owner. The rumored asking price for the deal was just below $1 billion.

New Homes in SW Vegas

Three custom estate homes for sale in phase two at The Enclave in southwestern Las Vegas have been released by Chris Homes. The Enclave is a gated community within the 24-hour guard-gated Southern Highlands Golf Club. The new homes range from 6,000-15,000 square feet and are priced from $2.8 million to more than $5 million.

UNLV Homebuilders Course

Want to expand on your knowledge of homebuilding? The 2006 Certified Graduate Builder Series is offering a year of classes for homebuilding industry professionals. All classes meet once a month on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. at the GLVAR building located at 1750 E. Sahara Ave. Courses are sponsored by the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors and the Lied Institute for Real Estate Studies at UNLV.

Housing Day

The Las Vegas Housing Outlook presentation is set for 8 a.m. to noon on February 28th in North Hall One at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Eleventh hour registrants still have a chance to attend the 2006 Southern Nevada Housing Day. About 1,500 development professionals and real estate brokers and agents are expected to attend the event.

The Southern Nevada Home Builders Association reported fewer than 50 seats available as of Thursday. Real estate licensees can earn 4 hours of general continuing education credits by attending Housing Outlook.

Increase in Market Trends

According to Real Estate Market Reports the market trends for homes in and around Las Vegas and Lake Las Vegas are increasing. According to the report this is due to incredible job growth in the area. Housing hotspots are in the Summerlin South and Lake Las Vegas areas with single family homes producing the greatest activity on the market.

Records were set for the fifth consecutive year for existing single family homes sales. This is expected to continue in 2006 because of buyers taking advantage of historically low mortgage interest rates.

Sports Resort in North Las Vegas

The proposal to build the Ultimate Sports Resort in North Las Vegas is said to double the citys' property assessment according to the Nevada Department of Taxation figures. The President and CEO of Ultimate Sports Entertainment is said to believe that city officials believe in his project. According to most recent figures from Nevada, North Las Vegas’ value was assessed at just under 4.8 billion last year.

Figures suggest that the facility will employ as many as 20,000 employees and require upwards of 4,500 construction workers and could take 20 to 30 months to complete.

New Housing Official

On February 15th Nancy Wesoff will became the executive director of Clark County Housing Authority. Clark County Housing Authority offers housing to low income families across the valley and is currently ran by interim executive director Carl Rowe, who will be stepping down March 1. Rowe has been at the helm of the agency since May 2005.

Sales Increase

29,248 new Las Vegas homes were sold in 2004 according to Home Builders Research. That is an increase of roughly 4,000 new homes or approximately 16% from the previous year. With the increase Las Vegas has set another new home sales record for 2004.

Land Prices Increasing

With a shortage of desireable land for commercial and residential projects we are seeing an astounding increase in land prices. With this, luxury high-rise condominiums are becoming quite popular for homebuyers and investors from around the world.

Las Vegas home builders are adopting urban-village designs helping create the feeling of a popular metropolitan city lifestyle.