Las Vegas Real Estate Blog

Reviewjournal.com - As motorists aimed their vehicles toward the new South Coast casino, traffic along Las Vegas Boulevard South came to a stop. The lanes, which vary from three to one in a matter of a mile, caused an immediate bottleneck. Residents of the area fear that the situation is only going to get worse.

The South Coast casino at Silverado Ranch Boulevard marked the first major development on what some predict will become “the South Strip” portion of Las Vegas Boulevard.

At least nine more projects are planned for Las Vegas Boulevard south of Shelbourne Avenue, and that has Williams and her neighbors wondering how much more difficult and dangerous driving in and out of their neighborhood will become. Continue

For more information, contact MillionSaverHomes.com a local Las Vegas real estate broker at 702.212.3513.

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Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., which operates three casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, expects to have a property in Las Vegas by 2010, the company’s chief executive said.

“We want to be in Las Vegas, but we don’t want to take on someone else’s problem,” CEO James Perry said at the Reuters Hotels and Casinos Summit in Los Angeles.

He said 2010 would be the earliest the company could open a newly-constructed full-service casino resort, but a joint venture project could come to fruition earlier than that.

For more information, contact MillionSaverHomes.com a local Las Vegas real estate broker at 702.212.3513.

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NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) - Politicians in North Las Vegas are considering forcing homeowners to sell their homes along a planned north-south route that would link the booming northern suburbs to downtown Las Vegas.

The proposed $250 million project would widen North Fifth Street from two to up to eight lanes from the 215 Las Vegas Beltway to Owens Avenue near downtown.

North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon said last week that the city my have to use its power of eminent domain to forcibly purchase private land if some 65 homeowners along North Fifth refuse to sell.

“I’m just a huge opponent of eminent domain,” Montandon said. But “in some places you’d have to take houses.”

Eddie Lee Jones, a homeowner who lives at the corner of North Fifth and Bartlett Avenue, said he doesn’t want to move.

“I want to stay in this house,” said Jones, 66. “I’m never going to sell it.”

The project is still in the initial stages of its design, but is viewed by transportation planners as a key north-south route.

Planners say it would provide a high-speed alternative to Interstate 15 and U.S. Highway 95 when driving downtown from the north.

It also would help create a transportation hub at the northern Beltway, where a Veterans Administration Hospital and a new University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus are planned.

Councilman William Robinson said he would not support the use of eminent domain on the project.

“Every property owner would have to be willing to go along,” he said. “If even one didn’t want to sell, I’d go along with the one who doesn’t want to.”

Roger Patton, a consultant for the Louis Berger Group, which recently won the design contract for the project’s first phase, said he would start talks with homeowners about the plan within a few weeks.

For more information, contact MillionSaverHomes.com a local Las Vegas real estate broker at 702.212.3513.

Popularity: 15%

KVBC.com - Fewer, homes are moving off the market in Las Vegas and those that are selling are going for less.

According to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, an average single family home went for $310,000 in January, a slight decline from December. For condos and townhouses, the average selling price was around $196,000. That too was down about four percent from December.

From December to January, about 25 percent fewer homes and condos sold. However, the number of homes listed for sale increased significantly during that time.

Realtors say despite this trend of Vegas becoming a buyer’s market, the Valley remains strong and stable with housing prices still appreciating at a healthy annual rate.

For more information, contact MillionSaverHomes.com who is local Las Vegas real estate broker at 702.212.3513.

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Mortgage rates around the country went up this week, with rates on 30-year mortgages climbing to their highest point since late December.

Mortgage company Freddie Mac, in its weekly nationwide survey released Thursday, reported that rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages rose to 6.23 percent for the week ending Feb. 2. That was up from 6.12 percent last week and was the highest rate since the week ending Dec. 22.

Rates are rising amid investors’ concerns about inflation flaring up.

For more information, contact MillionSaverHomes.com who is local Las Vegas real estate broker at 702.212.3513.

Popularity: 17%

Las Vegas Sun - The city of perpetual makeover is about to go a little Manhattan. The little railroad town that became a casino center and then a sprawling suburbia is adding a dollop of upscale urban life with 16 high-rise condominium towers under construction and a promise of scores more on the way.

If the boom continues, and that could be a large “if,” Las Vegas will slowly evolve into a city dotted with neighborhoods that bustle with street life, nightclubs, art galleries, restaurants - even urban grocery stores. In those areas, cars won’t be king. Rockports will.

“It does represent a new way of living in the valley,” said Scott Adams, business development director for Las Vegas, which is keenly interested in renewing its downtown core by adding high-rise residences. “It’s not new in America. We’re just catching up with the rest of the country in terms of a vertical lifestyle.” Continue.

For more information, contact MillionSaverHomes.com a local Las Vegas real estate broker at 702.212.3513.

Popularity: 10%

CNNMoney.com - U.S. home sales will fall in 2006 as house prices rise at rates far below those notched last year, but the housing market should remain healthy by historic standards, a trade group said Tuesday.

The National Association of Realtors’ chief economist said sales of existing U.S. homes should drop 4.7 percent to 6.74 million units this year, down from a record 7.07 million in 2005.

Sales of new homes should fall 8.5 percent to 1.17 million units from a record of 1.28 million in 2005, David Lereah said in his monthly outlook. He pegged 2006 housing starts at 1.87 million units, down 9.3 percent from the 2.06 million posted in 2005.

“Sometimes people lose sight of the fact that real estate is cyclical,” he said. “Even so, sales will continue at a historically high pace with modestly higher interest rates as the year progresses, and 2006 is forecast to be the third strongest year on record.”

Lereah said the national median existing-home price for all housing types is expected to rise 5 percent to $219,200 — a rate of increase far below the double-digit annual gains notched during a five-year market rally.

For more information, contact MillionSaverHomes.com a local Las Vegas real estate broker at 702.212.3513.

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CNNMoney.com - 2/3/06

If you’ve recently gambled that Las Vegas housing prices would continue to rise this year, you may be on the losing side of the bet.

According to the latest housing price forecasts from Fiserv Lending Solutions, a provider of mortgage and consumer lending services, Las Vegas real estate will tumble a whopping 8.2 percent in 2006, the largest predicted fall among the 379 metro areas studied.

Fiserv forecasts a significant stagnation in housing prices for the United States in 2006 — median home prices overall will inch up only 1.5 percent this year. And many metro areas will experience drops, including some of the largest, and most expensive, ones such as New York (down 2.43 percent), Los Angeles (down 3 percent) and Washington (down 1.9 percent). Continue

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Popularity: 13%

LAS VEGAS SUN - Concerned about losing millions of dollars in revenue, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has stymied Henderson’s bid in Congress to acquire 500 acres from the federal government that the city hopes to sell for use as a business center employing thousands of people.

Legislation for the proposed acquisition — introduced last year by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and backed by the rest of the Nevada delegation — had been expected to win easy approval.

But the measure was sidetracked recently when the Water Authority objected to language changing the formula for dispersing proceeds of the city’s planned land sale. Continue.

For more information, contact MillionSaverHomes.com a local Las Vegas real estate broker at 702.212.3513.

Popularity: 5%

Adding roughly $1 billion to what already is the biggest and most expensive construction project ever attempted on the Strip, MGM Mirage plans to expand the number of hotel rooms and residences at its massive Project CityCenter development.

The company now expects to build more than 2,800 condo-hotel and condominium units, a sizable jump from initial plans calling for about 1,650 units.

The increase also means taller buildings that would tower 40 to 60 stories above the Strip as well as building condos above a Manhattan-like retail streetscape to be built on the former Boardwalk site, south of Bellagio.

CityCenter, which will include a 4,000-room resort hotel and more than 500,000 square feet of retail space, is now expected to cost about $6 billion. The original $4 billion price estimate had been pushed up to about $5 billion by rising construction costs and earlier design changes.

With construction on the main resort expected to start in April, the designs are close to becoming final, officials say. CityCenter is expected to open in phases starting in 2009, with the entire project scheduled to open in 2010.

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For more information, contact MillionSaverHomes.com a local Las Vegas real estate broker at 702.212.3513.

Popularity: 13%