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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mick Mørmøny who wrote (41836)	9/24/2005 3:46:33 AM
From: Mick Mørmøny	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Las Vegas condos feature all the glitz THE LOS ANGELES TIMES September 23, 2005 When tourists visit the canyon of casinos known as the Las Vegas Strip, the stars they see may be more than performers. Increasingly, they're likely to be the city's new status symbol - the celebrity resident. It's largely the result of the boom in high-rise condo projects nationwide, fueled in part by speculators in the real estate market here and the desire of buyers from California and Asia to own a piece of Sin City. About 8,000 condominium units are under construction or about to start, according to SalesTraq, a Las Vegas real estate information company. But like everything Vegas does, this building bonanza comes with an extra helping of glitz: Developers are using Hollywood stars to make their projects stand out among the more than 100 residential skyscrapers proposed here. Actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire have purchased units at the Panorama Towers. Entertainer Jessica Simpson has reserved a unit at Palms Place, planned at the Palms Hotel and Casino. "I am sure these celebrities are getting very good deals," said Peter Dennehy, senior vice president of Sullivan Group Real Estate Advisors in San Diego. "It is a marketing thing. People want to live near the stars." There are familiar names behind some projects, too. Donald Trump is building the Trump International Hotel & Tower at the north end of the Strip. And not to be outdone by her ex, Ivana Trump plans the Ivana Las Vegas, an 82-story development nearby. For those with the money, the towers, with their luxury amenities and chic granite-and-wood fixtures, hold an allure even at prices that range from $500 to $1,000 a square foot. But some analysts wonder if the market will be left with a Las Vegas-size hangover in the form of a real estate bubble fueled by the large number of speculators - estimated to be as high as 40 percent - who never intend to live in the units they are buying. The high-rise condo market has proved to be particularly sensitive to market gyrations, said Delores Conway, a University of Southern California real estate economist. "Las Vegas prices are not going to go up forever," she said, "and when the market shifts, a percentage of speculators like that is enough to change the price of all the units in the building." Nationally, the number of condominium and town house construction starts jumped 38 percent, to 120,000, last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Typically, high-rise condo buyers no longer want to maintain a home, said Ross DeVol, an economist at the Milken Institute in California. "There are 80 million baby boomers, most in their 50s," he said. "That's a big market." newsday.com