Ritzy homes rise as share of market

Some time ago when Summerlin was in its planning stages and communities such as Eagle Rock and Tournament Hills were under development, the Las Vegas luxury-home market first took shape.

Nowadays it's thriving, as many people find and purchase their dream homes in Southern Nevada that they couldn't afford in more expensive places around the country.

Luxury-home sales maintain a healthy clip locally, thanks to low state taxes and higher prices in some metropolitan areas of neighboring California. Home buyers flock to the Las Vegas Valley since, in the words of Bob Hamrick, chief executive at Coldwell Banker Premier, "People who are not considered wealthy by California standards are considered wealthy by Las Vegas standards. ... It opens up the higher end for a lot of people. The tax reasons are a big part of it, and the dry climate tends to be a real big part of it."

Statistics provided by Hamrick revealed that from January to June 2001, Las Vegas Valley home buyers purchased 130 (out of 418 available) homes priced between $500,000 and $999,999. Also, buyers moved into 38 homes priced at $1 million or more (out of 268 available) during the same period.

Compare those figures with the year 2000 (according to stats provided by Robyn Yates of Dyson & Dyson), when 84 total homes costing $1 milllion and up were sold the entire year, or to 1995, when only seven homes of that value were sold.

In addition to the California influence, Hamrick said sports stars and entertainers coming into Las Vegas to buy a second home have also inflated the luxury-home market. He noted such buyers often end up "considering them their first homes."

Hamrick, however, pointed out that many luxury homes are going unsold. The local market contains a high inventory, and it's enough to make the high-end market "very competitive" as far as selling the product.

Marti Scholl of Keller Williams Realty agreed.

"You take an area such as Manhattan Beach (in Southern California) and the $1 million homes are a dime a dozen. Here, $1 million is on the high end and it will take longer to sell because there's not as many buyers with that kind of money," Scholl said.

"If I list a $200,000 home, it's probably going to sell in a week. If I list a $500,000 home, it will take a month, and a $1 million home could take as much as a year. We have more homes (than buyers in that market) and when people are spending that much -- even when you get more for your money than Manhattan Beach or Beverly Hills where million dollar homes are truly a dime a dozen -- they're still going to be very careful about what they buy, so it could take some time."

The Realtors agreed that attaching the term "luxury home" to a dollar amount is not an exact science. Scholl believes a home in that category should cost at least $1 million, while Hamrick puts the luxury price-tag minimum at $500,000.

They agreed that features such as a view of the city and proximity to a golf course or water can boost the sale of a home. In general, high-end homes offer one or all of these attributes. In other words, it comes down to the old real estate cliché: location, location, location.

"You can have one home on one side of the street, and you can have another home on the other side of the street that has a view of the golf course ... and that home will sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars more," Hamrick said, pointing out that a small home at the Lake Las Vegas Resort in Henderson may command a high price due to its resort lifestyle, seclusion and privacy.

Home prices, of course, also depend on amenities, and some of those commonly found in luxury homes include marble flooring, custom baseboards, custom moldings, landscaping, swimming pools, courtyards and fountains.

Scholl and Hamrick cited the emergence of Turnberry Place and Park Towers as other major players in the luxury-home game. The high-rise condominium developments, which offer homes selling for more than $3 million, add another dimension to the local luxury landscape.

"For anyone who wants high-rise living, they're magnificent," Scholl said. "People who are used to New York living would probably like that environment. They have every possible appointment you can imagine -- a concierge, a limousine -- there's every kind of service you want. That's not just a home, that's a lifestyle."

Overall, the local luxury-home market's abundance of inventory may presage what lies ahead.

"We have to increase the demand side because the supply side is very high and I'm not extremely confident about that with the stock market floundering. It doesn't say there's going to be a lot of buyers buying luxury homes, nationwide," Hamrick said.

"My assumption is that in the high-end market -- if you look at the million-dollar-plus market -- that a larger percentage of them are going to be transplants to Las Vegas rather than current residents of Las Vegas. ... I think that from a trend standpoint, the trend is going upward, but I think there are going to be some blips along the way."

Real Estate home