UNLV Hotel College aims high - 03/30/08 10:34 PM
The Las Vegas hotel school is already on the leading edge of hospitality education in the world and evidently it desires to stay there. Dean Stuart Mann and his team have drafted an ambitious plan for its future that includes several major developments.
It's currently busy at work to make the INNovation Village a reality. When all is said and done, it'll be a "campus within a campus" at UNLV, a one-of-a-kind concept that combines academic and business interests to give future students a strong stepping stone from which to launch themselves into the real world of the hospitality and tourism industry. … (4 comments)

Mortgage refinance made troublesome - 03/25/08 06:47 PM
The residential real estate markets in many areas of the country are plodding along in high weeds. When that is combined with a home loan industry that is grappling with serious balance sheet tremors, the situation is ripe for healthy head scratching for a homeowner who needs to refinance his explosive mortgage. As if that isn't enough to take a deep breath, there is another new, potentially crippling twist to the scenario.
The refinance process can turn murky, even impossible, if a second mortgage is involved. It usually is subordinate to the 1st loan, so in case of a default the … (2 comments)

Reverse mortgage choices multiply - 03/23/08 12:09 AM
The still little talked-about reverse mortgage option is fast becoming a household word. It only makes up less than 1% of the huge overall home loan market that right now stands at around $10 trillion, so it's no wonder. In the coming years it'll take a larger bite out of that total, though, if a recent trend is any indication. According to HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, federally-sponsored reverse product lending grew 41% in the fiscal year ending in September, 2007. The increase is indisputably substantial.
The traditional reverse mortgage is available to homeowners 62 years and older who … (9 comments)

Drive Fore Literacy with Oscar coming up in April - 03/21/08 12:23 AM
All Southern Nevada residents, and others too, mark your calendars on April 11 and put also down the time of 6:30 a.m. That's when the sixth annual Drive Fore Literacy with Oscar golf outing at Silverstone Golf Club will tee off. The club is located at 8600 Cupp Drive in northwest part of the valley, within the Silverstone Ranch residential community.
The event is a fundraiser for the Newspapers in Education, or NIE, program that seeks to improve literacy at a pre-adulthood level. The whole idea of NIE goes all the way back to 1795 when a Portland, Maine, newspaper got … (2 comments)

Two Las Vegas condo and hotel projects in financial straits - 03/19/08 10:25 PM
Home buyers and refinance hopefuls are currently struggling with a mortgage market that has retooled its guidelines several degrees harder. They aren't alone, however. The same thing is now happening to the commercial finance sector, too. Even major developers are finding it difficult to secure financing for their projects and if they find it, it comes at a cost that may be too high to make sense.
A few weeks ago it was reported that the Cosmopolitan had worked out a tentative deal with Global Hyatt Corp. and Marathon Asset Management who would recapitalize the troubled condominium and hotel project on the … (8 comments)

Mortgage industry faces more reforms - 03/16/08 06:15 PM
A high-powered economic panel has been meeting under the direction of the U.S. Treasury Secretary to seek solutions to the current mess in the mortgage and overall credit markets. The task is difficult, of course, because of the complexity the financial segment has grown into over the last several years. But something has to be done, tried at least, to get the industry back on the right path.
One of the favored recommendations of the working group is the careful overhaul of the mortgage broker sector that would require at least a national licensing system, if not more. Uniform mandatory licensing would definitely … (8 comments)

Las Vegas Sands has grand plans - 03/15/08 11:56 PM
 
First the rapidly-growing hotel, gaming and resort company built the Venetian at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard, better known as the Strip, and Sands Avenue, to compliment the huge convention facility Sands Expo Center. It promptly became a major hit among convention goers and up-scale visitors to town. Since the demand was there, they soon went ahead and built the luxurious Palazzo next door, opening it in January, and connected it directly to the Venetian.
There is more in the pipeline, though. A piece of prime land sits right in front of the Palazzo and the owner of that wanted to put … (6 comments)

Las Vegas housing market report mixed - 03/15/08 04:54 PM
Southern Nevada residential real estate market is actively seeking a solid foundation to stand on. Some of its more meaningful components are either moving up a little or heading down a bit, instead of going steadily in either direction. The positive thing is that the shifts now are minor which usually indicates the correction here is nearing the end of its cycle.
Local housing experts are loudly cheering the 11.7% increase in sales of single-family homes in February, as was reported by GLVAR, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. The total came to 1,098 sales. A considerable 41.5% of the transactions … (8 comments)

Summerlin introduces creative real estate marketing - 03/12/08 10:11 PM
Like so many other housing markets across the country Las Vegas, too, is feeling the adverse effects of tightening mortgage guidelines, slumping home values and skittish buyers. It's a major task to sell a property under these testing circumstances.
Real estate agents, FSBOs, lenders, whoever is selling, have burned the midnight oil in a quest to discover marketing tools that work. Wide screen TVs have been offered as enticements, vacation packages, cars etc., they've all been put into action. House auctions became popular a while back, although the results with them have been mixed.
One of the latest innovations in Las Vegas is … (2 comments)

CityCenter by MGM Mirage spiffs up with art - 03/11/08 12:26 AM
CityCenter has for some time made nice-sized headlines with the scope of the mammoth project and its upward-revised $8 billion price tag. This cost figure will buy the gaming giant one of the most unique resort experiences in the world of leisure and entertainment. The small city within Las Vegas will feature a large casino, standard condominiums, condo hotels, a wide variety of retail and dining space, thousands of hotel rooms of course and a convention facility. With that package it deserves to be called a city-within-a-city.
CityCenter wants to do more, however. Any major city worldwide can display a fair dose … (6 comments)

Red Rock Canyon visitor center upgrade - 03/08/08 11:54 PM
The ground-breaking for the new $23 million facility took place last month, an event that was carefully monitored by the U.S. Interior Secretary, four members from Nevada's congressional delegation and a host of local aficionados. With all these big titles in attendance it had to be an important happening for Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. And it was. By the way, the center will sit a foot or two north of the old one and is slated for completion late in 2010.
The canyon was chosen by Congress in 1990 to be the first national conservation area in Nevada. Its high desert beauty draws … (2 comments)

The return of the ARM - 03/08/08 01:09 AM
The Adjustable Rate Mortgage, or ARM, lost much of its edge over the 30-year fixed in the last few years. Things actually got so tangled up for a couple of weeks in 2007 that the 5-year ARM, or 5/1 ARM, the most sought-after of them, demanded a higher interest rate than the standard 30-year mortgage. ARMs have traditionally offered lower rates due to their shorter maturity period and that they will adjust either up or down annually after their initial set time frame.
Even as recently as early January the 5/1 ARM and 30-year fixed displayed the same rate in Bankrate.com's weekly … (2 comments)

Hoover Dam bridge construction at full speed again - 03/06/08 12:25 AM
One day back in September of 2006 was rather unkind to the new Hoover Dam bridge project. Winds that faithful day were robust, to the tune of 55 miles per hour, and managed to knock down a vital cableway structure used to ferry building materials over the rocky Black Canyon construction site. Without it much of the work had to be temporarily suspended.
The mishap has delayed the opening of the Mike O'Callahan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge from late 2008 to the fall of 2010. It'll provide much relief to the current situation where traffic on U.S. Highway 93 has to slow down … (2 comments)

Cosmopolitan condos back in business - 03/02/08 12:34 PM
A few weeks ago Cosmopolitan was walking on thin ice after the development's lender Deutsche Bank served it a notice of default. Despite the currently low mortgage rates the condominium segment in Las Vegas is slogging through an over-built and soft market. Cosmopolitan fell victim to these trying circumstances, as have so many other similar projects.
Since receiving the dreaded default notice the developer went to work in a bid to save the $3 billion undertaking on the Strip. And apparently his efforts paid off. Global Hyatt Corp., already a small stakeholder, and Marathon Asset Management have decided to join the project … (6 comments)

Las Vegas condos land on non-permissible list - 03/01/08 01:20 PM
When the residential real estate market turns soft, mortgage lenders typically are the first ones to take notice and begin studying where their exposure can get them in trouble. Countless banks operating in Las Vegas have already in their own way reacted to the slowdown here and more are certainly doing so as the situation warrants.
BankUnited from Florida has paid particular attention to the condominium market and has decided to cease underwriting mortgages on 191 projects nationwide, 14 of which are here in Las Vegas. The bank is hardly a household name to many in the business, but its action underlines … (8 comments)