The real estate market blowup hasn't spared any segments from its fury here in Southern Nevada - including Henderson, Anthem, Mountains Edge, Southern Highlands, Summerlin and North Las Vegas. Condominiums have been spanked as harshly as the single-family houses. Luxury high-rise condos on the Strip and elsewhere in the vast valley, thought by some to be above the tussle, have absorbed the same unhealthy punishment. No project could hide from it.

CityCenter by MGM Mirage, the $8.5 billion upscale mission, also has a large condominium component in it, beside the usual chic casino, convention, hotel and retail offerings. It'll have about 2,400 units in all split between the Veer Towers, Vdara and The Residences at Mandarin Oriental. CityCenter itself will begin opening in stages in December and the condos are scheduled to start closing sales in January.

As the Las Vegas condo market tanked stunningly, CityCenter advance buyers grew quickly uneasy about their purchase agreements and began talking about legal action. Either they wanted their deposits back or then the prices would have to be sliced with a heavy cleaver to reflect the present value setting. With that in mind the project was weighing carefully its options and finally decided on price reductions.

The condominium prices will be adjusted down by 30%, says CityCenter now. It's official. No more rumors about it one way or another.

Is that enough? To most buyers it likely will be, although according to the Las Vegas price grid it may come short of the real market. Anyway, a condo originally costing, let's say, $1.3 mil will now go for $910,000. That will definitely help any size wallet. Those who are still unhappy probably will face a long legal battle that may not be worth it at the end.

Las Vegas mortgage lenders have still to be convinced that the values are there, otherwise underwriting will stall. Currently standard condo financing in Southern Nevada is very tight. To provide funding for their customers CityCenter may have worked out private arrangements with a select few mortgage banks that will solve the problem. Similar to what Palms Place managed to do when it got the financiers of the condo project to also supply the needed mortgage funds for buyers. As a side note, a share of the sales predictably will be cash.

The price adjustments CityCenter has decided to do is a long positive step in making the colossal development more viable in this testing economic environment.