From Homescape

Nearly 1,000 houses are listed for sale in Las Vegas for $1 million or more, and about 36 percent of them are sitting vacant, The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday. And according to industry observers, unless they’ve been constructed in the last year or two, they’re going to be hard to sell.

Las Vegas is made up of a class of “new money,” and residents moving there aren’t looking for a historic Victorian home. These high rollers like their McMansions big, and they want them customized to match their lavish lifestyle. Like Louis Vuitton's Multicolore Heart purse, a home built four years ago may just be too “out of style” for this type of buyer.

Michael Lemoine, an architect who specializes in custom houses for the wealthy, told the Times that he has clients who build houses as often as some people buy cars. In 2000, 176 Las Vegas homes sold for more than $1 million, and by last year that number jumped to 1,219, according to real estate search firm DataQuick Information Systems.
So what does this mean for a market already glutted with unsold homes from every price point? Builders and homeowners need to just sit tight. Home values aren’t going up anytime soon and excess inventory will only slow down the market’s recovery. With job growth remaining flat in the city and foreclosures continuing to balloon, Las Vegas recently landed on Forbes magazine’s top 10 riskiest housing markets. A poor housing climate coupled by a weakening economy is not a gamble I’d take in Sin City.

Got hot local housing tips or a story you want to share? Contact Amy Le at openingdoorsblog@homescape.com.