January 18, 2013

  • Las Vegas CityCenter Condos Sell in Bulk for $119 Million

    Las Vegas CityCenter Condos Sell in Bulk for $119 Million

    By John Gittelsohn - Dec 21, 2012 3:42 PM PT

    The owners of CityCenter, an $8.5 billion Las Vegas Strip development that opened amid the city’s real estate crash, said they sold 427 condominiums in a bulk transaction for $119 million.

    The residences are at the 669-unit Veer Towers, built as part of CityCenter, a joint venture ofMGM Resorts International (MGM) and Dubai World’s Infinity World Development Corp., they said today in a statement. The condos’ buyer is Ladder Capital Finance Holdings LLLP, said Tony Dennis, executive vice president of CityCenter Residential. The CityCenter hotel, casino and condo complex opened in 2009.

    “We built in the best of times and opened in the worst of times,” Dennis said in a telephone interview. “We’re seeing significant improvements in the market.”

    Investors have been buying homes to hold as rentals in Las Vegas and other cities hit by foreclosures, seeking to take advantage of low prices and demand for housing from people who can’t buy because of damaged credit.

    The median Las Vegas home price was $143,000 last month, up 24 percent from a year earlier, DataQuick reported today. They remain 54 percent below the November 2006 peak. Home sales in Las Vegas fell 7.7 percent from a year earlier as fewer properties priced less than $200,000 traded hands, the San Diego-based research firm said.

    Ladder Capital, a New York-based commercial real estate finance company, plans to hold the condominiums for as long as four years, selling them as the Las Vegas market recovers, Dennis said.

    ‘Feel Confident’

    “We feel confident about the investment potential of these condos,” Brian Harris, Ladder Capital’s founder and chief executive officer, said in an e-mailed statement. “Vegas is one of the condo markets that has not yet come back, but we think it will.”

    The company probably plans to rent the condos out until prices recover, said Brian Gordon, principal with Applied Analysis, a Las Vegas-based real estate consulting company.

    “The buyer clearly sees the opportunity to generate sufficient return during the hold period and ultimate resale,” Gordon, who wasn’t involved in the transaction, said in a telephone interview.

    The condos sold for about $300 a square foot, more than other recent sales in the city and less than a third of their listing price before the towers opened, Gordon said.

    The transaction joins other bulk purchases in the city. Blackstone Group LP’s Hilton Worldwide, based in McLean, Virginia, bought 300 condos at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, New York-based Trump Organization said in September.

     

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    Mandarin Oriental

    In addition to condos, CityCenter -- located on 67 acres (27 hectares) between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo casinos -- includes Aria, a 61-floor, 4,004-room gambling resort; a Mandarin Oriental hotel and residences; Vdara Hotel & Spa; and 500,000 square feet (46,000 square meters) of retail space.

    Veer Towers are now 98 percent sold, with 11 penthouses remaining. The deal will allow CityCenter’s owners to focus on the sale of the 160 remaining condos at the Mandarin Oriental, Dennis said.

    To contact the reporter on this story: John Gittelsohn in Los Angeles at johngitt@bloomberg.net

    To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kara Wetzel at kwetzel@bloomberg.net