Category Archive : Investing

LAS VEGAS, NV – Blackstone Inc., a private equity firm based in New York City, confirmed in an earnings report released last Thursday that their sale of The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas for $5.65 billion – originally announced in September 2021 – was their “most profitable single asset sale ever” in terms of the company’s real estate dealings.

Blackstone had entered into an agreement with MGM Resorts International in 2021 to sell operations of The Cosmopolitan – located on the Las Vegas Strip – for $1.625 billion. In addition, the hotel and casino’s real estate assets were purchased by the Cherng Family Trust, set up by the owners of the fast-food chain Panda Express, for over $4 billion.

As per the deal, MGM Resorts International will run the daily operations of the venue for the next 30 years, with three options to renew their lease once it expires for an additional 10 years each time. MGM will pay the Cherng Family Trust a yearly rent of $200 million, with a yearly increase of two percent for the first 15 years of their lease.

Due to an exemption allowed under a 2007 state law that spares companies from paying tax when property owners transfer real estate to a subsidiary, the Blackstone deal produced no funds in the form of real estate transfer taxes for the city of Las Vegas. This law is essentially a legal loophole that several high-priced resort sales have taken advantage of in recent years, and is an issue that Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak is urging state legislators to address in their next session.

The Cosmopolitan originally opened its doors for business in 2010, and was later sold by owner Deutsche Bank AG to Blackstone in 2014 for $1.73 billion. The firm then put a whopping $500 million into renovating the resort, which features 3,027 rooms, a 110,000 square-foot casino, 300,000 square-feet of retail and restaurant space, a spa and fitness facility, a 3,200-seat theater, and 150,000 square-feet of meeting and convention space.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – While the national housing market has showed distinct signs of slowing down after mid-pandemic buying frenzies fueled by low mortgage rates dominated the industry, the high sales rate of new luxury homes in Las Vegas appears to remain red-hot in 2022, with the market already showing a distinct increase when compared to the same period of time in 2021.

Reports show that 235 homes costing $1 million or more have closed during the first six months of 2022 in Las Vegas so far, which represents a 16 jump over the number of luxury homes closed on during first six months of 2021.

These numbers show a dramatic jump in sales of new luxury homes in Vegas when compared to prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, in the first six months of 2017, 52 luxury homes were sold in the region, 87 in 2018, and 123 in 2019; sales only dipped slightly to 115 in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Some of those record-breaking figures for 2022 can be attributed to the rising cost of construction supplies brought about by COVID-19-related supply chain issues, which in-turn contributes to the rising costs of home-building overall.

And despite record-breaking sales of luxury homes in the Southern Nevada region continuing unabated so far this year, developers report they are seeing some high-priced buyers being a tad more cautious about how exactly they spend their hard-earned dollars in the face of the 40-year high inflation that is bombarding the country.

However, even the recently-rising interest rates on home mortgages that have slowed the real estate industry as a whole have not significantly impacted the Vegas luxury marketplace, according to Blue Heron CEO and founder Tyler Jones, a developer of high-end homes in the region.

“These are people that aren’t as affected by interest rate changes,” Jones said. “If you’re going to buy a multimillion-dollar home, and interest rates go up a point, that’s not going to stop you from buying the home.”

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Ground was officially broken last Friday on Dream Las Vegas, a swanky new $550 million luxury hotel and casino complex situated upon the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip that is slated to open its doors for business in 2024.

Originally announced in February of 2020, Southern California firms Shopoff Realty Investments and Contour will now begin development in earnest on the 20-story establishment which, when completed, will encompass 531 guestrooms and suites. There will also be numerous amenities for guests, such as a third-level pool deck, a bar and lounge concept on the gaming floor, restaurants, nightlife options, meeting and event space, and more.

The hotel is being built upon a vacant 5.25-acre plot of land located at 5051 South Las Vegas Boulevard that Shopoff and Contour originally purchased for $21 million from Fort Lauderdale-based real estate firm Lily Funds; the property sale closed on February 14, 2020.

However, construction on the project was initially delayed for undisclosed reasons – but presumably due to complications from the COVID-19 pandemic – based on a quote from Shopoff Realty Investments’ President and CEO William Shopoff when the project was first announced.

“We anticipate breaking ground late this year, probably more likely early next year,” he said back in 2020.

The hotel will be managed by New York-based Dream Hotel Group, according to Dream Hotel Group CEO Jay Stein, and said that Dream would present a unique destination for inhabitants and visitors to Las Vegas when it opens in 2024.

“When open, Dream Las Vegas will be unlike anything else currently available on the Las Vegas Strip, offering a new go-to destination for locals and out-of-town pleasure seekers alike,” he said.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Silverado Square, a 48,500 square-foot retail shopping center in Southern Nevada, has been sold to a major Chicago-based landlord for the sum of $24.4 million.

Silverado Square, originally developed by Scott Godino, has been purchased by Jones Lang LaSalle Income Property Trust as confirmed by the company’s spokesperson, with the sale having closed on June 1, according to Clark County property records.

The shopping center – which is almost fully occupied with tenants – located in the southern Las Vegas Valley at Silverado Ranch Boulevard and Maryland Parkway, is adjacent to an intersection with several other retail outlets, including two that have major supermarkets – an Albertsons and a Smith’s – as anchor stores.

Jones Lang LaSalle Income Property Trust currently possesses 120 properties across 27 states, which totals over 17.4 million square feet of commercial real estate and approximately 9,700 residential units. The company already owns other commercial properties in Las Vegas, including a northwest valley-based, 190,000 square-foot strip mall purchased in 2017 for $63.5 million.

Shopping centers in Vegas have been a hot commodity amongst investors in recent years, with 18 being purchased in the first quarter of 2022 alone, compared to the 37 that were purchased throughout the entirety of 2021.

It remains to be seen if this high purchase rate endures until the end of the year, however, as rising interest rates on loans are resulting in higher borrowing costs, this could curtail continued investment in commercial real estate, both in Las Vegas and throughout the United States as a whole.

However, reports indicate that rising interest rates could give investors willing to pay cash for their real estate transactions a distinct advantage going forward, given that there will be less competition overall; it remains to be seen how the current economic climate will play out through the remainder of the year.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – First-time homebuyers in Las Vegas are starting to face an uphill battle in some respects. Not only are they competing with ever-rising house prices and increasing interest rates on mortgages, but they are also going head-to-head with one especially difficult adversary: investors with deep pockets and the desire to pay top-dollar for homes they then convert to rentals, something that some families just starting out are unable to match.

With a small amount of inventory – the housing market in Las Vegas currently has just a one-month supply, whereas a six month supply is considered “balanced” – investors are often out-bidding first-time homebuyers by offering all-cash deals and quick closings, something that most sellers are ideally looking for, according to Las Vegas Realtors trade group President Brandon Roberts.

“The first-time buyer is at a big disadvantage,” he said. “Sellers want their money with the least amount of contingencies and as fast as possible. You can’t really blame them for that.”

34 percent of all sales in Las Vegas in May 2022 were all-cash transactions, which represents a 3 percent increase over the same period of time in 2021, which experts say likely means more investors are pouring their money into the Southern Nevada marketplace.

Sometimes these homes are fixed up and flipped for a profit; however, experts say, more often these days they are converted into rentals. Housing of any sort is tight in Vegas these days, but investors purchasing homes from the region’s already slim inventory and leasing them out is creating hardship for those seeking a starter home to purchase.

Reportedly, more and more investors – both individuals and corporations – are making buying homes and renting them out a more significant part of their business model, not just in Las Vegas, but across the United States.

In addition, with mortgage interest rates beginning to skyrocket, more and more buyers – especially affluent transplants from neighboring states such as California – are also opting to pay for home with cash in order to avoid expensive financing costs.

But while the percentage of all-cash home purchases in Vegas are creeping up, they are still far below the level they achieved before the mid-2000’s recession hit; at that time, approximately 60 percent of all home sales in the region were cash-only affairs.

However, experts are predicting that if another recession hits in the near future – which some economists are saying is indeed possible – the possibility remains that it could benefit homebuyers on a budget, as many investors may feel the need to sell off multiple properties, possibly at discounted prices.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – While the housing market in the United States began to explode in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic – with a corresponding increase in home values that are continuing to skyrocket to this day – investors have been looking to get into the on-fire real estate industry, and one of the top locations that they’re doing so these days is Las Vegas, Nevada, which features one of the fastest-growing markets in the country.

Investors are buying more and more homes in Las Vegas, and as a result are starting to edge out many first-time homebuyers in Vegas. Currently, 18.4 percent of all home sales – or one out of every six – in the U.S. was to investors, consisting of large corporations, local companies, or private individuals who typically either renovate and flip them, or convert them to rental units.

However, when it comes to Las Vegas, that number goes up to a whopping 29.2 percent of investors – or the equivalent of over one out of every four sales – that are snapping up homes in the region at a fever pitch. In the first three months of 2021, investors spent a total of $1,738,006,386 purchasing homes in Vegas, and that degree of spending appears to not be diminished as the pandemic has been winding down.

In addition to purchasing homes in Southern Nevada, investors have also been gobbling up numerous rental properties in the area, such as apartment complexes. Several such high-profile sales in Vegas have taken place in recent months, such as Topaz and Viridian – two apartment communities that are located adjacent to one another on West Viking Road – in an off-market transaction worth a combined total of $129.7 million by Laguna Point Properties, a multifamily investment company based out of California.

Obviously, the hot Las Vegas real estate marketplace is attracting numerous big-money inventors from around the country, and that trend is looking to continue into the near future.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Formula 1, the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), has revealed the extent of their considerable investment in their upcoming Las Vegas-based Grand Prix location, which is slated to take place in the center of the city – with the track situated partly on the Las Vegas Strip – starting in November 2023.

Formula 1 will be putting $240 million into the street-based night race as part of a multi-year deal with the city, making the event their third annual Grand Prix in the United States, following the United States Grand Prix at Austin, Texas and the Miami, Florida Grand Prix.

The $240 million that Formula 1 will be investing will be going to the acquisition of a 39-acre site in Las Vegas – located north east of East Harmon Avenue and Koval Lane – in order to build a permanent pits and paddock facility, according to Greg Maffei, CEO and President of Liberty Media, Formula 1’s commercial rights holder.

“Liberty Media did enter an agreement to acquire 39 acres east of the strip to lock in circuit design and capacity for the pits and paddock, among other hospitality and race support venues,” Maffei said at a press event last Friday.

Maffei noted that Colorado-based Liberty Media’s decision to promote the Grand Prix in Las Vegas in conjunction with local partners was driven by several factors.

“One is proximity: It’s fairly easy relatively to being in Denver to get to Vegas for us to do the work and we have knowledge of local US market relative to many other markets,” he said. “But more importantly we see the opportunity of being a promoter is a way to expand our understanding of the business, understand how to be the best F1 product on the track for other promoters as well, and to look at the opportunity to grow our knowledge and understanding and potentially promote other races down the road.”

“Vegas is going to be large and a perhaps unique opportunity so from a financial perspective we think this one sets up pretty well to be worth the time/extra focus to become the promoter,” Maffei added.

Formula 1 cars are the fastest regulated road-course racing cars in the world, and the Grand Prix races take place worldwide on both purpose-built circuits and closed public roads.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Easily ranking as one of the largest real estate sales the Las Vegas Strip has ever seen, VICI Properties Inc. announced this week that they have completed their acquisition of Las Vegas’ MGM Growth Properties LLC for $17.2 billion, which has increased the buyer’s presence on the Strip in the form of multiple hotel resorts and casinos.

The deal, which was first announced in August 2021, results in VICI Properties acquiring a large amount of Las Vegas Boulevard-based, MGM Resorts-operated properties, including Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, The Mirage, Park MGM, New York-New York, Luxor and Excalibur.

The acquisition also includes several other casinos located in other states, such as the MGM Grand Detroit and MGM National Harbor near Washington, D.C.

Overall, the merger will likely not result in any outward changes to the properties in question, as VICI will not be overseeing the day-to-day operations of the properties, but instead will merely be collecting rent from the management companies that do. While the deal includes VICI Properties assuming $5.7 billion of MGM’s debt, the company is also standing to receive over $1 billion in rent on an annual basis from their new acquisitions.

As a result of the purchase, VICI Properties is now one of the biggest property owners on Las Vegas Boulevard, with the firm now owning a whopping ten resorts on the Strip; this represents approximately 40,775 hotel rooms, 1.2 million square feet of casino space, and 5.9 million square feet of meeting and convention space.

“The addition of the MGP portfolio, together with the recent closing of our Venetian acquisition, elevates VICI to the top ranks of American four-wall [real estate investment trusts], making VICI a top-5 REIT by [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization] and a top-10 REIT by enterprise value,” said VICI CEO Edward Pitoniak. “We also become the largest owner of hotel and conference real estate in America, within what we believe is the superior transparency and integrity of the Triple Net Lease model.”

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – While there haven’t been many ‘motels’ on the Las Vegas Strip in recent years amid the massive hotels and casino resorts that the roadway has become well-known for, one of the remaining holdouts – the Travelodge Motel – was listed on the market for a whopping $52 million.

Situated next to Circus Circus Hotel and Casino, the Travelodge – located on a 1.8-acre plot of land on the northern part of the Strip – boasts 100 rooms spread out over two stories, and the sale also includes a three-story commercial building next door on Las Vegas Boulevard as well as the Bonanza Gift Shop, a souvenir shop catering to local tourists looking to purchase Vegas memorabilia.

Haim Gabay, the current owner of the Travelodge, appears to be trying to take advantage of the recent uptick in development in the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip recently, with that part of the roadway plagued for years by unfinished construction and a lack of foot traffic. The new effort to develop that section of town is already having a positive effect and is drawing the eyes of investors, making this likely a unique opportunity to list the Travelodge on the market.

The Travelodge is located across from the still-in-development Fontainebleau Las Vegas, a 67-story hotel resort that is scheduled to open in 2023, and adjacent to the Las Vegas Convention Center’s newly-opened West Hall and the $4.3 billion, 3,500-room Resorts World Las Vegas. Also of note is a 10 acre-lot nearby recently purchased by a Chilean developer, although exact plans for that project have yet to be revealed.

While few in number currently, the Travelodge isn’t the only motel to call the Las Vegas Strip home; others include Diamond Inn, Motel 8 Plus, and the former White Sands, a long-closed motel across from the Luxor.

However, the $52 million asking price for Travelodge is significant, experts say, especially when compared to White Sands’ current sale price of $12 million and what the Motel 8 Plus recently sold for, $7.4 million in 2018. Time will tell if Gabay gets any takers, or if he will be forced to lower his price.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – A new $3 billion entertainment venue has been announced by developer Oak View Group that will be constructed south of the famed Las Vegas Strip that will feature a plethora of attractions sure to appeal to both tourists and local residents.

Oak View Group has been behind the development of several high-profile venues across the country in recent years, including the $1.5 billion UBS Arena at Belmont Park in New York and the rebuilding of Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena.

However, Oak View is now throwing their considerable weight behind the Las Vegas entertainment industry – which is still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic – with an as-yet unnamed entertainment project that is scheduled to officially break ground in 2023.

As it is currently envisioned, the facility will feature an 850,000-square-foot arena, a casino, a hotel and an additional amphitheater to host concerts, sports events, family entertainment, conventions and award shows.

The project is slated to be built upon a 25-acre plot of land that is located on over 66 acres situated in the vicinity of two major freeways, I-15 and I-215. The venue is being designed by two prominent architecture firms – Gensler and Populous – and construction duties will be handled by President of Global Venue Development and Special Projects at Oak View Group, Steve Collins.

The news of this project comes amid the slow-but-sure recovery of the Las Vegas tourism industry post-COVID; in February, 2.6 million people visited Las Vegas, near 70 percent more than February in 2021, but still 1 million fewer than February 2019. Nonetheless, local hotel and recreation-related construction saw an increase of 67 percent year-over-year from 2020 to 2021, which is indeed a positive sign.

However, pandemic and supply chain issues have created hurdles for this development recently, with major projects originally scheduled to debut in 2022 – such as the Fontainebleau Las Vegas and the MSG Sphere – delayed to 2023.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – A growing number of homebuyers in the Southern Nevada region are paying for their purchases in cold, hard cash as opposed to taking out mortgages, a recent report says, which could be fueled by several factors, including investment and the arrival of affluent transplants from neighboring states.

The Las Vegas Realtors group report released last Wednesday indicates that 32 percent of all property transactions that took place during March 2022 – which includes existing homes, condominiums and townhomes – were paid for in full with cash, which is an increase of 8 percent over the same period of time one year prior.

Experts say there are numerous factors that could be contributing to the increase in cash real estate purchases in Southern Nevada as of late, such as an increase in investors sinking their money into the market. In addition, there has been an influx of new, wealthy residents to the region from neighboring markets such as California, where homes overall are far pricier; after selling of their old homes, these new transplants to Nevada are flush with cash and ready to take advantage of the comparatively lower home prices.

The median price for an exiting home in Las Vegas in March was $460,000 – yet another record amount – and the median price for a condominium or townhome was $270,000; compare that amount to the median home price in Los Angeles, which came in at an astonishing $935,640. With those numbers in mind, it’s no wonder that California homeowners are cashing out and fleeing for neighboring states such as Nevada with a lower cost of living.

However, this bump in cash sales, while significant, is nonetheless still less then Vegas’ peak rate which in 2013 following the recession, where the number of cash-based transactions hit a whopping 60 percent.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – An investment group is currently in the process of sinking some impressive capital into Las Vegas, with 13 rundown rental properties located in the city’s downtown area currently in the midst of major renovations before eventually being put back on the market for sale once they are complete.

Property management and construction company Las Vegas Apartments Corporation has a history of purchasing vacant or dilapidated properties in Las Vegas’ downtown, putting money into fixing them up, and then flipping them on the open market in an effort to “revitalize” the area.

Currently, the group is the second-highest volume property owner in downtown Vegas, according to reports, with 13 properties currently under their belt – all of which are in varying degrees of renovation; once work is finished, they will all be put up for sale.

The most recent fixer-upper property that Las Vegas Apartments Corporation purchased, renovated, and successfully flipped was 10-unit apartment complex at 211 South 13th Street, off the corner of Carson Avenue; the group bought the building in 2018 for $675,000, and closed on it last Friday for $2.7 million, representing a significant return on their initial investment.

The irony is that Las Vegas Apartments Corporation hadn’t fully completed their renovations on the complex when they sold it for that whopping amount, but the demand for housing on 13th Street was so strong they were unable to pass up the huge offers they were receiving for the unfinished project.

Part of the deal, reports say, includes extending the leasing of the current tenants that currently reside in the apartment complex.

Next on Las Vegas Apartments Corporation’s to-do list is the renovation of the 1950′s era Safari Motel, a project that the group has only just acquired the permits for; upon completion of the repairs, the motel will be master leased to Veterans Affairs, according to reports.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.