Sotheby’s slates second event in Vegas for 2017

Sotheby’s International Realty celebrated 40 years of luxury real estate at its annual Global Networking Event May 17-20 at Wynn Las Vegas.

It was the first time it had been held in Las Vegas and a record-breaking 2,300 agents from across the globe attended the event.

CEO Philip White said the conference will return to the Strip in September 2017. Last year, it was held in Miami with 1,500 attendees.

Cirque du Soleil CEO Daniel Lamarre was the keynote speaker. White said it all “paired well” with his international brand.

London’s 1744 Sotheby’s Auction House founded the Sotheby’s International Realty in 1976. In 2004, Realogy Holdings entered into a business arrangement with the company and began to globally expand the business. Today, it has 845 offices in 63 countries.

White said because Las Vegas is an international city it will help draw more homebuyers to this market.

“A lot of money is coming into Las Vegas,” he said.

White points to The Summit, an ultra-luxury residential golf community that Discovery Land and Howard Hughes Corp. is developing on 550 acres. Homes prices start from $2.5 million for a clubhouse suite to estates priced at more than $10 million. The development has reported that it has sold about 70 home sites, mostly to Las Vegans.

Overall, he said Las Vegas looks to be on track to recovery. Indeed, May’s Multiple Listing Service report from the Greater Las Vegas Realtors Association shows the median price of single-family homes was $229,250. That’s up 8.5 percent from $211,250 one year ago.

“The Las Vegas market was hard hit in the downturn, to say the least, but what I have observed is that the period of short sales and foreclosures has come to a close for the most part,” White said.

Dale Thornburg with a few partners purchased Sotheby’s Las Vegas franchise, Synergy Sotheby’s International Realty in the middle of the Great Recession. He agrees that things are looking better in Las Vegas housing.

He said some of the hard-hit areas, such as Florida, are at prerecession values, but Las Vegas is not in the peak prices.

“The (homebuyers) can still get a deal here,” he said.

One thing he said he has noticed in the last few years is that more people are building their own custom homes. In the past, it would be far more cost-effective to buy a luxury home than build one. With prices going up, that’s no longer the case.

“It just makes sense,” he said.

Although home prices spiked in May, Las Vegas home appreciation has been hovering at about 6.5 percent home for the past year.

“That’s a good thing,” Thornburg said. “We are stable again.”