REAL ESTATE:

Southern Highlands developers face big foreclosure filing

With the Las Vegas homebuilding industry still mired in a deep recession, foreclosure proceedings have been initiated against big parcels of land controlled by the developers of the Southern Highlands planned community.

Lenders claiming to be owed $190.65 million and led by Wells Fargo Bank filed notices of trustees’ sales involving some 517 acres in 13 parcels of land. Dozens more subdivided assessors’ parcel numbers are listed in the filings, which came on Feb. 6.

Besides the lenders’ nearly $191 million claim, the properties are encumbered by some $476,000 in property tax bills — most of that for unpaid 2011 taxes, penalties and interest. For most of the properties, taxes haven’t been paid since August 2010, Clark County records showed Wednesday.

The lenders are threatening to auction the land parcels on March 5, although an attorney for the developers said talks were under way in hopes of resolving the loan default so the foreclosure could be called off.

The talks appear to have been going on for some time — some of the parcels were the subject of notice of default filings in January and February 2011.

The attorney, Gregory Garmin, of the Las Vegas law firm Gordon Silver, represents developer Garry Goett.

Garmin stressed that Southern Highlands itself was not facing foreclosure and was continuing as a successful community.

Garmin said the default was related to the inability of homebuilders to buy some of the land at issue for development of homes due to the current lack of demand for new homes.

"The demand is not there," he said.

At least four companies in which Goett has an interest are listed as the owners of the land facing foreclosure: Olympia Group LLC, Southern Highlands Development Corp., Section 7 LLC and St. Rose Parcel LLC.

St. Rose Parcel, formerly known as Southern Highlands Casino Resort Spa LLC, has a 50-acre parcel on Las Vegas Boulevard north of St. Rose Parkway that’s subject to the foreclosure sale.

During the economic boom, Southern Highlands and Station Casinos’ gaming resorts were planned on Las Vegas Boulevard between the M Resort and the South Point. Plans for both have been shelved indefinitely.

Otherwise, the Goett-related parcels facing foreclosure are concentrated around the edges of Southern Highlands and include what appear to be homebuilding lots as well as property planned for commercial use.

Some of the commercial parcels are at the southern entrance to the development, on Southern Highlands Parkway between the Interstate 15/St. Rose Parkway interchange and Robert Trent Jones Lane.

It’s not surprising that during the recession, Goett’s Olympia Group entities have had trouble selling lots to homebuilders and developing their own commercial projects.

Since 2008, the owners of the Lake Las Vegas, Summerlin, Inspirada, Rhodes Ranch, Tuscany and Park Highlands planned communities have been in and out of bankruptcy while the debt backing another proposed local residential master plan, Kyle Canyon, also moved into default.

Park Highlands was a Goett project that never gained traction because the recession slashed demand for new homes in North Las Vegas and around Southern Nevada.

Data from SalesTraq, which compiles and analyzes new home sales data, show just how hard Southern Highlands has been hit by the recession.

During the economic boom in March 2005, 74 homes sold there at an average price of $659,113, or $191.23 per square foot.

Four years later, in March 2009, sales totaled just four at an average price of $230,413, or $119.24 per foot.

Since then, sales at Southern Highlands have been ranging from one to six per month.

According to Home Builders Research, another analysis firm, Southern Highlands home sales fell from 210 in 2006 to 27 in 2010 and to 22 in 2011.

Whether the Southern Nevada homebuilding industry will turn around anytime soon is anyone’s guess.

Local housing analysts Larry Murphy of SalesTraq and Dennis Smith of Home Builders Research say January new home closings totaled 216, down from January 2011.

According to Smith, the 216 was the lowest in memory for a January.

Depending on the counting method, January 2011 sales totaled 227 to 275. These numbers are well off statistics from earlier in the decade, when January sales in Las Vegas hovered between 1,500 and 2,500.

The January performance follows a dismal 2011 for the industry in Las Vegas that yielded the lowest sales tally (3,894 home sales) since the recessionary year of 1982.

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