Aaron Drawhorn, Reporter
Las Vegas Condo Communities on Bank Blacklist
Updated: April 10, 2008 10:12 PM
Remember when a Las Vegas high rise condo was the hottest thing in real estate? When the bottom dropped out of the market, nothing had further to fall. At least one bank has put several Las Vegas condo projects on a so-called blacklist, refusing to finance their mortgages.
The list was never supposed to be made public. It's essentially a blacklist of 191 luxury condominiums, many here in town.
Florida-based Bankunited won't finance any of the condos.
Read the blacklist here
"My reaction was one of surprise," said Jason Fox, president of Luxury Mortgage Group. "If other banks are willing to do the financing, there's absolutely no harm in being on that list. If other banks follow suit and also add particular projects to their lists, there could be huge repercussions."
Bankunited was concerned about "high investor concentration" with the projects on their ban list. Fox says banks that understand our market better see the sustainability of these condos.
"The ones that do get it will not place many of those properties into their own ban list," he said.
Alex Edelstein is building the new luxurious Manhattan West condo community on 215 and Russell.
"We don't pay much attention to lists like that. It's more amusing than anything else," he said.
Edelstein's Manhattan Condos on the Boulevard made the blacklist for "high investor concentration."
"It's more of a comment on the bank's poor lending decisions in the past than it is on the quality of any given real estate project," he said.
He's not the least bit worried about this bank's loan refusals. For now, he's focused on this big project and is confident, in the long run, the Las Vegas market is a safe bet.
We contacted Bankunited for comment. A spokesperson says all banks and financial institutions keep their lists about which properties they'll loan upon and those they won't.
Email your comments to Reporter Aaron Drawhorn |
FYI for this Sunday’s Review-Journal: 