I swear, I don't know where the time goes. It is so difficult to sit my butt in my chair and update readers on our market when I'm out selling REOs! I'm sure it will be much easier when the busy season is over. Right now I need to work hard while my business is booming. I need to squirrel away some provisions so that I'll be able to survive a long, cold winter.

Okay, you caught me. We don't have long, cold winters in Las Vegas. The truth is, I have my eye on the 2009 Corvette. I love my 2006, but come on--have you seen the photos of the 2009?! It's on my screen saver, and I fall asleep thinking about the day I can buy the new model. I can't complain; thanks to our Top10 real estate values, I won't need to join the exodus of agents leaving both the real estate and mortgage industries. I'm a simple girl; I'll be perfectly happy if I can buy the last 2009 model remaining on the lot when the 2010 model rolls out.

I spent half of Friday with a Reuters reporter from D.C. working on a story on Las Vegas foreclosures. The reporter tagged along while I showed houses to LVA readers from Chicago and San Francisco. I must say I glowed with pride when each of these investors said they had become interested in Las Vegas real estate after viewing my Top 10. I'm eagerly anticipating that story; maybe his conversation with an REO listing agent will uncover the answer to a burning question I have: "So, when you sold your soul to the devil to get all those listings, did it occur to you that you'd still need to do business with the rest of us when the market returns to normal? 'Cuz if it did, I'm sure you'd be less inclined to make me look bad while you keep my clients on pins and needles waiting 10 days for a response."

As promised, I am going to take readers on an “online tour” of Las Vegas with my good friend, land use consultant-to-the-stars Lucy Stewart. Before Lucy was helping developers gain approval for their projects, she served as a zoning administrator for ClarkCounty. Lucy recently helped plan the American Planners Association annual conference here in Las Vegas, and served as a “tour guide” for planners from across the country. Covered on my abbreviated version of Lucy’s tour will be the newest Sin City projects and expansions.

All Aboard the Las Vegas Planners Tour 2008, Part I.

Welcome to Las Vegas! We begin our tour today driving north along Las Vegas Boulevard, better know as The Strip. While the strip is the best known image of Las Vegas, it's actually not within the City of Las Vegas, but rather within unincorporated ClarkCounty, in the Townships of Paradise and Winchester. ClarkCounty consists of over 8,000 square miles and is home to 5 incorporated cities and 19 unincorporated townships.

MGM Mirage’s CityCenter project - CityCenter is a 76-acre mixed-use development located on the west side of the Strip, between the Bellagio and the Monte Carlo resorts. At $7.4 billion, it is currently the most expensive privately-funded project in the western hemisphere. When complete, CityCenter will have:

   -  One 61-story, 4,000-room hotel tower
   -  Two 400-room high-end, non-gaming hotels including Las Vegas’ first Mandarin Oriental
   -  Approximately 2,650 luxury condominium and hotel/condominium units
   -  A retail district featuring approximately 500,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment under a crystalline canopy of unprecedented brilliance.

CityCenter represents the largest single new employment opportunity in the history of Las Vegas. This project will create 7,000 construction jobs and 12,000 new permanent positions once it opens in 2009.

Venetian Hotel and Casino - The Venetian Hotel and Casino’s new expansion, the Palazzo, was completed in January 2008.With 7,128 hotel rooms, two casinos, nearly 1 million square feet of retail and 2.3 million square feet of convention space, the Venetian and the Palazzo combined are the largest hotel in the world. The Venetian boasts Bouchon, Thomas Keller’s French bistro. Okay, this isn’t new—but it serves some of the best food in Las Vegas!

Las Vegas is ever-changing, constantly reinventing itself as it grows up. I’ll return to our Tour frequently in upcoming musings, moving from the strip out into the communities that make Las Vegas a great place to live, work and invest.

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