Restrepo Consulting Group Principal Comments on Las Vegas High Rise Market

John Restrepo, principal of the Restrepo Consulting Group was recently interviewed by In Business' Jennifer Shubinski, who asked him a number of interesting questions pertaining to the Las Vegas high rise condo market.

First, some background. Restrepo's resume reads like a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist. With all his allocades and achievements, you couldn't ask for a better industry expert to interview. So, to pardon a phrase from the old E.F. Hutton commercials, "when John Restrepo talks, people listen".

According to Restrepo, we're going through a more realistic view of the high-rise condo market in Las Vegas.

We've had a period of irrational exuberance on the high-rise condo market, where we thought the demand would be a lot higher than it has ultimately proven to be, combined with the land prices that we've seen and the construction costs. Over the next five years, we'll probably see 25 percent of the 60,000 (proposed) units actually built. So we'll see about 15,000 (residential) high rise units built over the next five years.

Here are some questions you need to ask a high rise developer:

1. Have you ever built one of these before and if not, are you joining forces with somebody who has?
2. Do you have your contractor lined up?
3. Do you have your construction financing in place and moving forward?

If these answers are no, Restrepo feels you're dealing with someone with a website and a dream. And that's what's gradually disappearing in this market.