Kirk Sanford News

The most recent interesting real estate trend in Las Vegas is that Las Vegas is going green. MGM City Center was the first LEED certified project in Nevada and there is now a collection of Las Vegas homes that are following suit.

The best project for green, gorgeous homes at the moment is the Marquis Las Vegas project. They were actually chosen by the National Association of Home Builders as the New American Home 2009. Located in an ultra-exclusive neighborhood off of Tomiyasu Lane that has been home to Wayne Newton, Mike Tyson, the Sultan of Brunei and others, this area offers properties as large as 40 acres.

The area contains several of Nevada’s most expensive properties, including estates ranging to more than 40 acres, but is just minutes from the Las Vegas Strip and Downtown. The energy for the homes is solar and solar thermal and each home is expected to run on natural gas and electricity. If you select the Smart House Package, your home will also be fully equipped electronically. You’ll spend two weeks with Microsoft, programming your home for your comfort and lifestyle!

Certainly, this project is a dream-come-true for private home buyers or companies such as Sightline Acquisition with Kirk Sanford. Anything is possible in Las Vegas!

In a recent article, CNNMoney.com listed Las Vegas, Nevada as 41.40% undervalued and they said that it was the most undervalued city in the United States at the moment. This statistic is particularly interesting in light of the article that they wrote in 2006 where they said that Las Vegas was 38% overvalued.

The criteria they used to judge a city’s value included median home prices, local interest rates, population densities and income, and historical premiums or discounts that the area has shown over time.

This is certainly good news for companies like Sightline Acquisition Corp. with Kirk Sanford and others who have their sights set on the Las Vegas real estate market.

With the recent economic downturns, those looking to buy a home can, very possibly, get a good deal. Many people have their sights set on purchasing a home from a foreclosure or from a short sale. But, is this really the best way to buy a home?

A short sale is a negotiated settlement between the bank lending the money and the seller, whereby the bank agrees to reduce the amount owed to payoff the home loan. It saves them from foreclosing on the home and it offers a potential buyer the chance to buy the home for a reduced price.

There are, however, a number of pitfalls with this process. A short sale can take a very long time to process, as the bank may take between 30 days and 6 months to approve of the short sale. Each bank has its own process, and it’s very important to make sure that you understand how the bank in question works and what the timeline will look like. You may want to involved a real estate lawyer, or someone in the know, in the process as well to streamline everything and make sure that your needs are met.

While most people certainly see the economic issues and the rates of foreclosures in areas like Las Vegas to be negative, there are those who are benefiting from these current events. Home Builders Research President Dennis Smith says, for instance, that the good news is that housing prices in Vegas have become quite affordable.

This affordability, alone, should increase home sales and boost the real estate market a bit. As Smith reports,”We’re still going to sell some new homes. We still have people retiring. Yuppies are retiring and moving here for tax reasons. Being in the Southwest, because of our better weather, there’s always going to be people moving here.”

In addition, companies and individuals who can afford to do so are helping to regenerate the real estate market by purchasing foreclosed real estate and other properties. Such companies, like Sightline Acquisition with Kirk Sanford, and others, help to rejuvenate the economy in Vegas and bring people back.

CityCenter, Las Vegas

Kirk Sanford of Sightline Acquisition Corporation and other businessmen in the Las Vegas region are hoping that the distressed Las Vegas economy will experience a big boost today as approximately 12,000 people will be appointed to various posts at the CityCenter project.

This new development has been in the works for about four years, and at 18 million square feet and a cost of $8.5 billion the sprawling CityCenter is the largest commercial real estate project in the United States.

Owned by MGM Mirage, which also owns other casinos in the Las Vegas area such as the Bellagio and the MGM Grand, the CityCenter will include up-market hotels, a shopping center, concert facility and a casino.

With the establishment of Sightline Acquisition Corporation Kirk Sanford ventured into the exciting world of Las Vegas real estate. If Las Vegas is nothing else, it is surely exciting.  For instance, despite an increase in the number of home sales, prices have continued to decline in the city known for its casinos and legal gambling. The decline is actually officially the steepest in the nation, just passing Phoenix as the city with the fastest home price decline.

The statistics read like this: Since August 2006 which was the peak in home prices, the cost of a home in Las Vegas fell 54.3%. In June 2006 Phoenix reached its own home-price peak, and has since slid down by 53.9%, just a tad less than in Las Vegas.

In an apparent contradiction, despite the price declines numbers of home sales continue to increase. July marked the eleventh month in a row in which home sales increased, with a total of 29% increase since last year.

The discrepancy is easily explained: Most of the home sales are foreclosures, which sell at discounts. Two thirds of Nevada’s mortgage holders actually owe more on their homes than their homes are worth, leading them to foreclosure. Conclusion: More sales, cheaper prices.

Sightline Acquisition, with Kirk Sanford at the helm, is keeping up with the latest news in the Las Vegas real estate world. And the news is good.

Check out the latest headlines coming from the GLVAR, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. According to their statistics, the month of June, 2009 set a record for number of home sales in the local Las Vegas area. Nevertheless prices appear stable as the number of homes available for sale declines.

The month of June scored a record 4,702 homes, condominiums and townhouses sold. July 2009 registered in as the second highest amount of sales in a single month with just 100 less homes sold, 4,602.

The value of the transactions for just single-family homes, which are the majority of home sales, was lower than last year, but still quite impressive. June’s total value came to $634 million. July posted lower at $611 million worth of home sales, which is 3.6% less than July 2009, and 7.4% less than in June, 2008.

Sightline Acquisition was begun by Kirk Sanford in the year 2008 in order to invest in real estate in the Las Vegas area.

Comprised of a team of highly professional investors, Sightline is hoping to have success in the three major areas of real estate markets in Las Vegas.

These areas include:

•    Real Estate Experiencing Rapid Growth- As the population of Las Vegas continues to grow there will be an expanding market for real estate as an investment opportunity.

•    Real Estate Established and Mature- Perhaps not growing much now, but can be expected to show growth in the future.

•    Real Estate In Decline – Could be in decline now, but can be expected to bounce back, show growth, and if purchased now at below market values, can be great, long-term investments.

Kirk Sanford is running Sightline Acquisition now. Sightline, a “blank check company” invests in real estate in the Las Vegas area. This special investment fund focuses its efforts on acquiring distressed properties, both commercial and residential.

Led by Kirk Sanford, his team of entrepreneurs is compromised of highly experienced and talented professionals with more than 20 years of business and investing experience between them, in the Las Vegas vicinity.

Kirk Sanford serves as CEO of Sightline Acquisition Corp. After 14 years heading Global Cash Access Inc. (GCA), a subsidiary of Global Cash Access Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: GCA), Kirk Sanford resigned as CEO in November 2007.

GCA is a provider of cash access products and services to more than 1,100 clients across the globe. These clients include gaming concerns where GCA provides the patrons cash access via various methods including ATM withdrawals, debit and credit card transactions as well as check verification and money transfers.

GCA maintains a proprietary database of gaming patron transaction data and credit history spanning millions of gaming patrons worldwide. This aids GCA in developing and deploying technologies and strategies to increase client profitability and efficiency.