Dubai World is set to tap into a US$119 million (Dh437.1m) windfall after a Las Vegas resort sold 427 homes in a bulk deal.
The condominiums are part of CityCenter, an $8.5 billion entertainment complex on the Las Vegas strip, half owned by Infinity World, a unit of the Dubai government holding company.
CityCenter, which features the 4,004-room Aria gaming resort, several non-gaming hotels, residential towers and a 500,000-square-foot retail and entertainment district, opened in December 2009 during the city's real estate crash.
"We built in the best of times and opened in the worst of times," Tony Dennis, the executive vice president of CityCenter Residential, told Bloomberg News.
"We're seeing significant improvements in the market."
The condos, in the 669-unit Veer Towers, were bought by Ladder Capital Finance Holdings, which plans to hold onto them for up to four years, selling as the market recovers, Bloom-berg reported.
Experts say the company will probably let the condos out until prices recover.
The deal works out at an average price of $278,688 per home and about $300 a square foot.
According to DataQuick, the median price of a Las Vegas home was $143,000 last month, which was up around a quarter from a year earlier, but still more than 50 per cent down from the peak in late 2006.
Sales in Las Vegas fell 7.7 per cent from a year earlier as there were fewer transactions for properties priced less than $200,000.
With 98 per cent of residences in Veer Towers now sold, CityCenter plans to concentrate on the sale of residences at its flagship Mandarin Oriental, said Bobby Baldwin, the president and chief executive.
Earlier this year, CityCenter announced that it had narrowed its losses as business in Las Vegas continued to pick up.
Losses fell to $10.2m in the fourth quarter of last year compared with $38.4m in the same quarter of the previous year, MGM Resorts International reported.
CityCenter is a joint venture between Infinity World and MGM Resorts International.
[ gduncan@thenational.ae ]