"On the Edge of Sketchiness!"

Having lived and worked in Las Vegas Commercial Real Estate (CRE) going on 21 years, I have learned a thing or two about Las Vegas that most tourist will never ever know -- or even want to know.

Las Vegas Resort Casinos are prime properties.

It's as if the entire Las Vegas economy revolves around whether or not a resort casino is doing well economically or not.

For the most part, casinos generally do well.

Some are doing better than others.  Yet, some seem to just limp along month to month and these individual properties suddenly close or are sold quickly.

Recently, there was a lot of Internet talk abut the Rio being for sale.  I know one of the main executives at Caesars and he tells me that there is no way they will sell that property.

Then, my business partner who is a retired gaming executive who worked for Mike Ensign for years, tells me one of the board members wants him (the gaming executive) to bring an offer.

Do you see the problem?

Anyway, recently an 'Off Strip" resort casino property was in the news.  Now, the owner did give it his best effort to attract people to his property.

But, sometimes even the best laid out plans run a muck.

I recently found a potential buyer for this 'Off Strip' property, but just before we were to write an offer, he says to me that his investors were NOT willing to acquire a resort property that is on the "Edge of Sketchiness!"

This surprised me.  But, it shouldn't have.  The reason is that the property is located right smack on the Edge of Sketchiness.

As we spoke, he affirmed his investors position by reminding me of the other recent failures in this area.

SLS (former Sahara) was his prime example.

The SLS was once a nice property (when it was the Sahara years ago), but, once it was taken over by a corporation they drove the property into the ground.

If you don't understand how this happens, it's because corporations are profit driven.  Every aspect, department must make a profit --such as: Food & Beverage, the Casino, Housekeeping, even Retail.

And in most cases -- such as Caesars properties -- they reduced spending on certain departments so much that even preventive maintenance issues become overwhelmingly expensive while expecting and even more or better return on their (reduced) investment.

In other words, the properties begin and continue to decay from the lack of refurbishment.

My retired resort casino executive business partner once said he could tell when re-investment was absolutely required in a resort property: it was when he'd walk through a casino property and saw duck tape as a mending attempt to repair a tear in the carpet.
He said, he knew then that the management didn't have the capital to replace the worn carpet.

Thus, the Rio example.  Preventive maintenance issues?

Thus, the SLS (Sahara) example.  The location between nice neighborhood and bad.

OR, with the Lucky Dragon, the bank is pulling the plug before too much 'preventive maintenance' becomes an issue because the property is losing money and thus any future deterioration would reduce the resorts equity value?

So, on the edge of sketchiness.

What do you think it means?


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