Summerlin developer sells more than $100M of land to homebuilders

Summerlin’s developer booked another set of high-priced land deals as builders keep paying a premium to sell houses in the suburban Las Vegas community.

Howard Hughes Holdings sold around 63 acres combined to three homebuilders for almost $109 million, property records show. The sales closed last month.

The plots are about a mile west of the stretch of the 215 Beltway between Summerlin Parkway and Lake Mead Boulevard. The sales values for two of the deals amounted to just over $1.7 million an acre, while the third came to $1.8 million per acre.

By comparison, across Southern Nevada last year, builders’ average purchase price for land was around $954,200 an acre, Home Builders Research previously reported.

Summerlin, the largest master-planned community in Las Vegas, boasts more than 130,000 residents, and its developer is known for methodically selling land, asking select builders to make offers on the plots it releases.

And in general, when builders pay high land values, they sell homes at higher prices, too.

Texas-based Hughes Holdings did not provide any comments for this story.

Summerlin spans 22,500 acres along the valley’s western rim and has parks, trails, community centers and other amenities. It boasts some of the highest home prices in Southern Nevada and has long been among the top-selling spots in the nation for homebuilders.

The developer’s namesake — Howard Hughes, the famed business tycoon, aviator and recluse — acquired the land mass in the 1950s. Overall, Hughes Holdings still owned nearly 2,000 acres of saleable residential land in the community by the end of last year, according to a securities filing.

In the land sales that closed last month:

Richmond American Homes parent Sekisui House U.S. acquired roughly 9.6 acres for $16.3 million, with Las Vegas city records showing plans for a 38-lot subdivision on the site.

Also, Century Communities bought 22.4 acres for $40.3 million, with plans for an 88-lot subdivision, and luxury builder Toll Brothers purchased nearly 31 acres for almost $52.4 million, with plans for a 97-lot housing tract, records show.

During the first half of this year, Summerlin’s developer sold tracts of land to four homebuilders at an average value of $1.7 million per acre or more in each deal, with the highest reaching $1.75 million an acre.

John Stater, Las Vegas research manager for commercial real estate brokerage Colliers, previously said that land prices in Summerlin are “going to be higher than in most other submarkets due to demand.”