Las Vegas is a city of extremes. One minute you’re riding high with a couple of Empire State building-sized stacks of chips in front of you, the next minute you’ve crapped out with barely enough money left for the all you can eat buffet. So it seems to go with the luxury real estate market there as well. Back in 2004, Las Vegas led the nation with sky-high real estate appreciation rates. Now with the bubble well and truly burst, Las Vegas is caught firmly in the jaws of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, and it has the dubious distinction of having the highest foreclosure rate in the country.

None of this is apparent if you look at the strip, where cranes continue to dominate the neon skyline. Steve Wynn, whose Bellagio and Wynn hotels have previously held the distinction of being the most expensive hotel developments in the world, is unveiling his new project, Encore Suites in December of 2008. It will feature 2,034 luxury suites, ranging in size from 700 to 5,880 square feet, and will anchor a development that will house five restaurants, 11 retailers, seven bars and lounges, a nightclub and a spa. While there’s no word yet as to how many of those units will be made available as condos, it would hardly be surprising if a destination club such as Quintess, which doesn’t yet have a Vegas presence, snatches up a few of those nearly 6,000 square foot pads.

The building frenzy is showing no signs of slowing anytime soon. Dubai World and MGM Mirage’s 76-acre mixed use complex, CityCenter, is at the center of Vegas development. With an estimated construction cost of $7.8 billion, the series of sleek glass towers will host four hotels, comprehensive entertainment entertainment facilities and some 2,650 condo units when it opens in 2009. The penthouse units recently set a Las Vegas price record, coming in at a staggering $2,400 per square foot. Destination club industry leader Exclusive Resorts bought 30 of the development’s two-bedroom condo units in August of last year. The units, in the CityCenter’s Vdara Condo Hotel, will replace Exclusive Resorts’ interim Vegas presence, 15 two-bedroom suites at the Signature at MGM Grand.

Other new developments offering condominium units include the Fontainebleu, the Trump Las Vegas, the Palazzo, the Cosmopolitain and a new tower at Caesar’s coming online soon. The Palms Place condo-hotel tower has long since established itself as a hot commodity. All of its condos sold out within three months of going on the market, with buyers including songstress Jessica Simpson, professional wrestler Hulk Hogan and rapper Eminem. And there are other projects that might attract destination club buyers. Currently under construction, Las Vegas mega-project Echelon Place is an 87-acre mixed use project with a construction budget of $4.2 billion. Echelon Place will feature 1,000 condo units in addition to four hotels and a convention center when it opens in 2010.

The high end of the Las Vegas market has not been entirely immune to the boom and bust speculation cycles. Last year, the W Las Vegas, whose first offering of condo-hotel units were quickly snapped up, folded before ground was broken due to financing concerns. And it’s not been all smooth sailing on the much hyped Lake Las Vegas. A scan of the local real estate pages revealed that a number of home foreclosures were listed within the development, and Transcontinental Corp., who is the master developer of the resort community, recently defaulted on a $540 million dollar loan after builders backed out on options to buy 400 acres of resort land. Intrawest’s private residence club wing, Storied Places, was forced to cancel its “La Scala” development there after it had sold only 30 out 120 fractions on offer.

Still, the building boom persists, no doubt driven by strong long-term prospects for the city as a gaming and entertainment destination. Some 40,000 new hotel rooms are set to roll out in the next four years alone. Buyers eyeing the Vegas market now have a luxury that a didn’t exist a few years ago: an abundance of choice, and with fewer speculators descending on the market, more time to make that purchase decision.