Trump battle brewing in Las Vegas residential market

NEW YORK — Real estate mogul Donald Trump is going head-to-head with one of his ex-wives — this time in the real-estate arena. Trump and ex-wife Ivana have both jumped into the volatile Las Vegas market, where each is building competing luxury condominium projects.

The success or failure of the dueling developments may be the latest test of whether the turbulent Las Vegas market, which saw prices plummet during a pricing debacle last fall, is back on track.

Some Las Vegas condo projects, such as former NBA superstar Michael Jordan’s planned development, have been scrapped before the shovel even touched the ground.

A groundbreaking ceremony will be held Tuesday for Donald Trump’s 64-story Trump International Hotel & Tower Las Vegas, adjacent to the Fashion Show mall on the Strip and across from the Wynn Las Vegas resort and golf course.

Further north, at the end of the Strip, his ex-wife is planning a development, called the Ivana, that she says will be the tallest residential condominium in Las Vegas at 80 stories. She has invited about a thousand brokers to meet at the Bellagio hotel the same day as Trump’s groundbreaking to discuss sales plans. Her project isn’t slated to break ground until next summer.

Although Las Vegas has seen a surge in condo and condo-hotel developments, Donald Trump isn’t worried. He said he hasn’t had any problems getting the prices he’s requested.

“We’re totally sold out,” he said. “If anyone drops out, I have 2,000 people to take their place.”

There has been much talk about speculative buyers jumping into the condo market with the intention of flipping units for a quick profit or renting them out. Fitch Ratings director Dina Treanor recently expressed concerns about the Las Vegas condo market, describing it as overheated and predicting 10 percent of those loans could go into default.