Southern Highlands and the Southwest: What You Get and What You Trade

Most people moving to the Las Vegas valley start with Summerlin or Henderson, because those are the two names they have heard. The south end of the valley, Southern Highlands and the southwest neighborhoods around it, usually comes up later, when the budget meets the listings and something has to give.

It should come up earlier. For a move-up family it is often the place where the money does the most, and the trade you make for that is specific and worth understanding before you decide.

The south end sits below the Strip and the airport, where the 15 and the 215 meet. Southern Highlands is on the west side of the 15 off St. Rose Parkway. The southwest neighborhoods spread west and north from there, along Blue Diamond Road and out toward the mountains, in the part of the county most maps label Enterprise or Spring Valley.

The two freeways are the story of the location. The 15 runs straight north to the Strip and the resort corridor, and south toward California. The 215 loops west to Summerlin and east to Henderson. If your work is on either freeway, or near the airport, the south end puts you on it fast.

Southern Highlands is a master-planned community started around 2000, built around a private golf club, with a mix of gated and open neighborhoods and its own parks and trails. It is the south end's answer to Summerlin, and the comparison is the one buyers actually make.

Here is how I put it to them. At the same price, Southern Highlands often gets you more house than a comparable Summerlin address, and the airport is closer. What you give up is Red Rock on your doorstep, Downtown Summerlin, and the longer track record Summerlin's older villages have. The homes are mostly from the 2000s onward, so the systems are younger than old Summerlin and old Green Valley, and the dues are real, because a master-planned community with a golf club costs money to keep up.

If you are inside Southern Highlands, the gated sections and the open sections are different buys, in price, in dues and in what the rules let you do with your own house. I will walk you through which is which when we know your budget.

West and north of Southern Highlands, the southwest is not one community. It is a wide area of subdivisions built mostly from the 1990s through the 2010s, and the range is wider than most buyers expect.

Mountain's Edge, off Blue Diamond Road, is a large master-planned community from the mid-2000s on, with parks and trails and homes that are now old enough to have replaced their first air conditioner. Rhodes Ranch, built around a golf course from the late 1990s, is older and gated. Silverado Ranch, closer to the 15, was built mostly in the 1990s and 2000s. Between and around them sit dozens of ordinary subdivisions from the same eras, some under an association and some not, which is the southwest's real advantage: you can find a 1990s single-story on a decent lot with modest dues or none, or a 2015 two-story with everything new, within a couple of miles of each other.

Farther west, toward the mountains, the newest construction in the valley's southwest corner is still going up. Same rules as anywhere new: the builder's sales office works for the builder. Bring your own agent.

More house for the money, usually, than the same budget buys in Summerlin, and often in the newer parts of Henderson too.

Two freeways. The 15 and the 215 meet here, which makes the Strip, the airport, Summerlin and Henderson all reachable, and none of them yours.

Newer systems. Most of the south end was built after 2000. Roofs, air conditioners and plumbing are younger than in old Green Valley or old Summerlin, which shows up in the inspection and in what you spend the first five years.

Range. Gated master-planned, open master-planned, and plain subdivisions with no association, all within a short drive.

A commute that depends on the freeways. When the 15 backs up near the Strip, or the 215 backs up at the airport, the south end feels it first. Drive your actual commute at five on a weekday. This matters more here than anywhere else in the valley.

The airport itself. Some south-end addresses sit under a flight path and some do not. It is a specific check for a specific house, not a verdict on a neighborhood, and it is one of the things I look at before I show you anything.

Identity. Summerlin and Henderson have a center. Downtown Summerlin, The District, Water Street. The south end has shopping along St. Rose Parkway and Blue Diamond Road, and it is fine, and it is not the same thing. Some people care about that. Some people would rather have the extra bedroom.

Summer. Newer two-story homes with big windows facing west cost more to cool in July than the listing photos suggest. I wrote a whole piece on the July power bill. Read it before you fall for the great room.

If your work is near the airport, on the 15, or you split time between the west and the southeast, the south end deserves the first look, not the last. If your budget is what is pushing you here from Summerlin, come look before you decide you are settling. Most people who tour it stop using that word.

If Red Rock and Downtown Summerlin are the reason you are moving here, stay with Summerlin and buy smaller. That is a legitimate trade too.

Call 702-881-6562 or email JArendt658@gmail.com. Tell me where you work, what you want to spend, and whether stairs matter. I will tell you whether your money does more on the south end, and which two or three neighborhoods I would actually show you. If the answer is Henderson or Summerlin after all, you will hear that too.

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John Arendt, Realtor, has sold homes across the Las Vegas valley for 20 years, in Henderson, Summerlin, Southern Highlands, Anthem, Boulder City and North Las Vegas.

This article describes neighborhoods and housing, not the people who live in them. Community names and dates are from public sources and can change as the south end builds out.