Upscale? So 5 minutes ago

LAS VEGAS — They blow up aging casinos in this town. Now, some are wondering what to do about yesterday's desert dream homes.

Take the foreclosed million-dollar house realty agent Michael Antos recently showed. Please.

To the untrained eye, the four-bedroom, five-bath retreat may appear top-drawer, shimmering with granite and marble throughout, and with posh touches like a pool with a sandy beach entry.

But Antos pointed out that the house was showing its age. After all, it was built in 2000. In Vegas, that makes it as dated as a coin-operated slot machine.

The chandelier? Plastic. The granite surrounding the upstairs bathtub is tile, not slab. And those polished travertine tiles in the entryway may look luxurious, but at 12 inches by 12 inches, they just won't cut it today.

"Now you've gotta have at least 20 by 20 to sell something at this price," Antos explained.

The housing slump has fattened the inventory of unsold homes throughout the country, and a staggering 51% of them in Las Vegas are vacant. But there's another twist to the story here: a glut of glitzy homes.

About 1,000 houses are listed for sale in Las Vegas for $1 million or higher, more than 600 of them built since 2004. But unless they've been constructed in the last year or two, the properties are considered out-of-date, making them all that more difficult to sell, real estate agents say.

Just as casinos on the Strip compete fiercely to be the prime destination -- and seldom hold that distinction for more than a couple of years -- houses and entire neighborhoods are quickly eclipsed by flashier newcomers.

In most of the country, prized neighborhoods become even more desirable over time (think Beverly Hills or Greenwich, Conn.). But Las Vegas isn't about stately trees, old lawns and older money, said Gene Moehring, chairman of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, history department and a specialist in urban history.

"In Vegas, new is the most important thing," Moehring said.

And building homes is relatively easy in a city surrounded by desert land available for development, so there's always room to build a newer, more-opulent golf course community across town from the last hot spot (concern about the region's water resources has yet to stem the building boom).

The new homes often don't cost much more than the older ones, at least to buyers at the top end, for whom a couple hundred grand here and there won't make or break a deal, said veteran Las Vegas real estate broker Michelle Sterling.