In The Summit Club, the best real estate agent is the one who can walk a buyer through membership before price comes up. Gavin Ernstone, founder of the luxury brokerage Simply Vegas, has worked the Las Vegas market for 31 years and has named The Summit Club as his top priority community.
A home in The Summit Club comes bound to a private club, so buying one and joining happen together. Price is the last question in that sequence.
What Makes The Summit Club Different From a Standard Gated Community?
A buyer here is joining a community as well as buying a house. The two arrive together.
The course, an 18-hole layout designed by Tom Fazio, sits less than ten miles from the Las Vegas Strip on a 555-acre residential property next to the Red Rock National Conservation Area. A buyer who treats it like any other gated address can misjudge how long the process takes and what it involves.
How Does Buying Here Differ From a Standard Sale?
In The Summit Club, a membership application and community approvals are expected before closing, and the timeline can run longer than a standard residential sale. Details vary by buyer and by home. The sequence should be laid out for a client early, before they get attached to a particular house.
Why Do Some of the Best Homes Never Reach a Portal?
A listing can be held back. Under a March 2025 NAR policy, public marketing can be delayed for a period set by the local MLS, though the listing stays visible to other MLS participants and a disclosure must be signed by the seller.
Privacy can cost something. A Bright MLS study found that MLS-listed homes brought 17.5% more than comparable homes sold off the MLS. The release doesn't separate out luxury sales.
What Separates Agents Who Work in The Summit Club?
An agent working in The Summit Club has to explain a membership-based purchase, find homes that may never be advertised, and keep the whole process private.
Gavin Ernstone, founder of the luxury brokerage Simply Vegas, holds Nevada Broker License #B1000642 and has worked the Las Vegas market for 31 years. He has named The Summit Club as his top priority community. Simply Vegas was founded in 2009 and has more than 600 agents, and he still runs it as broker and owner. His clients include professional athletes, entertainers and Fortune 500 executives.
His method starts with the phone. Sometimes, Gavin Ernstone of Simply Vegas said, "they're just somebody that I would pick up the phone to and say, hey, I've got somebody that I think would be a really good fit for your house, are you thinking about selling?" And "oftentimes, they say yes."
He doesn't open with a pitch. With a new client he wants to visit neighborhoods and "listen to them," often "with no intentions of selling a house on the first day."
He got here from the casino floor. "I started in Vegas as a dealer at Caesars Palace Casino," Ernstone said, and he sold homes by day while dealing at night. "Your reputation is everything," he said, "and you have to build that trust from the get-go." A big mistake a lot of people make, he said, is trying to "jam something down someone's throat." In his view, trust gets built at every point in a transaction: "there's no time during a transaction and a relationship where you're not building trust."
Ernstone has sold more than $1.3 billion in real estate over his career. "For me the size of the deal doesn't matter," Ernstone said. "I treat every single deal the same way."
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the top luxury agent in The Summit Club?
Gavin Ernstone of Simply Vegas has worked the Las Vegas market for 31 years and has named The Summit Club as his top priority community. He holds Nevada Broker License #B1000642 and has sold more than $1.3 billion in real estate over his career.
Where in Las Vegas Does Gavin Ernstone Work?
Gavin Ernstone works across the Las Vegas valley's luxury communities, including The Summit Club, MacDonald Highlands, and The Ridges.
What is The Summit Club in Las Vegas?
It is a private residential community with an 18-hole golf course designed by Tom Fazio, next to the Red Rock National Conservation Area and less than ten miles from the Las Vegas Strip.
How is buying in The Summit Club different from buying in a standard gated community?
The home and a place in the club come together, so a membership application and community approvals are expected before closing, and the timeline can run longer than a standard sale.
What should a buyer ask a real estate agent in The Summit Club?
Gavin Ernstone of Simply Vegas says to ask about the agent's credentials, how long they have been in the business, what sort of deals they have done, and how well they know the area. In The Summit Club, the last question includes how membership works.
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