With supply overflowing in most of Truckee's micro-markets, this Fall promises to be a great time for home buyers looking for bargains.
With cooler days, and fewer crowds, the Fall can be an excellent time for buyers looking to snatch up a vacation home before the snow flies. And, with a few exceptions, many of Truckee's higher end neighborhoods are strongly favoring buyers right now, with a year or more worth of supply in some areas.
"Supply" is a real estate term that refers to standing inventory. If 5 homes sell in a particular neighborhood over the course of the past year, and 5 are currently for sale, that equals a year's worth of supply. A balanced market, favoring neither buyers nor sellers, is considered to be 6 months of supply. So having 12 months of home inventory is a market strongly favoring buyers.
That's exactly what we see right now in Schaffer's Mill, a gated community in the Martis Valley built around a John Harbottle-designed golf course:
SCHAFFERS MILL ***** Buyers Advantage
- Only 5 homes for sale (median asking price $2.65 million)
- One year’s worth of supply
- 5 homes sold over the past year, with a median sales price of $2 million
If you have been considering a home at Lahontan (the grand-daddy of gated Truckee communities), Martis Camp, or Old Greenwood, market conditions are strongly favoring Buyers right now (see data below). The exceptions to the rule right now are Gray's Crossing, an un-gated golf course community near downtown Truckee with miles of walking trails, and Tahoe Donner, the largely 2nd home community with outstanding amenities in the hills above Truckee. As we move toward Fall, the market in both of those neighborhoods offers a lower inventory advantage for Sellers:
GRAYS CROSSING Sellers Market $$
- 7 homes for sale, more than half of them brand new, with a median asking price almost $1.5 million
- A little over 3 months of supply
- 25 sold over the past year with a median sales price of $1.5 million
TAHOE DONNER Sellers Market $$
- 90 homes for sale (a third of them priced over $1 million), with a median asking price of $825,500
- A little over 4 months worth of supply (still a sellers market)
- 263 sold in the past year, with a median sales price of $735k (up from the median 2018 sales price of $719k)
LAHONTAN $$$ Buyers Advantage
- 16 homes currently for sale in Lahontan, with a median asking price of almost $3 million.
- A third of them are brand new
- Almost 9 months of supply
- 22 homes sold in the last year with a median sales price of $2.5 million.
MARTIS CAMP ** Buyers Advantage
- 22 homes for sale, with a median asking price of $5.3 million
- A little more than 7 months of supply
- 37 sold over the past year, with a record high median sales price of $4,775,000
OLD GREENWOOD ***** Buyers Advantage
- 8 homes for sale with a median asking price of $1.7 million
- More than a years worth of supply
- Only 7 homes sold there in the past year, with the median sales price hovering below $1.7 million
Months of inventory is just one way of looking at the real estate market in the macro. Much depends on intangibles like the "uniqueness" of a home, its condition, and buyer preferences that tip the scales in one direction or another (sometimes irrespective of price). For a business full of facts and figures and hard data, real estate remains a realm in which people buy emotionally and justify logically.
If you or someone you know is thinking of buying or selling, please call us for a more detailed market analysis.
Posted by Jackie Ginley on
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