Tahoe Real Estate Market Favors Buyers this Fall

Looking for a Deal in Tahoe?

What $6 million buys at Lake Tahoe (a small 1950s cabin with a priceless view).

Buyers are back in the driver’s seat in the Tahoe Truckee real estate market.

With more homes to choose from, and fewer buyers leaping at new listings, sharp pricing became key for sellers this summer.  Homes that were strategically underpriced continued to receive multiple offers, but roughly half the homes in any given market lowered their asking prices to make a deal.

In a new twist on the summer market, high-end buyers gravitated away from Lake Tahoe and toward Martis Camp.  The tony gated community at the base of Northstar’s Lookout Mountain saw 11 homes change hands this past summer (more than half of them at or over asking),…

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Tahoe Real Estate in 2020: Can it Continue?

2020: A Banner Year for Tahoe Real Estate

Almost $3 billion worth of real estate changed hands in Tahoe/Truckee & Incline/Crystal Bay last year. For single-family homes, that’s a whopping 87 increase in volume over 2019 – a staggering jump that no one has seen in recent memory, and more than double the gains we saw in 2012, when bargain buying fueled a recovering market.

But there were almost no bargains to be found last year.  Homes that were priced right and showed well received multiple offers and often sold for well over asking. 

A Year for Luxury

The highest demand was for homes priced under $1 million, but luxury sales also soared in 2020. Close to half (45 percent) of the homes that sold in North Tahoe and Truckee last year closed for…

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2019 Tahoe Market News

I was showing houses in Truckee the week before Christmas, and Bay Area buyers asked if they should wait to buy, questioning what will happen in 2020.  Would prices go down?

Analysts like to talk about the housing market on a “national” level, and while that’s great for economists and forecasting, it doesn’t really tell you anything about what will happen on the micro level here in Tahoe.

A home at Lake Tahoe is not the same as a home in Detroit. And the buyer looking to invest in a vacation home, which is largely what we offer here in Tahoe, has a different set of goals and finances than the person looking for a roof over their head.

The overall Tahoe market looks pretty much the same as it did in the middle of 2019, with prices inching up…

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Ski Lease ~ When You Love Lake Tahoe (but not the snow)

What's a Ski Lease? 

That's a question I was asked last week, reminding me that as realtors we sometimes assume our everyday jargon is commonplace. A ski lease is a short-term rental of your home for the ski season, usually at a higher monthly rate than what it would fetch as a full-time rental.

Ski leases typically run from November or December through March or April (in an epic Tahoe winter your tenants might ask to extend). For those who love Lake Tahoe, but not the winters, a ski lease can be a great way to defray the cost of owning a vacation home. A nice 4-bedroom home or condo that sleeps eight or more could rent for anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 per month, depending on location (luxury properties fetch luxury rates). Multiply that by 5 or…

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