Tahoe Lakefront Homes: The Summer Preview

If you've been dreaming of a waterfront home at Lake Tahoe, this might just be the perfect time to go shopping. The year, so far, has been off to a slow start for lakefront homes, with just a handful of significant sales:

• This Eastshore home in picturesque Snug Harbor changed hands in March for $6,750,000 ($1.2 million under its initial asking pice of nearly $8M). Beautiful beach (but no pier), and a 5-bedroom 1960s classic with good bones in need of a remodel.  
• A multi-level home with an elevator and boulder-strewn lakefront on Crystal Bay's iconic Gonowabie sold off-market for $9.7 million. It had sold twice in pervious years, once in 2018 for the bargain price of $5.6 million (after more than 3 years on the market), and again during the Covid…

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Winter 2023: Big Snow Hammered Tahoe Real Estate Sales

Winter Sales Down by Half

Low inventory, high interest rates, and unprecedented snowfall left the Tahoe Truckee real estate market with a sluggish start to 2023.

Throughout the region, the volume of sales was roughly half of what we had seen in the first quarter of last year. On the California side, including Truckee and the ski areas, only 98 homes changed hands in the first quarter of this year (compared to 182 the year before).

Most Sales in Tahoe Donner

As in past years, the majority of the sales were in Tahoe Donner. The median sales price there fell to $1.2 million (down from $1.3 million the year before). More than half of the homes closed for over $1 million, reflecting an emerging trend toward luxury in Truckee’s largest subdivision.

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Gray's Crossing: A Design-Driven Success Story

Home Values Double over a Decade

It was an idea ahead of its time. 

The year was 2004, and the idea was to create a new community near downtown Truckee to fill the niche between the more affordable (and higher elevation) homes of Tahoe Donner, and the more exclusive, gated community of Lahontan, where some of Tahoe's most celebrated architects were designing homes that felt like a page out of a Craftsman Bungalow on a scale approaching the Ahwahnee Hotel.

The community was named for Joseph Gray, a Truckee founding "father" of sorts whose cabin still stands as an historic landmark downtown. Early lot sales were brisk.  Investors and spec home builders gobbled up the early offerings, and by 2007, some prime lots were fetching more than half a…

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Guide to Tahoe Truckee Ski Resort Homes

Guide to Tahoe Truckee Ski Resorts

So you've decided you don't want to wait in the long lines on I-80 for fresh powder this season ... how to choose the right ski resort for you? Here's a couple of questions to ask yourself:

• What vibe do you prefer?  Big Resort with restaurants, dining & shopping? Or are you more into nature, privacy & the solitude the mountains offer?
• How far do you want to drive?
• How much do you want to spend?

The links above offer a quick guide to some of the area's more popular resorts, from the Mega-resort, largely intermediate mountains like Northstar, to homes & condos in Olympic Valley (now home to Palisades Tahoe with a gondola connecting some of the region's most advanced terrain at the former Squaw…

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Tahoe City Real Estate

Real Estate in Tahoe City

It's tough to talk in global terms about the real estate market in Tahoe City because the options for a Tahoe vacation home here range from some of Lake Tahoe's finest luxury properties to more affordable waterfront condo options, and everything in between (read more ... )

Tahoe City is located on the CA side of Lake Tahoe

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Waldorf Astoria Coming to Lake Tahoe

The Waldorf Astoria is coming to Lake Tahoe

And you'll never guess where ... 

If you've ever driven past the old (crumbling) Tahoe Biltmore on your way to Incline Village and wondered why such a prime location features such a dilapidated building, you're not alone. Plans to redevelop the property have been in the works for more than a decade. 

Trex co-founder Roger Wittenberg bought the property in 2007 through Boulder Bay LLC (namesake of the luxury townhomes you can see from the road at the east end of the property), and shepherded an earlier version of the redevelopment through the Tahoe Regional Planning Committee's regulatory process.

Then, in the fall of last year, California developer Ebbie Khan Nakhjavani acquired the property with a…

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Want Proof that the Fed Rate Hikes are Slowing the Economy? Visit Tahoe.

Reading the Fed's Tea Leaves

I read an interesting op-ed piece recently. An economist on a cross country flight from NY was sitting next to a homemaker (he didn't exactly call her that, but that's what he meant), and when she realized what he does for a living, she peppered him with questions about Jerome Powell and the direction of the Federal Reserve. He didn't mind talking about it; that's what he does for a living. But he marveled at the fact that an average American was so studied in the politics of the Federal Reserve; that spoke volumes.

Beyond knowing the names of the past Fed Chairs, I can't say that I gave it much thought before now either. But 2022 changed all that.  Like a lot of Americans, I'm now hanging on Powell's every word because…

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Gobbling Up Tahoe's Gated Golf Course Homes

Despite news of inflation and a stock market that's been pummeled by the Fed's unrelenting attack on interest rates, homes in gated golf course communities around Lake Tahoe continue to show strong sales.  As of this writing (Sept 23), 79 homes have sold this year in gated communities from Truckee (home to the Martis Valley trio of Lahontan, Martis Camp & Schaffer's Mill) to the East Shore of the Nevada side of the Lake, where money is consistently flowing into Clear Creek, a gated golf course community off Highway 50 with its own lakefront clubhouse at Tahoe.

Many of these sales are cash, which suggests that luxury real estate continues to be a good investment when the stock market is on wobbly knees.

Here's the quick wrap:

Clear Creek,…

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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 Truckee Real Estate: Can it Keep Going Up?

Despite rising interest rates, high prices at the pump, and the war in Ukraine, buyer demand for Tahoe Truckee real estate remained strong in the first four months of this year.  Some markets showed impressive gains over last year, and some presented the opportunity to negotiate on price.

Overall, buyers showed a strong preference for the very old (or new meant to look old), and the very new. 

One example of this is a Carnelian Bay lakefront that sold for more than $23 million. With pine paneling and a great room framed by log scissor trusses, it looks like it was built in the 1940s, but it’s actually less than 10 years old.  A Bruce Olson masterpiece, it captures the unique charm of homes built with organic materials like granite and the big…

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