Insider market info on the Tahoe/Truckee Real Estate Market

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,…

2501 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Looking for a Deal in Tahoe?

Meeks Bay Home

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),…

929 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

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…

1428 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Median Home Sales Price up 40 percent in Tahoe Truckee

Despite the smoke that kept many would-be buyers at bay through much of August, 2021 was a record-breaking year for Tahoe/Truckee real estate sales.  The median sales price in many of our major markets rose to levels never seen before.

In all of Tahoe/Truckee, which includes Donner Summit, the ski areas and all the neighborhoods around the Lake on the California side, the median sales price rose almost 40 percent over what it had been the year before to $1,175,000

How about a home in Incline Village or Truckee's Martis Valley?

Offered at $4,450,000, this Mountain Modern 4 bd/4.5 ba is currently the best priced "Contemporary" home for sale in Lahontan: Click on the Virtual Tour link to see…

1328 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

A Seller's Market

In a real estate market that's rumored to be otherwise cooling, Tahoe Donner is bucking the trend.

The median sales price of a home in this community above Truckee rose for the first time ever to more than $1 million this year. And it's been inching up steadily.

By Sept 30 this year, 236 homes changed hands in Tahoe Donner, and well over half of them (58 percent) sold for more than $1 million.  That's a whopping 43 percent increase over last year's Q3 median price of $769,000.  And even more impressive when you consider that just two years ago the majority of homes (84 percent) fetched less than $1 million.

Luxury Homes Now the Majority of Tahoe Donner Sales

The scales have literally tipped, and thanks to the…

48948 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

 

As we move into Fall, I keep hearing one question from my clients: Is the real estate market cooling down yet?

On the heels of last year’s pandemic shutdowns, the value of Tahoe/Truckee real estate skyrocketed. The volume of sales tripled in some markets, and the median sales price rose for the first time ever to more than $1 million in most of our markets.

What goes up must come down. That’s what my clients keep telling me.

But that’s not what the data shows … at least not so far.

We are not seeing the sort of panic buying we did amid the Covid shutdowns last year. Anecdotally, there are definitely fewer buyers in town than we saw earlier this summer. Schools are back to live learning in many of our Bay Area feeder markets, parents are…

2043 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post


Pier on Lake Tahoe

How Much Is a Private Pier Worth on Lake Tahoe?

Written by Jackie Ginley, Tahoe Truckee Real Estate Expert (Updated July 28, 2026)

A pier can add significantly to the value of a Tahoe Lakefront home, and that’s a number that’s likely to rise in the coming decade, as the odds of getting one become more and more slim. 

After decades of legal and regulatory wrangling, a new rule took effect in 2019 limiting the number of piers that can be built at the Lake. This summer, in 2025 for example, only 1 lucky lakefront owner will win the right to construct their own private pier. (Read More ...)

Scarcity Drives Value

Judging from past demand, we will likely see dozens of lakefront owners walk away disappointed this summer. (In 2019, 83…

4681 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Lake Tahoe Real Estate: A Millionaire's Playground?


Lake Tahoe real estate is suddenly becoming a commodity available mostly to those who can afford to spend more than $1 million. Luxury sales tripled at the Lake in the first six months of this year, and the median sales price climbed to an unprecedented $1M, a 44 percent jump from the year before.

But most surprising is that for the first time ever, many areas of Lake Tahoe and Truckee saw more homes selling for over $1 million, than under. Last year at this time, for example, luxury sales represented just one-third of the overall sales at the Lake. And this year so far, homes priced over $1 million outpaced more affordable properties.

Lake Tahoe Real Estate

From January to June this year, 383 homes closed at…

1354 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Lahontan's Clubhouse Undergoing Renovation

Lahontan ClubhouseThe Lahontan Clubhouse was closed for part of 2025 to implement a renovation that will introduce a new "casual" dining area to what had long been more of a formal setting

Lahontan, the Granddaddy of Truckee's gated communities, found itself so popular during the Covid years that managers briefly experimented with freezing its social memberships. But ultimately scrapped that restrictive policy in favor of raising the initiation rate and annual dues.

By 2021, amid Covid shutdowns, a social club membership at just $8,450/year with a $10k initiation fee was looking like such a bargain that many Lahontan owners decided to jump on board. 

The social membership includes use of the pools, a beautiful fitness…

6271 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post