Strong Lake Tahoe Real Estate Market Favors Sellers
Overnight, it seems, Tahoe has become a seller’s market. Low inventory around the Lake, fueled by an increasing urban desire to escape from the confines of city life, has driven home prices around Lake Tahoe to a new 12-month high.
The median sales price for a single-family home around Tahoe rose to almost $853k, more than $100k over last May, when the beaches and hotels were open and we all took dining out for granted.
Incline Village Home Values on the Rise
In Incline, the median sales price rose 6.5 percent in May over this time last year. That's almost a whopping 50 percent increase over pricing in April, when the market was still on wobbly post-Covid knees.
Real Estate at Lake Tahoe's North and Westshore Rebounding Nicely
On the North and Westshore, homes are selling within 6 percent of where they were last year. But that's a still a nice increase over April sales.
Craving Elbow Room
A similar picture played out in Truckee and Tahoe Donner. Prices there have rebounded from their April low, but the median home sale price was 5.6 percent below what it had been at this time last year.
The crazy thing is that the Truckee/Tahoe Donner market is actually seeing 2.7 percent more homes change hands this May than we did in May of last year. The same was true for North and Westshore, which saw a 2.1 percent uptick in the number of homes sold over last year.
The condo market in Truckee & Tahoe Donner has not fared as well. The number of condos sold there in May was down more than 70 percent of what it had been in 2019. This reinforces a trend I have seen play out anecdotally in my business. More and more, I am seeing buyers looking for a little elbow room ~ a home on acreage, or a home in a gated neighborhood like Glenbrook (click on the picture above) or other Tahoe communities that back to open space with easy access to trails.
In Truckee & Tahoe Donner, like elsewhere around the Lake, historically low inventory combined with high demand is fueling the current market. A balanced real estate market is one with six months of "supply." This is calculated by looking at how many homes have sold (on average) per month over the past year. If 10 homes sell per month in your market on average, and you have 20 for sale right now, you have what's called two months of "supply," or two months worth of inventory to sell.
Most analysts say somewhere between four to six months of inventory creates a 'balanced' market in which neither a seller or a buyer is perceived to have an advantage. With more than six months of inventory, buyers tend to have the upper hand; less than four month of supply, and it's deemed to be a "seller's market."
All four of our major markets in Tahoe Truckee right now have less than four months of inventory. Tahoe's North and Westshore has just 2.1 months of supply; Truckee/Tahoe Donner just 2.4 months of inventory, and Incline just 3.6:
The numbers above speak for themselves; if you are thinking of selling, this is an excellent time to put your home on the market. Please contact me for a more individualized market analysis. ~ Jackie 775.391.9443
Posted by Jackie Ginley on
Leave A Comment