You must have been living at the bottom of Lake Tahoe for the past three years to not know the Lake Tahoe real estate market has claimed its victims.
The Lake Tahoe market, while receiving a more delicate spanking than other areas of California, has suffered its share of hardship. The median sales price of condos and single family homes in the North Tahoe and Truckee areas fell a bit over 30% from the high in 2006.
For the first quarter of 2010, bellows of activity stoked the fire in the local market. Sales volume of condos and single family homes shot up over 40% from the same quarter last year. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the median price fell 16% during the same period from $527,000 to $428,750. This suggests buyers clearly sense value and are jumping into the market, but are electing to jump with only one foot – and the foot has a cast on it. Buyers gobbled up bank-owned properties and other distress sales. As those tend to represent the lower-end of the market, this partly explains the high volume, yet low median price. The high-end single family home market (>$2MM) slowed considerably in the past two years.
In the first quarter, the market only produced three public sales north of $2MM. During the same quarter, there were four $2MM+ sales in 2009, 11 in 2008, seven in 2007, and eight in 2006. Many sellers of higher-end properties responded by dramatically reducing their asking prices to demonstrate opportunity to the value-sensitive buyer and to react to the weak sales volume. Spawned be lower asking prices, interested buyers of higher-end properties are intensifying their searches. The challenge remains the disconnect between buyers and sellers perception of the market.
A friend told me yesterday, “Sellers think it is 2006, and Buyers think it is 1929.” Perfectly put. There are great values in all price points in the Lake Tahoe market. If you are interested in looking at property during your stay with us, we have a skilled, experienced team of agents who have expertise in all segments of the market.
-Bill Dietz, Principal Broker.