August Market Stats
Tue, Sep 7th 2010 at 5:07 pm
We are happy to report the downward trend of distressed sales however small it may seem. The total number of sales for the month of August was 87 with 22 of those being distressed properties, which translates to 25% (last month reported 26% distressed sales). The Timbers condominium complex in Truckee represents a large number of August’s distressed properties. This entire development was foreclosed upon during the construction phase, so to see these properties being sold is a good thing. The list to sale median is down from 98% in July to 89% in August, however the median sale price was up from $420,000 to $434,000 – translation… Sellers are coming further off of their asking price, but the median sale price has gone up. What all of this really means has us scratching our heads!
Statistics from the Tahoe MLS: the solds from August 1 – 31, 2010:
Tahoe Donner: 23 homes (2 REO) (1 SS), 2 condos
Northstar: 0 homes , 4 condos
Glenshire, Cambridge, Juniper Hill, Juniper Creek, The Meadows: 3 homes (1 REO)
Olympic Heights: 0 residential properties
Prosser Lake Area: 3 homes (1 REO)
Sierra Meadows: 0 residential properties
Martiswoods, Ponderosa Ranchos: 0 residential properties
Ponderosa Fairway: 1 home
Winter Creek: 1 home (1 SS)
The Timbers: 5 condos (5 REO)
Lahontan: 3 homes
Timlick: 0 residential properties
Old Greenwood: 1 home (1 SS)
Gray’s Crossing: 1 home
Martis Camp: 0 residential properties
Truckee Proper: 2 homes (1 SS)
Donner Crest: 0 residential properties
Donner Lake: 0 homes, 1 condo
Donner Summit: 3 homes, 1 condo
West shore Lake Tahoe: 6 homes (3 REO), 1 condo (1 SS)
Tahoe City: 4 homes, 2 condos (2 REO)
North shore Lake Tahoe: 4 homes, 1 Condos
Kings Beach & Tahoe Vista: 6 homes (2 REO), 1 condo
Alpine & Squaw Valley: 3 homes (1 REO), 4 condos (1 REO)
Shared Ownerships – entire region: 2 Old Greenwood, 2 North Shore, Lake Tahoe
Mobile Homes – entire region: 0 sales
Sierra & Plumas Counties: 3 homes (2 REO), 1 condo (1 REO)
Condos and Homes sold over $1M in Truckee and North Lake Tahoe: 12 homes, 2 condos
Highest priced home or condo sold: This special Carnelian Bay Lakefront Estate never actually hit the market but was sold behind the scene for $10,000,000. The 5,200 sq. ft. home + 1,300 sq. ft. guest house sits upon 1.4 acres with tennis court, private double deck deep water pier with hoists and bouy.
Lowest priced home or condo sold: This studio condo at the Donner Lake Village sold for $66,000. A super location on the shore of Donner Lake, perfect for the vacation get away. Don’t plan on staying too long because these condos do not allow full time residency.
The list to sell ratio on the median was 89%. In other words, the homes sold within 89% of the list price. The median list price for this period was $489,500 and the median sale price was $434,000. Using the median price tends to take the extreme highs and lows out of the picture as it is based on the sale of the house in the middle of the pack.
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The Best Price for a Home
Sat, Sep 4th 2010 at 4:48 pm
Buyers often ask, “What do you think the best price would be for this home?” The answer is:
- The lowest price that the seller is willing to accept.
- The price that a buyer can negotiate the seller down to.
- The price a buyer is willing to pay to get what they want.
When buyer clients have found a home that they are considering placing an offer on, I provide a Comparative Market Analysis for my clients which lists all of the homes in the area that sold in the past six months and have comparable attributes to the home they are interested in such as home size, lot size, number of bedroom and bathrooms, age and amenities. Using this data to discuss an offer price starting point, I tell my buyers, “We will negotiate with the sellers until we arrive at the price they are willing to accept. We will then know what the best price is for the home you want. At that point you’ll know what no one else knows - the amount the seller is willing to accept for their home.” At that point the buyer then needs to decide if the price is also acceptable to them.
The key is to remain as calm and objective as possible (sometimes no mean feat!) during the back and forth of negotiation. Because this is fraught with emotion, having an experienced Realtor who has handled many negotiations is the best possible move a buyer can make.
Written by Gretchen Merrick // Leave a Comment
That one thing you might be missing to set you above the rest
Sat, Sep 4th 2010 at 4:21 am
With over 90% of home buyers searching online for a new home your home must make a great first impression. The first impression is a lasting impression! In a buyers market sellers compete with sellers. If buyers are not impressed what they see online they will move on to the next listing. Ready, Set, Stage! works with you and your Realtor to put your home on the “must see” list for today’s home buyers. We offer a marketing plan and photos to assist with the sale of your home.
Written by Jana Robison // Leave a Comment
Little Town Blues
Wed, Sep 1st 2010 at 10:06 am
I admit it, I sometimes feel intimidated by my fellow Homescopers. They impress and wow me with a lot of sale statistics on their particular markets which are rather overwhelming. I, on the other hand, belong to a Multiple Listing Service that represents only about 700 real estate agents. At any given time, this service has approximately 1533 active residential listings in its data base. Geographically it spans the areas of North Lake Tahoe that include Placer County and some of El Dorado County, all the way to Donner Summit, Truckee, Martis Valley, Plumas and Sierra Counties.
Okay, so now I have provided the reader with some stats for the day.
People ask me “how is the market up there?” Well, that is a difficult question to answer. Our market is about 50% full time (people who live and work here) and 50% resort. Our resort market is made up of some very expensive second homes and some not so expensive homes. Here is the skinny on these markets and how they are doing — sans statistics.
The full time market is still quite slow — at least in the area of buy up customers. People still seem concerned about whether or not they will have a job next month and therefore are not thinking of expanding the size of their homes but only trying to hang onto what they have. The one area where that is different is in the lower end or the first time buyer strata. If you are looking for a home that is priced under $350K and is in one of the neighborhoods that is considered full-time, you will have a lot of competition.
The second home or resort market should be, as I said, bifurcated into 2 areas. The luxury market and the reasonable market. To simplify things, the reasonable market would be homes that are priced under $800K. These homes are moving and they are moving well — as long as they are priced right and perceived as a value. In particular the Tahoe Donner subdivision, with all of its amenities, is the most popular area and the one area that, throughout all of this market downturn, has consistently sold properties.
So there is the long and short of it, for those of us who just want an overall view. More real hard statistics later in the month.
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Oakland Habitat Build
Tue, Aug 31st 2010 at 12:35 pm
I participated at a Habitat for Humanity Build at Edes Avenue in Oakaland last week with about twenty-five volunteers, many from Coldwell Banker. There are more than 1,500 Habitat chapters in the US, the Edes Avenue site is managed by Habitat East Bay whose mission is to provide environmentally sustainable homes for families with limitied income.
The Coldwell Banker volunteers worked alongside independent volunteers. Among them an empty-nester couple from Livermore who told me they volunteer weekly, a digital art designer who told me she’s always wanted to volunteer for Habitat so she was granted a day off work at Lucas Films to help finish the homes.
Led by six Habitat leaders, we were asked to choose which task we’d like to work on. Most of the fifty four homes at Edes have been completed so our choices were finish details like closet shelving, baseboards, hand rails and spackling and painting.
In addition to learning how to use a chop saw I learned a few other great things about Habitat for Humanity.
—Qualifying families contribute 500 hours of “sweat equity”
—Habitat is giving more attention to acquiring and rehabilitating vacant, foreclosed homes. Wall Street Journal July 2, 2010
—Habitat worked with the Center for Creative Land Recycling transforming an abandoned auto salvage yard into a Leed Certified neighborhood of environmentally sustainable homes.
Sign up to Volunteer!
Written by Julie Bartlett // Leave a Comment