Saturday, December 30, 2006
by The Schaller Family
Many people have asked about the Lake Tahoe Market and what is happening in that market specifically. The clearest signals the market is showing us are that the inventory is at the lowest point since April of ‘05 and accepted offers for December are almost 45% higher than they were December of ’05. There is still just less than 8.5 months of inventory currently and the months of inventory have crept up slightly since November which was at the lowest point since November of ’05, this is not surprising as in the Lake Tahoe Market, sales have always tended to drop of rather precipitously over the holidays, even more so than in the other markets in the area and thus always adversely affects the supply and demand of properties in the area around that time, but it would be inaccurate to call it a true fall in the market, unless it carries through January. The average Sales price in the Lake Tahoe Area for December is at just over $1,000,000 which is actually over 5.5% higher than that of Last December. So, much the same as the Truckee Market, the Lake Tahoe Market is showing strong signs of improvement. So again, can I guarantee that if you buy something today that you will double your money over the next few years, unfortunately no, but there are overwhelmingly positive signals as to the strength of the market. Speaking of which, I just read an article in the SF Chronicle last week that new home sales are showing increases for November nationally, in fact, nationally the seasonally adjusted annual rate of new home sales have increased 3 out of the last 4 months. Actually in November, those figures were up 3.4% which was over 3 times the percent gain that was expected by economists. Unsold homes are also declining nationally for the last 4 straight months. Now the caveat to this is that these are all national figures, while some regions are booming, some are still floundering, but this is not uncommon in any market. You can check out the article here:
http://www.sfchronicle.com
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
by The Schaller Family
Looks like more signs of improvement, finally we are seeing growth in opened escrows for the last couple of months over the corresponding months last year. After a little over 12 months of disappointment in terms of number of sales, finally we appear to be seeing the anticipated recovery that we have been hoping for, on average for the last 12 months, opened escrows were down about 15%, while sales volume was down even more than that, mostly because of the sections of the market which were moving, or more appropriately the sections that were not moving. However, over the last 90 days compared with that same time period last year, sales are up over 7.5%. Obviously these are just the formative stages of recovery, and will be subject to continued support not only from the buying public, but also from the money market, it appears from our own observations of increased internet traffic looking at listings and asking questions that we can expect continued support from the buying public so long as the interest rates and fuel prices do not have significant increases. On the forecast for the weather is snow 6 of the next 10 days, preceded by some mixed snow and rain. Around the holidays, the amount of snow will dictate how the first quarter of sales will go. So far, we are looking ok, as long as we can get the storms to come more from the north than from the south so as to keep them more cold than warm.
Monday, December 11, 2006
by The Schaller Family
The Current Truckee Real Estate Market is actually relatively healthy! We have gone from over 12 months of inventory down to nearly 6 (an healthy balance of Buyer's and Seller's Market). The list to sales price ratio has remained relatively strong, meaning sellers that sell are not having to take more than a 4% discount off of what they have the homes listed for on average. Even our listed inventory is falling (we are now down to an 8 month low and rapidly approaching the 12 month low). The buyers who waited for the summer are now coming back to the market and participating again. It appears that we are moving in the right direction.
