The South Tahoe Realty Blog

As a South Tahoe Realtor, I frequently surf the web for information. Given that you’re currently reading this article, I assume you also want to acquire real estate information via the internet. Thus, I’ve looked through my web browser’s bookmarks and have pulled websites I figured would be most helpful to you. They cover a variety of real estate related topics. In no particular order, the websites I’ve chosen are:

Zillow.com – They have great aerial maps and a good discussion forum. They also have a good bit of information on all the homes here in the United States. However, most people go here for the Zestimate feature. Type in any home address and the Zestimate algorithm will provide a guess on what the home is worth. Take the Zestimate with a big grain of salt as it can oftentimes be very inaccurate. For more of my thoughts on that, see my post Estimating the Value of Zillow’s Zestimate.

Google Maps – When searching for a property’s location, it doesn’t get any better than Google Maps. I used MapQuest for years simply out of habit. As a Realtor, however, I got tired of its shortcomings. I switched to Google Maps several months ago and haven’t looked back.

SouthTahoeHouses.com – This is my personal homepage. Here you can search MLS listings for the entire south Tahoe region in California. For Nevada listings, see my broker, Deb Howard & Co.’s, Nevada search.

Craigslist – If you want to know of EVERY property for sale in South Lake Tahoe, you shouldn’t overlook those that are for sale by owner. These sellers often post their properties on Craigslist. I don’t use it much, but you should keep an eye on it.

RealtyTrac.com – This is a website that requires a paid subscription. I don’t use it, but I’ve heard good things about their foreclosure updates. I post a thorough foreclosure list but don’t feel at liberty to publish information on upcoming foreclosures. You can contact me for this information or you can use RealtyTrac.

TRPA.org – This is the homepage for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. The TRPA affects every homebuyer and homeowner in the Lake Tahoe basin. Their website provides comprehensive information on their regulations. If you’re working with a Realtor, I wouldn’t spend too much time here as your Realtor will probably be knowledgeable in TRPA regulations. This is the source, though.

ActiveRain.com - This site is for real estate professionals like Realtors, mortgage brokers, home stagers, etc.  It’s a social networking site and is a great source of information.  You can ask questions and get good responses here.  Its sister site, Localism.com, is also a good source of information. 

If you’ve found these sites helpful, feel free to let me know by commenting. If you know of additional sites that are really good, feel free to comment as well! –drew

The following was posted as a comment to my original Tranquility estate post. I found it so interesting that I’m creating a separate posting for it. Thanks to Don for the following write up:

I was a helper for the granite company that worked there. I thought I’d add a couple of other cool things that stood out for me.

1. The master bath is made completely out of white carrera marble. Floors, walls, crown molding, window sill, and shower. There is a jetted tub that was carved from two large chunks of marble.

2. Each door hinge cover is made from solid silver.

3. I’ve seen it mentioned that the property was completed in 2000. That’s inaccurate. It was completed in 2001. We were still finishing up in the spring.

4. The brown trout grew so accustomed to Hamburger Helper and Hostess products that when Horowitz would fish the lake, he couldn’t catch anything with normal bait. We would eat on the dock and feed the trout.

5. The entire house has hydronic heating. We had to be extra careful of all the hoses when putting the marble floors down.

6. In the picture of the staircase, at the base of the stairs on the floor, there are little squares of blue marble. We were worried we wouldn’t have enough to complete the job. There was none left in the world. We used it all.

7. I hated working here. It was SO cold all the time. It was hard, hard work.

There’s been lots and lots of activity in the foreclosure market over the last two weeks! Three homes from the last list went into escrow. There are 7 additions to the list so that we now have 22 foreclosures.

Probably the most interesting of these additions is 1731 Chippewa St. It is surrounded by vacant lots – some unbuildable, the rest likely to remain vacant. The home itself is huge and has a good floorplan. At $144 per square foot, it’s a great buy.

There were 6 price reductions amongst foreclosures in the last two weeks. 602 Wintoon Dr. is priced incredibly after a $20,000 price drop. It won’t be on the next foreclosure list. The homes on Janet, San Francisco, and Colusa are getting there too. I love the home at 967 Colusa. It’s a 2003 construction with a pave-stone driveway. Knotty-pine trim is used throughout. The entire upstairs ceiling is knotty-pine. It has work to do but could once again be an amazing home.

As usual, I have more information on properties that will become foreclosures. However, I don’t feel at liberty to publish this information on the internet. If you are interested in those properties or the ones on this list, call me at (530) 545-1831.

* The listing agent chose not to publish his or her listing to internet MLS searches.

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, there’s been a theory proposed by a few South Lake Tahoe real estate agents, myself included, that home prices haven’t dropped as much as the statistics show. Perhaps there’s been more activity in the lower price bands. After all, it’s been much tougher to get a jumbo loan this last year. Additionally, the majority of foreclosure and other distressed sales have occurred in the lower price bands.

If there actually was more activity in the lower price bands, this could skew the all-important median sale price. I did a little data mining recently to see if in fact the theory was true.

What affects median sale price more than anything? Square footage. So I decided to break sales up into two categories – homes up to 2,000 square feet and homes above 2,000 square feet. If speculation was correct, we’d see an abnormally large amount of homes sold below 2,000 square feet in the last year. See the table below for the results I found. Percentages in parentheses represent the decline since the previous year.

As you can see, the results of my data mining actually show the opposite of what was speculated. If speculation was correct, there wouldn’t have been such a big drop in sales of homes up to 2,000 square feet. Moreover, the decline in median price would have been greater in higher priced homes. Instead the opposite occurred.

When it comes to South Lake Tahoe real estate, the median sale price continues to stand as one of the most accurate indicators of the state of the market.

South Lake Tahoe real estate saw a lot of activity in the higher price bands during August. This pushed the median sales price for single family residences to $443,750 for the month and $399,000 for the last 90 days. We are still seeing a market decline, however. In the last two weeks there have been 71 price reductions amongst the market’s ~500 single-family residences. Our month’s supply of inventory in all price bands also reflects a buyer’s market (greater than 7 months).

Speaking of activity in higher price bands, I mentioned in a previous post that many question if the decline in median sale price has truly represented the decline in home values. Perhaps the median has moved so much because there has been more activity in the lower price bands. I’ve almost finished looking at numbers that will provide some enlightening answers. Look for a post about this in the next week.

As for now, I’ll finish this up with some foreclosure, condo, and lot numbers. There were 4 foreclosure sales in August, 3 homes and one condo. Thus, foreclosures only made up 10.5% of home and condo sales. They are not dominating the market as they are in other parts of the country. There were 4 condo sales in South Lake Tahoe for August, and 4 condo sales.

* The listing agent chose not to publish his or her listing to internet MLS searches. Contact me by e-mail (drew@southtahoehouses.com) or phone (530-545-1831) for more details.

In the latest news, last Thursday the 86-foot yacht that had been sitting in the Tahoe Keys Marina was auctioned off. This article says that the former owner used it as a summer and weekend home. That’s interesting because I thought using boats as overnight dwellings on Lake Tahoe wasn’t allowed. This yacht, the Sierra Rose, was actually posted on our MLS for a while. It had to be taken off, however, because it isn’t real property or attached to real property. I guess the association of Realtors didn’t want our MLS becoming a place for people to sell their RVs and campers!

http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080822/DOUGLAS/808220525