Truckee Ranks in the Top 10 Places to Live…Again!

Truckee was ranked among the top 10 dream towns in the West. This is how they describe Truckee: “The laid-back Sierra Nevada mountain town is just three hours from San Francisco but worlds away in real-estate prices. It’s a tight-knit, outdoorsy community with good restaurants and year-round recreational fun — some of California’s best ski resorts are minutes away, as is Lake Tahoe.” According to the article, the median home price is around $539,000. I thought that sounded low, so I checked. For 2008 sales in Truckee, the median home sold price is $485,000. For Tahoe Donner, the median home sold price in 2008 is $615,000. I guess it’s pretty accurate then. Here’s the Article.

Wall Street Journal Market Watch Article

Here is an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal about interest rates today. The article states that even though interest rates are getting lower, it is becoming more and more difficult to obtain a home loan. This article was written by Amy Hoak and was published on September 14, 2008. Click here to read article.

Tahoe Donner Weekly Market Update

It was another great week for sales in Tahoe Donner. 7 homes and 1 condo went into escrow. 3 properties were under $370K, 3 were in the $600K range, and 1 was over $1 million. There are now 33 single family homes under contract in Tahoe Donner. 16 new homes came on the market in Tahoe Donner this week for a total of 174 active single family homes. 4 homes sold this week – one for $770K, one for $850K, one for $975K, and one for $1,194,500. The average list to sales price was 97%. The average days on market was 79 days. The absorption rate for listed homes in Tahoe Donner is 19% and there is currently just over 5 months of inventory remaining. We will see some homes come on off the market in the next couple weeks and months that will be turned into ski leases. This is good news for the homes that stay on the market because there will be less competition with inventory. If buyers are looking for more properties to chose from, they may want to act soon while there is still so much on the market!

“Mortgaged America” Article

This is an interesting article I found from the American History magazine October 2008 issue. It compares the condition of our country with its mortgages today compared to during the Great Depression. This article shows that homeowners faced with loss of their property today is 1.4% and states that this number “pales in comparison” to the 10% during the Depression. This article also explains that the other potential crisis is the amount of personal equity in homes and the fact that about half of homeowners in the U.S. owe more on their mortgages than their property is currently worth.

Weekly Tahoe Donner Market Update

There was so much action with homes in Tahoe Donner this week! 12 homes and 1 condo went into escrow! There is now a total of 32 single family homes in escrow in Tahoe Donner. We have consistenly seen around 20-23 homes in escrow at any given time for this whole year, but this is quite a jump! The majority of the homes that went pending were in the $350K range to $600K range but there were 2 in the $800K-$900K range and 2 over $1 million. 2 homes closed this week – one for $312K, and the other for $598K. The average list to sales price was 86%, the and the average days on market was 68 days. 6 new homes came on the market this week and there is now a total of 166 single family homes currently listed. The absorption rate for homes in Tahoe Donner is 19% (way up from past weeks) and there is still around 5 months of inventory remaining (actually under average for a normal market). There are still some incredible values for homes in Tahoe Donner that we probably won’t see on the market for much longer. Once again, the homes that are priced well seem to be going very fast! One home in Tahoe Donner was only on for a couple days before it was scooped up immediately!

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