South Lake Tahoe Real Estate 2012 Wrap Up

We saw a lot of home buyers in Lake Tahoe during 2012, setting the stage for another strong year in real estate.

Closed Sales of Homes in South Lake Tahoe
There were 765 closed sales on the California side during 2012. This was a 13.5 percent increase from 2011 when there were 674 sales. On the Nevada side there were 167 closed sales. In 2011 there were just 136 sales, resulting in a 22.8 percent increase in sales last year. You can see in the chart below that, even though December, 2012 saw a slight decrease, sales have been rising.

New Listings of Tahoe Homes for Sale
The new listings of homes for sale in South Lake Tahoe saw a 20 percent drop in 2012 from 1,123 to 897 homes. Because of this dropping figure and with the rising closed sales, our real estate market in South Lake Tahoe is regaining momentum.

Other facts and figures in 2012
There are many things we can look at to see how the real estate market performed in the past year. The median sales price of homes sold in South Lake Tahoe saw a 6.9 percent decrease when looking at the year in whole. In 2012 the median was $242,000 and in 2011 it was $260,000, a 6.9 percent decrease. When looking at the prices month by month there was a steady increase from June through November. The median in November was $289,000 which was the highest since March of 2011. December’s median sales price dropped to $248,550. I’m not concerned with this decline in the median price as I expect prices on the whole to increase.
Another monthly real estate figure we look at is the amount of days homes are on the market. At the height of the recession homes were on the market an average of 209 days. In December 2012, the homes that sold had been on the market an average of 113 days, a drop of 36.8 percent from the year before.
This is an indication that sellers are pricing their homes more realistic and buyers are pulling the trigger.

What this means for the Lake Tahoe real estate market
If you are interested in purchasing a home in Lake Tahoe, in my opinion there is no time like the present to your piece of paradise. With consumer confidence up, interest rates down, sales up and the median price coming back up, I predict we will continue to see increased interest in the Lake Tahoe real estate market. I also expect we are also going to see more of our higher end homes selling. You can review the lists of homes sold over the last year and my weekly blogs list all homes sold and listed during each week for both sides of South Lake Tahoe.

If you’d like any help in your search or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call me.

Paul