South Lake Tahoe Real Estate: Sales Pace and Prices Rise in July

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their monthly report, and the national news is much as it is in Lake Tahoe: "Sales of existing homes rose in July even with constraints of affordable inventory." Their report stated that monthly sales rose in every region but the West, where inventory is very tight.

Low Inventory of Homes in Lake Tahoe
Inventory of homes for sale in South Lake Tahoe is indeed very tight but sales have still been very strong. Home sales rose 12 percent in the last year though July did see a decrease from 84 sales in June to just 68 in July. The number of homes for sale fell 43 percent for the year ending in July: 689 homes down to 389.

Lawrence Yun, the chief economist of the NAR, said housing affordability conditions are very good. “Mortgage interest rates have been at record lows this year while rents have been rising at faster rates. Combined, these factors are helping to unleash a pent-up demand,” he said. “However, the market is constrained by unnecessarily tight lending standards and shrinking inventory supplies, so housing could easily be much stronger without these abnormal frictions.” NAR is asking the government to expeditiously release the foreclosed properties it owns in inventory-constrained markets.

Currently there are just 7 foreclosures for sale in South Lake Tahoe, a 77 percent reduction from July 2011! If the foreclosed properties that have just been sitting on the sidelines do go up for sale, local markets will see an increase of foreclosed home for sale and sold. By how much is anyone's guess because there are no figures on foreclosed properties not for sale in any market in the U.S.

Prices Rise
South Lake Tahoe is unique, as mentioned before, in that all real estate figures are broken into 4 price ranges. The highest range has been fairly stagnant (6 sales this year and last year, 7 the year before). Once we see more homes sold that are priced $650,000 and above, I believe all Tahoe homes for sale will see an increase in median price. Yun said, “the higher median price naturally means more housing contribution to economic growth.”

Even though the inventory is very low there are great opportunities that come up every week and buyers are jumping on these deals the day they get listed. You can be one of the lucky ones if you contact Dan Spano today and get on the hot list.

Read the whole NAR story here.