We’ve been hearing about it for months. Real estate markets reeling, mortgage crisis raging and foreclosure rates skyrocketing. It’s here. A telltale sign was a recent advertisement in the Reno News and Review, offering ‘Foreclosure Bus Tours’ in the Reno/Sparks area. When I began writing this article and went to the California Association of Realtors website, a small screen popped up, offering realtors a workshop called, ‘Special Weapons and Tactics to Survive a Down Market.’
About the foreclosure bus tours: this is a nationally recent phenomenon that has yet to reach the Tahoe Truckee area. According to tour organizer Pat Eikleberry of the Eikleberry Group, real estate agents in the Reno/Sparks area, the homes on the tour are vacant and already owned by the bank. ‘The houses have usually been vacant for at least six months, so we’re not disturbing any homeowners,’ she said. The bus tours scour a specific area, showing 20 homes, giving the potential buyers five minutes to check out each house. As we talked on the phone she was previewing 492 homes for sale in the south Reno area. Eikleberry said that of those homes, approximately 115 are most likely bank-owned.
It’s a different story in the Truckee/Tahoe basin area. ‘There have certainly been more bank-owned and short sales in the area,’ said Heather Weisberger, Communications Director for Tahoe Sierra Board of Realtors, ‘but certainly not like the rest of the country.’ Weisberger said that out of the roughly 747 single-family homes actively on the market, maybe 40 were bank-owned.
Comparing the first 44 days of 2007 and 2008, approximately 27 percent fewer homes sold and 33 percent fewer condominiums. The price of condominiums increased 24 percent in the same time frame throughout the area, with some decrease in the North Shore area.
Homes are taking longer to sell, and pricing in some areas, like Glenshire and Donner Summit have increased, while prices around North Lake Tahoe and West Lake Tahoe have decreased. According to Weisberger, the West Shore has shown the greatest decline in prices. Not that it matters for most of us – in 2007 the average price was $2 million, one year later, that average price is just under $1 million.
Kane Schaller, Co-Owner of Dickson Realty sees a 15 to 20 percent decrease in prices since the 2005. ‘It’s definitely tougher now, and prices have come down, but if a home is priced competitively, it can sell quickly, and often with multiple offers,’ he said.
Schaller said the dominant trend in our market is primarily second-home ownership. However, ‘indicators are showing that could change, with increased technology in the workplace. We are seeing buyers that continue to work in the Bay Area by telecommuting part of the time, allowing them to live primarily in the Truckee/Tahoe area,’ he said. Schaller has been in the real estate business since 2001, and this is the first time he’s seen short sells and foreclosures. In a short sale of a home, a lender allows the property to be sold for less than the total amount due. In many cases, the lender forgives the remaining debt.
Carmen Carr, Realtor with Keller Williams Boice Realty is ecstatic about what’s happening in the Tahoe/Truckee area. ‘The current real estate market is full of fantastic opportunities. There is something for everybody right now,’ she said. Buyers in this market still have the ability to get a mortgage loan, but no longer are lenders allowing people to ‘bite off more than they can chew,’ she said. ‘What can you really afford, and do you have a stable income? That’s what people need to prove to the lender.’
