Tahoe Donner Homes – Single Family Home Closings – March 2011
The following Figure shows Tahoe Donner Single Family Home activity from Jan 2008 through March 2011.
The data is obtained from the Tahoe MLS published data. Note, this data is for single family homes only – contact me for data on Tahoe Donner Condos or data for other Truckee areas.
Tahoe Donner is a great area to study for market activity since it is has over 5000 homes and therefore presents a large database for meaningful statistical analysis. Home prices vary from roughly $300K to over $1.5M and ages range from over 30 years old to brand new.
When trying to interpret change in prices over the last few years several factors should be considered instead of just dividing the monthly total homes sales gross $ total by the number of units sold and saying prices are down by x % – doing so is not giving buyers and sellers a true picture of the market. A couple of major considerations are that higher priced new home construction is obviously way down in the Truckee area (except for Martis Camp) and until 2010, lenders had been making it very difficult to obtain Jumbo loans required for higher priced homes – requiring cash only purchases in the past year or so which could have adversely affected the number of larger homes sold. Another very significant factor is the increasing amount of distressed home sales (Short Sales and REO’s). REO’s especially tend to be sold in generally poor condition which significantly lowers the market value.
Tahoe Donner Single Family Home Closings
Tahoe Donner Homes – Closings
Single Family home closings in March ’11 were 20 homes (another source says 21), up from 13 last month. Note that sales in Tahoe Donner are extremely seasonal and year to year comparisons are significant to get a valid picture of typical sales activity. Looking at the above graph March sales this year are up significantly from the last two years – great news!
Tahoe Donner Homes – Inventory
The number of Single Family listings was 80 listings at the end of Mar. When you consider we have approximately 5000 single family homes in Tahoe Donner inventory continues to be low – 1.6% of the homes in TD. This low inventory is obviously a positive sign for the continued good health of the Tahoe Donner Market and could lead to higher home pricing.
Tahoe Donner Homes – Days on Market (DOM)
Average Days on market (DOM) were 108 days, up from 105 last month and down from175 days the month before. Looking at the above graph, 108 days is close to the average which is 80-100 days or so. As mentioned last month, I think the slightly higher DOM is due to low inventory resulting in sales of homes that have been on the market for an extended period.
Tahoe Donner – New Home Sales & Lot Sales
Regarding new home sales, there were 3 new home sales last month. We have seen a slowdown in buildable lot sales but expect this to pick up as we approach spring. The low inventory of saleable homes is obviously a good sign for builders and may spark lot sales in the spring and summer of this year.
Tahoe Donner Single Family Home Median and Average Home Price
Tahoe Donner Homes – Average and Median Prices
Average and median prices increased a bit this month to $551 and $517K.
Since we are getting some recent new home activity and financing has loosened up a bit and with the low inventory, one can expect that non-distressed home prices should not see much additional downward pressure in 2011. This is another good sign of a strong market because prices tend to be holding in even without a significant number of more expensive new homes coming on the market. For sellers, the low inventory is great and for buyers don’t be too hopeful that prices will drop if you wait. With this low inventory it’s a good bet that prices will stabilize and possibly increase like they did last month.
Sold to Ask Price
The sold to last listing price for Jan was 95%. February sold to last listed price was 96%. March was also 96%.
So, when you are buying or selling keep this average number in mind.
Price per Sq Ft
The average price per square foot for January was $259. February average price per sq ft was $243. March came in at $251 $/sq ft.
March was interesting in that 3 brand new homes sold for $278, $270 and $327 per sq ft and 3 REO’s sold for $111, $167 and $242 per sq ft. There was also 1 Court Approved sale for $343 per sq ft.
The net-net is that the average price per sq ft didn’t change that much from Jan. to March.
I hope this data, presented in this form was useful to you. MLS data is available and I encourage the buyer or seller to study the data and arrive at their own conclusions before making a buy or sell decision. Contact me if you would like to see the “raw” data.
