South Lake Tahoe, CA Market Update, July 18 - July 24
During the week of July 18th through the 24th, the South Lake Tahoe real estate market continued along a consistent path of new, pending and sold escrows. During this week there were 18 new listings. Among these new listings, the lowest asking price is $305000 for a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home with approximately 1,000 SF in the Sierra Tract to a high of $839,000 for a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath with over 2,500 SF in the popular Montgomery Estates neighborhood. The median price for these 18 new listings was $452,000.
There were 9 new escrows, slightly up from the previous week’s 8. The low was $239,000 for a one bedroom, one bath cabin with only 468 SF of living space. This escrow is pending bank approval for a short sale. The high range reached $899,999 for a 4 bedroom, 3 bath home built in 2004 and featuring over 2,817 SF of living space. This home is located in the Al Tahoe area, within walking distance to Lake Tahoe.
The number of closed sales totaled 4, slightly down from last week’s 5. The lowest selling price was $271,000 for a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home with 912 SF of living space in the Bijou area. Congrats to daughter Jaime for a great job. The highest priced home sold during the past week was $402,800 for a 4 bedroom, 2 bath home featuring nearly 1,906 SF in the HIghland Woods area.
This week’s featured property is 707 Julie. This delightful home is located in the popular Gardner Mountain area which is well known for its forested settings within a few short miles to Lake Tahoe beaches, a few short steps to National Forest trails leading to Fallen Leaf Lake and yet, within the city limits. This home has 3 super sunny bedrooms, 2 baths, granite counters, large rake windows and a double garage. Click Here To Take A Visual Tour.
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Comments
David - once you set up your gravatar it will probably take a few hours for it show I would imagine!
Edward, Zillow has been a true pioneer you have to take your hat off to them for what they’ve accomplished…no question about it. But I respectfully disagree that Zillow’s system is comparable to what real estate agents and appraisers come up with. I’d be thrilled with accuracy of +/-5%! My objection comes with multiple instances of +/-15%…which was typical of what I found in Foster City in the last month studying pending sales there and comparing them to Zillow’s estimates.
Having said that I think Zillow does a very good job bringing you into the ballpark.
It did do a fantastic job pricing a certain view house in the San Carlos hills! No wonder you like it! (I would tend to agree with that estimate too!)
I use Redfin when I want to see what houses are For Sale at any given time. The user interface and mapping functions are the best, making it very easy to browse and compare. It’s sometimes amazing/scary how similar the “Street View” is to the actual photo that comes with the listing.
Zillow, on the other hand, does provide the ability to look at the information of almost any house, for sale or not. This is useful for looking at square footage, number of rooms and sale price histories. My opinion is that Zillow numbers in the hand of an experienced user (looking at historical prices and surrounding properties) are comparable to what real estate agents and appraisers can come up with. Zillow-bashing seems to still be in vogue, but I don’t think it is reasonable to expect anyone or any system to get more accurate than within +/- 5% of what a house is worth because the worth of a house is ultimately subjective.
But what is still lacking on consumer sites for the really studious buyer is the ability to crunch historical numbers and chart out relevant details such as Price per square foot as a function of total square footage. Price per square foot by itself is pretty much meaningless when looking at a broad spectrum of houses yet is still widely used.
Jayson & I were looking for a place to buy for over a year. We used mlslistings.com, another realtor’s website (sorry it wasn’t yours), and craigslist (to see open houses). I only used Zillow.com when I had some extra time to kill and wanted to see what price range they had the homes listed at. I dont really take the site seriously, I use it more for fun. Only recently, have I noticed that realtors are starting to advertise homes for sale on the site and I think that is a waste of there time.
My favorite site was actually the realtor’s website. We put our price range, location we wanted to live in, and received emails letting us know when there was an update. We would log in, look at the pictures, and see if or when there was an open house. Simple as that. There was no work needed on our side.
On a side note, we went to an open house recently to see a condo. Long story short, the realtor talked more about Zip Reality than the condo; even going as far as handing us a huge packet on the site. We left the condo feeling sorry for the owners (who still have not sold the unit). I wonder why?
Candace - awesome job! Lots of work! Thank you for participating in my favorite!!! “Pay it Forward”, Deb and I appreciate it. We can not thank you enough for all the time and energy you put into the blogging network and in us personally. You are “Paying it Forward!!!”
Candace,
Congratulations on the Official Launch!
You’ve put a lot of time, effort and thought into this site - and it shows. I am sure this will be a great resource for people looking to buy or sell homes in and around Phoenix. Looking forward to seeing it grow and develop even further in the future. Wishing you every success.
Ade
It’s certainly amazing what technology allows, isn’t it? Sheila, thank you for the comment. I would disagree with the arguement that being contacted by multiple agents(18 now) with most of them being from a long way out of this area is a benefit for the consumer. Most of these agent’s couldn’t find Foster City without a map and certainly they would be unaware of the nuances of value here. I can’t imagine offering to work with a buyer in Livermore, for example, and the only reason I can think of for doing that would be that I desparately needed a sale. That’s not a good reason for any consumer to work with an agent.
For what it’s worth I spoke to my buddy in my office who’s been working with Homegain (he’s one of the 18) and he had good things to say about your site.
If the site is going to refer agents to the consumer who request info on homes in a few zip codes it will best serve them to work with an agent who is intimately familiar with those zip codes…and somebody who’s 30 to 50 miles away won’t be included in that group in my opinion.
Having the opportunity to watch this blog grow has been truly inspirational. You have done an extraordinary job. I know how you have painstakingly tweeked every line of code and you have truly done a fantastic job and you truly made this theme your own.
I am sure Brian, Paul, Ade and Craig are very proud of you.
The Revolution forum is a great resource for learning how to create great blogs.
Again, Congratulations and looking forward to seeing more of your work. Looks like I have a lot of studying to do.
We haven’t really looked at any real estate online except via MLS listings. Aside from you, we had an agent here who was referred and she sent us listings (Prudential) and then we just scanned MLS.
Nice website by the way! : )
Cathy
Jim,
I noticed that you tried out HomeGain’s AgentEvaluator product and wanted to give a little more background on how AgentEvaluator works.
I agree that no tool, program, or marketing solution is going to be right for every agent, and along those lines, AgentEvaluator won’t fit the needs of every agent out there.
AgentEvaluator offers agents a way to connect online with homebuyers and sellers in their local area. It is differentiated from some of the other programs out there in that (as you saw in your consumer experience), consumers who come through AgentEvaluator will receive responses from multiple agents. For the consumer, this adds a lot of value because they’re able to find an agent that is best for them. For the agents, it enables them to present their services in a professional way and get in front of prospects they otherwise wouldn’t have reached.
The reason you received responses from agents who weren’t in your immediate area is because agents are able to sign up to cover extra zip codes for free. Since a lot of agents represent clients in more than just a few zip codes, this feature helps agents to spread an even wider net from which to connect with prospects, for no extra cost. Agents have complete control over which areas they want to cover - each agent can choose the unique set of zip codes they want to receive prospects in.
Your post also noted the frustration agents have with paying extra for a service or program and seeing no results. That’s another reason AgentEvaluator works well for some agents - the upfront costs are very low ($29.95/month), and agents only pay a referral fee when they close a deal. That model works for a lot of agents because there’s no risk of wasting a lot of money on the product, and (especially in today’s market) only paying for prospects that close with you holds a lot of value.
I applaud you for looking into the different offerings out there and trying them out. It’s important for each agent to decide which is right for them. For that reason, HomeGain offers a few different solutions so that agents can customize their marketing to their needs. If you’re interested, I’d encourage you to check out BuyerLink (our pay per click product) and AgentView(a platform that agents can post their listings, profiles and blog from), to see if those are more in line with what you’re looking for.
Sheila Guastamachio
AgentEvaluator Product Manager, HomeGain
Steve - I feel so connected now! Thanks to your inspiration and help, I’m in the ‘outside’ now!! It’s liberating I must say!
Missy - Thank you my friend, great seeing you here! Wow–so nice!
Jay - You know how I appreciate you and your inspiring blog, thank you for all the motivation and help along the way!
Teri - So happy to see you here on my early pages of PAREH’s comments, thank you for your continued support! You’re avatar worked perfectly, I see your smiley face!
Jim, You and I, among all the other Realtors, pay for Realtor.com. Even when you don’t sign up for the extra features! Your listings are fed to them, to Trulia, etc, by the mls. It is owned by NAR, therefore, we are all paying. I think it was the premier site, many years ago. However, now that has changed. We procure listings, pay to belong to the mls and our local boards, then pay them to promote our listings. It is a circle of life in our profession. Go out and get more listings! The jobs of many people depend on it!
Congratulations Candace….beautiful blog. I tried to do my avatar, don’t know if it worked or not….we’ll see.
I primarily use Yahoo, mlslistings.com, and, of course, “Jim’s custom
Remax” search.
Doug