In the greater Lake Tahoe region, the Incline Village-Crystal Bay, Nevada submarket was a bright spot for Sierra Sotheby’s International Realty in 2015.
With normal winter snowfall returning to Tahoe and tourism picking up this year, demand for luxury homes may only increase once the spring selling season begins.
Incline Village currently has a lack of luxury, lakefront inventory, which is beneficial to sellers of homes valued at more than $3 million. However, the lack of inventory in the upper price range will also make things harder on sellers looking to list older homes built in the 70s and 80s.
A recent Sierra Sotheby’s market update stated there were only 13 lakefront homes listed on the MLS, which range in price from $2.7 million to $39.8 million. This inventory figure includes both direct lakefront homes and share HOA lake frontage. Additionally, there are only six lakefront condos in the MLS. These residences range from $975,000 to $4.1 million.
According to Lexi Cerretti, an agent with Sierra Sotheby’s, luxury buyers, a number of whom come from the Bay Area, are picky and will only pay a premium for homes built within the last 10 years that feature beach access and a deep water pier. She should know, as last year she sold four lakefront Incline Village homes whose combined sales price was more than $15 million.
Lakefront Incline Village home values can improve
“The problem is we still have a lot of older homes on the market,” she said, adding sellers of outdated, non-upgraded homes may offer buyers discounted prices, as the buyer will have to upgrade the bathrooms, kitchens and possibly ceilings themselves.
Other sellers are more proactive. Cerretti is currently listing a roughly 5,000-square-foot home that features a recently updated kitchen, along with improved bathrooms.
Dated, non-lakefront homes are often candidates for teardowns, with the buyer constructing a new home in its place.
Overall, Cerretti describes Incline Village sellers as patient individuals that view a home sale as part of their long-term plan. In short, very few of them are in a position where they absolutely have to sell.
She explains that Incline Village is a unique Tahoe market because it is essentially built out. Additionally it sits on the Nevada side of the lake, which means no state income tax and no corporate tax.
