The Reno Gazette Journal recently ran a piece on the jump in high-end Tahoe real estate sales. They interviewed Alex about action in the Tahoe Sierra MLS and Incline Village (Tahoe Sierra MLS runs from Rubicon to King’s Beach).
“Lake Tahoe home sales surge in 2012 –
$25.5 million sale of Osprey Estate tops list
Lake Tahoe capped off a busy year in the real estate market with its largest sale since 2008.
The Osprey Estate in Incline Village was sold for $25.5 million to Nevada Pacific Development Corp. in early December, according to public records…One of the principals in Nevada Pacific Development is David Duffield, cofounder of Workday and PeopleSoft. He is listed as one of the world’s richest people by Forbes magazine, and Duffield’s trust also owns several other properties in Incline Village. The previous owner was the late inventor Jerome Lemelson, who held hundreds of patents. Lemelson died in 2007, and the home was held in a trust under his wife’s name. Lemelson and his wife, Dorothy, designed the 7,100-square-foot contemporary home, which was featured in Architectural Digest and the Wall Street Journal…
The estate was part of a surge in purchases of lakefront property. More than three dozen transactions occurred on prime land surrounding the CA-side of Lake Tahoe in 2012, according to Alex West, a luxury real estate agent with Tahoe Real Estate Group.
“The Tahoe lakefronts, in many cases, we look at as a lead indicator for the market,” he said. “The rest of the market is probably going to be picking up as well.”
Overall, Lake Tahoe homes sales increased 34 percent in 2012, according to a report…
…Currently, there are 19 single-family lakefront homes on the Multiple Listing Services. During the busiest season, summer, more than 50 are on the market. The region usually experiences a spike in sales during summer but this year agents experienced three such occurrences, West said.
Real estate experts were expecting that markets would start to turn around in 2012, but they were surprised by the extent of the improvement… More than $862 million of property changed hands in the area, up nearly 40 percent compared with 2011.
Tahoe’s luxury market saw increased activity with the return of the high-end buyers, with a 59 percent jump in sales of homes worth more than $1 million. The South Shore saw a 100 percent increase with 20 sales in the luxury market. Incline Village had 56 sales, and Tahoe City, 53.
The end of the year especially was productive for agents. Four of the seven sales of more than $10 million occurred in December. The previous year had zero sales…