Lake Tahoe Activity Stats

An agent in our office just put together some very interesting charts showing activity stats for the Lake Tahoe and Truckee area. According to the numbers displayed on these charts, Lake Tahoe may have reached its bottom!

After a dramatic five year slide sales volume appears to be bottoming out.

In the first 3 quarters of  2004 there were 1,282 home transactions in the Tahoe Sierra MLS.  Since that time we have seen transactions slide to 649 for the same three quarters in 2009.  However, as shown in the second graph, the 3rd quarter of 2009 saw a significant increase over 2008’s 3rd quarter. I predict this trend will continue and 2009’s total transactions will exceed 2008′s.  This will be the first increase of yearly transactions in five years. 

 

Transaction volume is one of the main “health” indicators of the housing market.  As transactions increase it implies that more buyers are entering the market.  As this trend continues, prices will begin to feel upward pressure.  It may be too soon to call this the bottom of the market as distressed properties continue to influence pricing.  However, in the future we may look back to the third quarter of 2009 and call it the beginning of the Tahoe/Truckee housing recovery.

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