As the fall season unfolds , sales are showing more promise to a solid third quarter!
Inverntory of homes for sale = 235

Price range Homes
$100-$600,000 25
$600,000-$800,000 19
$800,000-$1,000,000 25
$1,000,000-$1,200,000 20
$1,200,000-$1,400,000 19
$1,400,000-$1,800,000 28
$1,800,000-$2,000,000 15
$2,000,000-$2,500,000 16
$2,500,000-$3,000,000 16
$3,000,000-$4,000,000 22
$4,000,000-$5,000,000 9
$5,000,000-$8,000,000 10
$8,000,000+ 11

The MillCreek and Ponderosa subdivisons both have the highest number of homes for sale with 24 listings each. The median prices for each area :Millcreek=$1,622,450 Ponderosa=$1,770,000
The Median price for homes encompassing all 15 subdivisions is $1,550,000 , list price.

The average selling time for homes 209 days from list date to closing.

Closed sales = 64 homes
Lowest price=$370,0000
Median price=$1,017,500
Highest price=$7,350,000

This quarter is coming on strong with 23 Sales pending (under contract of sale).
We won’t know what the median selling price is until the contracts close. The lowest price = $419,00
Median price= $899,000
Highest =$10,750,000
Out of 23 homes 13 are priced under $1,000,000.

Sales are up from last year and this third quarter is ahead of last year ( 2009=28 sales 2008=25)

The sandwich generation is alive and well- I know because I am one.

Dropped my two girls off to College in Arizona one week and the next found assisted living for my mother with dementia and a rehab center for my 88 year old father who had a hip replacement on Thursday! All doing well.

Why bring this up- because Tahoe is targeted as a top retirement community. Retirement is not for the weak- it means finding new interests, improving on the one’s you have only toyed with such as tennis and golf. We are the generation who want to take out the kayak for a morning cruise, hike the mountains and valley’s with your dogs, take in a few holes of golf or a game of tennis. Perhaps a stroll down Lakeshore Blvd which is even and nice for walking or biking. The beaches are still open for the kids to enjoy and the outdoor pool at burnt cedar beach is open for lap swims……

What else could you ask for when it comes down to quality of life? I love my life here and all the amenities mother nature has to deliver. Autumn is my favorite time of year to hike, nights are cool day’s are warm and the leaves are just starting to change colors.

Even better news….the prices of homes are at an all time low and buyer’s are taking action.

Our office is busy again!! The inventory of properties available is over 500 so the selection of condo’s , town homes and homes is excellent.

Take advantage of the great rates and motivated seller’s.

Unwelcome tenants

 I was reading a book in my bedroom last week when I heard noise coming from the wall. My first reaction was to knock on the wall. No, not to reply in Morse code, but to see if the noise was in the wall or the ceiling. I am a very light sleeper, so if one these little guys had gas from a bad meal I would wake up!  Anyway, as soon as I knocked, the suspect in question ran up the inside of one wall and down another.

 I yelled for Chris to come and listen (this is a guy who slept through a four-partner invasion of raccoons… another story), so he took my word for it and called a pest inspector to investigate.

The inspector found quite a few non-paying tenants living in the attic, including the bat’s partner, mice and chipmunks. Within the last two years, we had added air conditioning in the attic to cool the top floor’s bedrooms.

So what to do?

The pest inspectors first came to see what type of creatures had become our unwanted tenants, where they had installed their own small entryways and how much it would take to remove them and clean up after them. The second inspector was an air conditioning/heating specialist who checked the ventilation pipes to see if there were any breaches. The third inspector reviewed the insulation and made arrangements to remove what was there, after educating us to the fact it was insufficient and not installed correctly and costing us high heating bills. He suggested replacing it with a new green product (which falls under the Obama tax credit for home improvements).

 Repairs are scheduled to be done over the next two weeks. What we experienced is not uncommon for our beautiful homes nestled in the woods. We love to live in the forest, but so do mice, chipmunks and spiders (along with coyotes, raccoons and bears)!

Spiders, bats and chipmunks – Oh My!

 I thought we had big spiders at Lake Tahoe in the woods surrounding our homes … gosh, was I wrong! Lake Tahoe spiders are nothing after visiting Arizona and meeting up first-hand with tarantulas!

 During one of the many shopping excursions that moving two daughters into college requires, my husband Chris was climbing into the driver’s seat when I caught sight of something running up his window. The problem was that the driver’s window was half way down, giving this huge creature an open invitation to come in!

Knowing my husband is not the greatest guy around hairy creatures, I calmly said, “Open your door and step out!”  As he turned to face me, the tarantula came through his window about Chris’s eye level and then headed down the inside of his door. He of course did as I asked — because I used my stern mommy voice which anyone would recognize as a bark of obedience. No questions asked!  

As he jumped out, and I did too, the spider ran into the door panel and disappeared. It took a little coaxing, and a lot of slamming the door enough times to ensure the spider was no longer in the passenger seat, before my husband would drive. As we pulled away and started down the street, sure enough, the tarantula flew right over the roof of the car!!

“A spider is just a spider” does not hold true when it comes to tarantulas! They are large and their hairy legs remind me of why I wax! I had two encounters with these guys before I left Arizona.

My second meeting was at dusk on the front doorstep. I never ignore my little intuitive hits, one of which came as I carried groceries from the car and thought to put shoes on before walking into the house barefoot. Sure enough, as I went to grab bag two there it was standing on the middle step. I had just missed it carrying in the first bag of groceries because the outside light was off.  I can’t imagine what part of the ceiling I would be hanging from if I had stepped on a tarantula with my bags of groceries.

Again, let me repeat this was in Arizona, not at Lake Tahoe. Here, we DO NOT have tarantulas or scorpions … we do have coyotes, raccoons, bears, bats (another story) mice, chipmunks and, yes, spiders which are small in comparison.

Going batty

With winter coming, many of these creatures are finding homes in our attics or under our houses. Last week, I had a bat fly into my house at 1:00 in the afternoon. I was watching television and left the screen door ajar after letting my dog outside to catch some fresh air on our deck. 

As it flew in at eye level, I thought it was a bird and was prepared to hear the frantic chirping of a sparrow who took a wrong turn. When the chirping didn’t start, I knew it was another visitor – one who strikes in me the fear of vampires and blood suckers…  OK, it was only 3 inches high but you never know! I called for my husband, Chris…why I am not sure, in hindsight.

As he entered the room, I quickly told him about the bat and to open all the doors so it could fly out. Instead, the bat took a tour of the entire main level flying through hallways and into the living room, entry way and dining room. Now, I am chasing it armed with a screen net from the hot tub in one hand, swinging at the bat, and holding a towel over my head in the other hand, as the bat was dive bombing me. This is truly what YouTube was made for!

 I finally got in one good whack and startled it enough that the bat fell to the floor. I put the screen on top of it and Chris grabbed some cardboard to slide under the net and carry him out the front door. It was interesting to see the bat up close. As I released it, of course, it started to head back toward the front door where I was heading and Chris was standing. My open front door was quickly closed on my face, as Chris reacted to keep the bat out! What a guy!!

On Forbes’ list of America’s 500 Most Expensive ZIP codes is our own little enclave on the sparkling shores of North Lake Tahoe: 89451.

While Incline and Crystal Bay have a few other ZIP codes for mailing purposes, the 89451 zip code encompasses both communities because it’s the ZIP code used for home delivery. On the list of the top 500, Incline Village, Nev. was listed at No. 328. The median home price for 89451 was listed at $849,043 by the Forbes’ web site.

Other nearby ZIPs that made Forbes’ list included 89125 in Las Vegas – the only other Nevada ZIP to be in the top 500. The median home price for 89125 was given as $2.875 million. This ZIP was listed as No. 19, not too far from the No. 1 most expensive ZIP code — 07620, Alpine, New Jersey ($4.4 million median home price).

Within the Tahoe Basin, the only other ZIPs listed were 96142, Tahoma, at No. 398 ($759,504 median home price); 96145, Tahoe City at No. 436 ($704,065 median home price) and 96146, Olympic Valley at No. 467 ($646,600 median home price).

Overall, the ZIP codes on the Forbes list saw an average price drop of 7 percent over the last year, with states such as California taking a larger hit in price drops. To see the article, click here http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/26/most-expensive-zip-codes-lifestyle-real-estate-zips.html

Forbes says, “Our list comes from real estate statistics provided by Altos Research, a national real estate data collection and research firm that tracks over 15,000 ZIP codes, amounting to about 90 percent of all real estate transactions. Home prices are based on the asking price for combined single-family and multiple-family markets. ZIPs were ranked according to the median home price.”

Altos Research based its numbers on homes on the market on Aug. 14, 2009.

The long arm of the TRPA is now reaching out to buoys – all 4,000 of them in Lake Tahoe. The bi-state environmental regulatory agency has begun a drive to register all buoys on Lake Tahoe, with the ultimate goal of taking out any buoy illegally dropped in Lake Tahoe.

Buoy owners MUST register this year – because the TRPA will start pulling buoys in 2010.

Aside from charging $175 per year for each mooring, the new rules passed in December 2008 require the buoy owner to submit a maintenance inspection every two years, and complete the BMPs on his or her property. The fees will fund the TRPA’s Watercraft Enforcement Program. The BMPs are just attached as a way for the TRPA to blackmail homeowners into getting their best management practices in place.  If you haven’t done BMPs, you are way past TRPA’s initial deadlines to put erosion control on every lot.

Many of us don’t even know if our buoys are legal or illegal, they are just a great asset for summer boating fun. But take notice, only buoys that can be verified as put in place before 1972 will be grandfathered.  Hopefully, you’ll be able to find proof that the buoy was there. Otherwise, you need a permit. The TRPA web site says that in most cases, for the TRPA to issue a mooring buoy permit, there needs to be either a valid, approved lease from the appropriate state land agency or a valid, current permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.

If you don’t have a valid lease, or a grandfathered buoy, you’ll need to start navigating the layers of bureaucracy to apply for a new permit. Begin with the TRPA’s helpful Q&A on buoys.

The TRPA will not allow more than 4,454 buoys in Lake Tahoe, and it won’t approve new mooring applications until the Blue Boating Program is in place – another  blackmail. This program requires a boating certification sticker which shows that the boat owner is aware of cleaner boating habits: aquatic invasive species prevention, proper engine tuning, noise reduction, clean bilge practices and proper sewage disposal. Engines that pollute are also targeted.

Does this have Tahoe property owners up in arms? Yes, but before you go crazy, take a deep breath – once again.

Why do we love Lake Tahoe? Isn’t the lake’s incredible clarity a huge factor?

Try to imagine Lake Tahoe green and dirty, where you go swimming and can’t see the bottom.  Try to imagine your children playing on the beach and cutting their feet on the sharp, ragged shells of the quagga mussels. Try to imagine Lake Tahoe as just like any other large lake –nothing special about it.

That’s not what we want Lake Tahoe to become – we love our lake! So, grumbling and complaining, all we can do is dive into the bureaucracy and get the buoy permitted, go ahead and install those costly BMPs, pay another fee to register our boats, and go along with our love-hate relationship with the TRPA.

We do it, not because we agree with the TRPA’s tactics, but because we want to keep Lake Tahoe as beautiful as it is today.