Lake Tahoe Experts

Or How to Cut Through South Lake Tahoe Real Estate Double Talk through Agent Eyes.

(This is the first of a 5-part series about the harm caused to a real estate market by agents and brokers reporting innacurate or misleading real estate statistics... that more often reflect an agenda than true market conditions. see article #2 in this series here.)

(LAKE TAHOE REAL ESTATE BLOG) The article below about a recent spotting of the not-rare-enough High Sierra Real Estate Jackass suggests it’s probably a good time to review the abc’s of reporting real estate numbers again.  As you know, accurate reporting is most important for the health of our South Lake Tahoe real estate market.

Sometimes though, and it’s a drag for all of us, the numbers get “skewed”, and we think it might be helpful to explore how and why that might happen. Hopefully this little exercise will help you better spot the difference between accurate real estate statistics that are relevant to your South Lake Tahoe real estate market, and those out of the “skew” pot which are not.

Once understood, this might also help one better identify a High Sierra Real Estate Jackass, which all too often has an uncanny ability of blending into, and hiding among us. It might also help in recognizing the real estate skew that spews out of one.

If you have not read the article below, please do. It discusses an agent turning into a high mountain burro over his exception with us for reporting in the Tahoe Daily Tribune that there have been no Tahoe Keys single homes sold in 2008 to date. We were told in menacing, stentorian hee-haw that we reported this fact at exactly the wrong time!

Why would the agent say that? What would be the “right time”? Why would an agent feel threatened by real estate market reality? Obviously our report conflicted with the agent’s agenda, but what could that be?

As background, lets first understand this basic principle of real estate practice. Getting listings is the holy grail of our business. An agent who gets more listings makes more money that one who gets less.

It’s the same for brokerages too. The broker that gets the most listings does better than all others. Getting listings is the name of the game.

All good agents and brokers know this; listings are fundamental to our psyche. The basic, underlying foundation of all agent and broker advertising... is to get more listings.

Yet, real estate advertising in South Lake Tahoe is somewhat problematic. Some 65% of our homeowners don’t live here, which means there is no common newspaper, television station, program or news media that reaches them. One has only direct mail as a sure means of targeting all South Lake Tahoe homeowners. (Getting them to read it is another matter.)

If an agent uses a combination of direct mail, the newspaper and/or the local real estate magazines as their advertising mix to get more listings, the first, and easiest, thought to best do that is to provide as many reasons as possible to tell an owner why he or she should sell now, and then why the agent is the “best” to do that for them. (We think this approach is nonsense, and misleading, which we’ll do another article on subsequently.)

Most agents will conclude that the two best reasons to encourage an owner to sell... and thus get the  listing... is to show that prices are up, and the market is booming. “Sell now and you’ll make more quickly” would be that message.

Now, we don’t know for sure if the agent who got so offended with us has an agenda or not. He could have turned burro for any reason, but one possibility seems obvious to us. He perceived that our report about the lack of Tahoe Keys sales threatened his ability to get a listing, and it’s our bet that it was one in the Tahoe Keys. (See, rocket science isn’t all that hard.)

We don’t want to get off subject here, but not all home sales occur at the very top of a real estate market. Homes sell in both buyer’s and seller’s markets, when markets are expanding, contracting or correcting, and even so those in the Tahoe Keys (see “The Tahoe Keys Right Now” coming soon above).

There are many compelling reasons for people to sell a home. There are those too, and increasingly these days there are a lot more of them, who think that reasonable market yield is plenty enough. If a family has a desire, or need to sell, we believe one good reason to do that right now has to do with when the home was purchased.  If one has owned a South Lake Tahoe home since 2002, if it sold today the owner can expect an average of 86% more than he paid for it. (Since Jan.1, 2003, 251 homes have sold in the Tahoe Keys, which means almost 80% of all Tahoe Keys homeowners have owned their homes since 2002.)

Now we’re back on point. An agent’s, or a brokerage’s, advertising message to get listings in a Seller’s market is certainly less challenging than that in a Buyer’s market, granted. In our current buyer’s market, all one need do to be helpful to homeowners is work harder, work smarter, not settle for what’s easiest, know the market precisely, and tell relevant market truth to anyone who asks... no matter what. (If an agent does that, they will show, rather than tell, why they should be considered for the listing.)

(See article #2 in this series here.)