Have you ever been in someone’s home, and your feeling was that it looked just a bit shoddy?

For instance, a closer look might reveal that nobody’s checked for tiny drips under the sinks or tested seals at the water faucets.  Over time, such issues can cause water damage and mold and stains.  Most people are not real fond of mold…

If breaker switches pop off too frequently when you turn your favorite coffee maker on, it may have to do with an overload of an archaic electrical system.  You have choices; upgrade the system before the home burns down, or, get a hand-drip coffee pot, and encourage your spouse to get up earlier to make the brew (and good luck with this one).

Paint more frequently than every 30 years!  You many not be aware of the loss of color, brightness, and hints of grime because you’re used to seeing them every day; you’re growing older with them, and you feel the comfort and security of knowing them. But…It’s time to paint!  What a difference it’ll make in the amount of light the rooms receive and the heightening of everyone’s mood.  It’s almost as though you bought a new home.

And do you remember the last time the hanging rod in the closet started to look like a U?  Here’s a subtle indicator that your closet is either overloaded, or you are making boomerangs.  It’s easy to put up another support bracket or, better yet, put up a metal pole made of piping.

Your bookshelves are no different.  When the shelf above touches the shelf below, or is being supported by the tallest book in between, you again have a couple of choices; you can add more vertical supports, get thicker shelving, or start using e-readers.  They, however, are not good for holding up shelving.

Tattered screens are the items that often stand out the most.  You can see them from inside or outside the home.  While some of you may be talented in repairing screens, this is one area where I ask for the help of a professional.  While I might unintentionally destroy something when doing other repairs, I know my limits with screening already.

I hope this helps.  At least it might help you see your place as others might.

Good luck from Incline Village, Nevada on Lake Tahoe’s north shore.

Well, snow, for instance…I’ve seen many, and I mean many, homes with design problems:

Roofs that shed snow onto the front of the garage, back deck or main entry, adding time and, often money, to the snow removal process along with  the structural damage caused by sliding snow. Life can be easier than this with some forethought! Then there’s the problem of uncovered exterior stairs which ice-up or get way too much snow for easy removal. Windows and heater vents can get “snowed up”, and you really don’t want to see this happen – things break!

Electric power in the mountains can go out -whether we like it, or not.  The electric panel should be designed for a back-up generator.  They are small, relatively inexpensive and fairly quiet to run. If the power fails, you wouldn’t have to get out the candles or read your book by flashlight…

Too, mountain homes need a transition area from the outside to the inside, such as a vestibule or mud room. Snow-covered boots and coats can be placed there, and the heat loss inside the home is lessened.

Then, there’s the need for daylight. With the evergreens, the snows, etc, the home can feel cave-like if enough light is not considered.

How the home is placed on the site is also important. A south-facing driveway is often needed on a sloping lot so the sun can reach the pavement. Otherwise, you might have an unintended ski run, and your downhill neighbors will be seeing your sliding car parked in their yard – they may charge you a parking fee…

Radon gas is a factor, especially where granite is present (the Sierras are granite…) Radon is toxic, colorless and orderless. Radon mitigation is easy, and a knowledgeable designer can take care of this very easily. Still, many are not aware of it.

Lastly, for this blog anyway, we still have beautiful black bears around Tahoe. Folks leave their garbage in places that are convenient to these intelligent and strong critters. So, we need to require bear-proof, steel garbage can containers at every property.  I’ve seen well-built wood ones shattered and shredded because someone smelled garbage.

Enjoy Tahoe and all that Sierra living can bring to your life. But start with a good design. You’ll be so much happier for it.

Kurt Carlstedt

There’s another value, though, that may make a difference in how a property is perceived. It’s called “intrinsic value”and has more to do with the value a thing has to an individual.  It could be sentimental or emotional value (seemingly redundant) that brings special joy or significance to the owner.  Where am I leading you with this?

Well, sometimes in a real estate market, when properties are not priced quite right for sale, it’s because the seller thinks the value is greater than buyers in the market are willing to pay (Oh, really).  The seller adds the unmeasurable intrinsic value to the market value because the property has “been built by my grandfather” or “was where my children grew up”…You get the idea.  This kind of pricing by the seller is largely at an unconscious level, but it can cause a listing to stagnate for much longer than would have been necessary had the property been priced right in the first place.  And the loss of the use of the money from the sale earlier on may be incalculable.  An opportunity may have been lost forever.

So, when it’s time to sell a property, remember to take the emotion out of it! If it’s priced correctly, the likelihood of it selling in a reasonable period is greatly advanced.

If you have any questions on Incline Village homes or the local surrounds, it would be my pleasure to answer them.

“If you’re so Inclined”,

Kurt

In my 36 years in real estate appraisal, 19 of which have also been as a Realtor, I’ve come to prove this countless times.  Where some markets sag, others are vibrant – go figure.  Where does this missive lead?  To Incline Village, Nevada!  Having survived the economics winds of the last few years, our specific markets are showing signs of recovery.  I believe it will be a slow but reasonably steady one.  This trend is much healthier for those who invest, and much less stressful than what the public has come to expect in the recent past.  It would appear that we’ve finally hit the trough in the graphic wave curve -  this represented by stable prices for a period of time.

So where does this leave you?  Again, you get my gut feeling (not from too much holiday food), things are looking up. It’s time to take a hard look at North Tahoe if you’re wanting a vacation or second home!  Pay attention to our real estate prices and values now that they’re closely aligned; I think you’ll be happy that you did.  And you won’t be telling a friend in five years time, “If only I’d purchased back in 2012,  when prices were down, I’d have my dream home today”.  You have a real opportunity to live that dream!  Don’t be hasty,  but you need to be tuned in.

Good luck and good hunting. This address will help…http://www.mlsfinder.com/nv_ivbor/kurtcarlstedt/index.cfm

Kurt

The San Jose Mercury News recently published an article entitled Tech-rich buyers help Tahoe real estate rebound on November 25, 2011 by Pete Carey. Click on the link entire article.

Tech-rich buyers help Tahoe real estate

By PETE CAREY

San Jose Mercury News

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Lake Tahoe area real estate agents, hungry for sales in the aftermath of the housing bubble, are counting on the Bay Area’s booming tech industry to help generate the next crop of million-dollar vacation home buyers.

The market for vacation homes costing more than $1 million, though down over the year, turned in a strong third-quarter performance, according to Coldwell Banker. That was partly due to buyers from Silicon Valley, vacation home developers and real estate agents said.

“People are starting to feel a little bit better about things. Silicon Valley is kind of spearheading that revival. We’re seeing those folks make their way into the Tahoe market,” said Jim Telling of East-West Partners, the developer of Home Run at Northstar.

Some buyers from the tech industry have snapped up vacation homes recently that run from $1 million to $4 million or more.

For example, more than 20 parcels at Martis Camp – a 2,100-acre custom lot development between Truckee and Northstar – have been scooped up by employees of tech companies such as Google, Facebook, VMware and Apple, according to the development’s spokesman.

One Apple employee bought at Home Run, a small mountainside ski-in, ski-out village of townhomes, where luxury real estate sells for $1.75 million to $2.2 million.

Another Apple employee sold some stock and purchased a place at Incline Village recently, reportedly for $3 million.

And a small Scotts Valley company, VirnetX, is moving to Tahoe after its CEO bought a $6 million house on the Nevada side.

Last, but not least, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is putting the finishing touches on a lakefront compound at Incline Village. Ellison reportedly spent $58 million to assemble an 8-acre spread. The site has several buildings, a pond, a waterfall, tennis courts and a sandy beach with two piers.

“I think the world’s starting to right itself again,” Telling said. His development’s first eight homes are under construction on the mountain near the 170-room Ritz-Carlton Hotel, which opened in 2009.

The Bay Area has always supplied a big portion of Tahoe vacation home buyers.

“It’s good for a long weekend,” said Andy Bechtolsheim, who is one of Ellison’s neighbors at Incline Village. Bechtolsheim, an angel investor and co-founder and chairman of Arista Networks, said he’s been going to Tahoe for 20 years.

“It’s good for kids. It’s not as upscale as Aspen, but I would say it hasn’t lost its traditional charm. It’s gotten a little bit more crowded during the busy season, but I love the offseason there. I was there a few weeks ago in October. There was nobody there. The leaves were changing. It felt like fall going into winter.”

But until recently, the economic downturn had discouraged many buyers, while falling prices kept many sellers off the market.

Now, according to Ernst & Young, 25 Bay Area tech companies are preparing initial public offerings, providing new hope to local real estate agents.

“Silicon Valley IPOs = Cash for Tahoe Home Buyers” was the headline on an October blog post by Lexi Cerretti of Intero Real Estate Services at Incline Village.

“With social gaming leader Zynga and social giant Facebook likely to go public in 2012,” she wrote in her blog, “we will see a new breed of millionaires emerging in the Bay Area home buying market. … An influx of cash into the hands of new buyers could give sellers the opportunity they’ve been waiting for this winter into 2012.”

Cerretti said she’s visited Intero’s Silicon Valley offices in anticipation of a future Tahoe boomlet. “Many of the showings on my high-end properties are buyers who have come up from the Bay Area, specifically from Silicon Valley. I have had two great buyer referrals in the past week from our Intero office in Los Altos (Calif.),” she said in an email.

Adele Lucas of Chase International said she closed a deal this month for just over $3 million. “Right now, I am extremely busy with lakefront sales,” she said. “We’re seeing those affluent buyers coming into the high-end market because they recognize these prices are artificially low and are going to be pumping up in the next few years as the market and economy strengthen.”

Craig Zager with Coldwell Banker Select on the Nevada side of Tahoe said he has had several lakefront sales this year to Bay Area residents, including the CEO of VirnetX, the 12-person Scotts Valley, Calif., firm. VirnetX has sued Microsoft and others for infringement of patents it acquired from SAIC, a major defense contractor. Microsoft settled for $200 million last year.

“Most of the communities around the bay have not seen distressed markets like the rest of the state or country,” Zager said. Buyers “come in with a different attitude, just looking for the right property, and they write a check.”

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/25/3285336/tech-rich-buyers-help-tahoe-real.html#ixzz1f1MTMav5