If you have been watching the United States real estate news, you know that prices for renting and buying South Lake Tahoe real estate are on the rise and have been since 2012. The lack of starter homes for sale in South Lake Tahoe has created a housing affordability issue which the entire country has been dealing with. This has created a sense of urgency amongst first time buyers to finally make the plunge into homeownership. While rental prices have started stabilizing, buyers are still motivated to own, because you are paying a mortgage either way. May as well be your own. The other good news to this is that while some renters are facing a variety of financial challenges, the stabilization in rent prices is making it easy to save for buying South Lake Tahoe real estate. Here are some points from a recent study Keeping Current Matters posted to back this up:
“-The Zillow Rent Index, linked above, only rose 2.6% over the last year.
-RENTCafé’s research team also analyzes rent data across the 260 largest cities in the United States. The data on average rents comes directly from competitively rented, large-scale, multi-family properties (50+ units in size). Their 2019 Year-End Rent Report shows only a 3% increase in rents from last year, the slowest annual rise over the past 17 months.
-The CoreLogic Single Family Rent Index reports on single-family only rental listing data in the Multiple Listing Service. Their latest index shows how overall year-over-year rent price increases have slowed since February 2016, when they peaked at 4.2%. They have stabilized around 3% since early 2019.
–The Apartment List National Rent Report uses median rent statistics for recent movers taken from the Census Bureau American Community Survey. The 2020 report reveals that the year-over-year growth rate of 1.6% matches the rate at this time last year; it is just ahead of the 1.5% rate from January 2016. They also explain how “the past five years also saw stretches of notably faster rent growth. Year-over-year rent growth stood at 2.6% in January 2018, and in January 2016 it was 3.3%, more than double the current rate.”
According to Zillow’s rent index, the average U.S. rent is $1,600 a month. This is higher than the South Lake Tahoe average which is around $1,250. With the median sold price for homes for sale in South Lake Tahoe being about a $100,000 less than the median sold price for the state of California, this means that you can not only save up to buy thanks to rent stabilization, but you can buy a home more affordably in Lake Tahoe compared to other parts of California. For more information on purchasing homes for sale in South Lake Tahoe, feel free to give me a call. As an owner of both a long term property management company, vacation rental company and real estate brokerage, I have the experience to provide numbers and details on renting vs. owning and what that looks like for our area.
