Latest Real Estate Market News

If you are considering selling your home, there are likely some updates that you can make to help entice buyers. Many factors determine the value of your home - from location and curb appeal to the finishes inside your home. Potential updates can include your home’s plumbing, roof, siding, and cosmetic updates such as paint color and appliances. There are two categories of updates to consider - essential and cosmetic. Essentials are items to ensure your home is safe and will last. Cosmetics are the things that make your house feel like a home. 

Finding a place to live can be a daunting task. So many things go through your head when you make this decision. The first is probably “Should I buy a house or keep renting?”

Today, I want to share a personal story about my career path and offer to pay it forward if you are looking to make a bold change in 2023. Back in the Summer of 2016, I watched a YouTube episode of the Family Feud with my son, which was being hosted by Steve Harvey. At the end of the episode, Steve walked over to the audience and delivered one of the most inspiring and motivational dialogues I had ever heard called “To be successful you have to jump." Below is the YouTube video of his dialogue after the show and I highly recommend you watch it.

Your home is likely to be your single largest asset, and deciding to buy is a big decision - perhaps the biggest financial one of your life. With our years of experience in the local Reno-Sparks Real Estate Market, we have many tips and insights to share with our clients. If you are getting ready to start house hunting for your next home, here are some tips that we have found to be beneficial for our buyers:

With mortgage rates doubling in the last 12 months, buyers are scrambling to find lower-rate options to buy a home. One option is an adjustable-rate mortgage, also known as ARMs. An adjustable-rate mortgage is a home loan with an interest rate that can fluctuate periodically based on the performance of a specific benchmark. ARMs generally have caps that limit how much the interest rate and/or payments can rise per year or over the lifetime of the loan.

The Santa Claus rally of 2022 failed to materialize in our real estate market in December 2022. Our local market faced several stiff headwinds in December including a doubling of the mortgage rates since December 2021, stronger-than-expected winter storms, and of course the holiday season. The month-over-month median home price dropped 5% to approximately $520,000. More importantly, it was the first time in several years that our market actually lost value year over year. THAT IS CORRECT, the median home price is down 4.7% over the last 12 months. Check out our full market podcast below for full details. 👇

When searching for your next home, there are many decisions to make. From location, size,  and price to type of home. For many, a condominium or townhouse is a great fit. But did you know that a condo and townhouse are considered different home types? From the amenities and the structure to the way title companies view these two property types, there are some very distinct differences. In this blog we will look at the definitions of Condominium and Townhouse.

Your REALTOR® should be many things - helpful, knowledgeable, experienced, confident, and ready and willing to help guide you on your new-home-buying-journey. You and your  REALTOR® will be spending a lot of time together searching for your dream home so you will want to be sure she or he is the right person. . 

Even with the recent changes in the real estate market, there are many important and financially beneficial reasons to own your own home. Sometimes those reasons are unknown or often overlooked by potential buyers. In this blog I have put together a list of seven reasons to own your own home.

Living in the high desert makes us vulnerable to several types of flooding including 100-year and 500-year floods, flash flooding, and closed-basin flooding. Washoe County has several areas that are particularly susceptible to flooding including the floodway and floodplain of the Truckee River and its tributaries, including Steamboat Creek and Dry Creek in eastern Reno and southern Sparks.

Therefore, it is critical that you know where the flood zones are to protect your property and your family from these events. I have put together a short video to help walk you through the easy steps to check if a home you are interested in purchasing in Washoe County is in a Flood Zone.