dhughes' Blog: Reno Real Estate

The Global Insight National City house value report for the first quarter of this year says that the $251,500 median home price in Reno is 0.2 below what they consider absolute fair market value. Back in 2004 was the last time that home prices in Reno were considered to be at fair market value. In the spring of 2006 we were at the peak at 40% overvalued, and 2007 about 25% overvalued.

Bank owned properties are currently making up about 40% of the listings on the market in the Reno area and 66% of the homes going into escrow. Because of the number of short sales and foreclosures on the market I am seeing the median price continuing to go down for the next couple of months. Reno and Las Vegas were on this list in the bottom 50 of areas with the steepest…

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A national survey that measures the involvement of students in advanced placement courses ranked 11 Washoe county high schools in the top 5 percent. What this means is the students here in the Reno Sparks area are better prepared for College. There are currently 27,000 high schools nation wide, Newsweek takes the top 1358 schools and ranks them by the number of advanced placement courses and international baccalaureate programs that are being taken by our students. Here are our schools and how they rank in the top 5% nationwide in advanced placement classes and testing:

• Wooster at 371
• McQueen at 639
• Galena at 722
• Sparks at 725
• Reno at 781
• Incline Village at 856
• North Valleys at 936
• Hug at 949
• Damonte Ranch at…

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My phone is ringing and my email is sounding off! It’s a wonderful thing. The buyers in the Reno and Sparks area are starting to come out of Real Estate hibernation mode and are ready to buy. They are getting some great deals as the market has adjusted back to affordability.

Homes sales in the Reno area grew to 300 in April. That number does not include sales in the Pleasant Valley, Lemmon Valley and Stead areas. That’s a better number than we have seen in the last couple years.

 Fannie Mae is giving us a helping hand by dropping its policy of a higher down payment and not labeling Reno as a  “declining market”.   This allows buyers to put down 3% instead of the 5% they were requiring them to do. This should make it easier for buyers to purchase homes in… Read Full Post

West Street Market is set to open for business this October. Tenants include an italian restaurant, wine bar, grocery store and a bakery. It will occupy 8500 square feet on West Street between First and Second street and beginning in July there will be 50 outdoor vendors selling their goods 3 days a week. Ralph Merenda went to Italy to attend cooking school and will be cooking in the Green Room Bar as well as Nikos Theologitis who will feature home style Greek food. The concept behind the market is to feature local products (up to 150 miles away) including produce that will change with the season and be picked that morning and sold that day in a farmers market style setting. There will be lots of California fruits and vegetables from the Sierra… Read Full Post

Galena 3 will be dedicated next Monday, it is the newest geothermal plant at the Steamboat complex on the Mt. Rose highway. This is one of Ormat Technologies 7 geothermal plants that could power the needs of all of Reno's residential needs. Nevada has a vast amount of geothermal fields and the hot springs at Steamboat was tapped decades ago by competing interest but has been acquired in the last 5 years by Ormat technologies, a publicly traded independent power producer.

Galena 3 can produce 100 megawatts of power with one megawatt being able to supply 800 homes. The steam is sitting 1000 to 2000 ft. below the surface with the water currently at 300 degrees. Right now there is a good balance of using the water and returning it to the steam fields at 200…

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Last Thursday the Fed dropped its key overnight lending rate to 2% in a move to curb recession. What that means for Reno homeowners is a 30 year fixed mortgage currently at 5.72% down from 5.86% last week. The prime lending rate fell to a corresponding 5% which applies to a lot of home equity lines of credit, credit cards and other loans. This will help the Reno Real Estate market and any buyers who are sitting on the fence.

If you want to see what you qualify for you can go to my website at www.homes-reno.com and get started.

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With over 300 earth quakes in the last 60 days, you can see why the residents of Reno and Sparks are a little on edge. The swarm of quakes has been centered on the west end of town in the Mogul - Somersett area. So far the biggest one was a 4.7 last Friday night, wreaking havoc on the shelf items in grocery stores. One of the biggest hit was Whispering Vine wine shop in Somersett.  They lost over 300 bottles of wine.

Most residents did experience some varying degree of damage from pictures falling to a lot of cracks in sheet rock. The concern with the pattern of these quakes is that they are steadily getting larger, whereas most large quakes will be followed by smaller after shocks.   Residents have been warned to be prepared for a larger one, while… Read Full Post

Can you say the largest public works project in the history of the City of Sparks? The cost of this park is $30 million dollars and is on 140 acres.  Sparks again is proving itself not to be riding on the coat tails of its big brother Reno. As the old saying goes “Reno is so close to Hell you can see Sparks”. Well my friend, Sparks is a force to be reckoned with, and this new park is another notch in little brothers belt.

It has 1.4 million square feet of synthetic turf, the largest amount in the world, and is located just past the gates of Wingfield Springs on Vista Blvd. This will help the lagging Sparks Real Estate market and will be a shot in the arm to the Sparks economy. The park features 6 softball fields, 2 baseball fields and 3 multi purpose… Read Full Post