Incline Village, NV - A Memory in Time

It was many years ago that I had the opportunity to spend some time in Incline Village.  Le Bistro still remains as the most memorable meal I have ever had anywhere for any price.  Yea, it was a pricey meal, but not when you can relish the delicious memory more than a decade and a half later - in all of it's splendor of taste, ambiance, and experience.  I can say that Incline Village is certainly a place where I could see owning property - recreational property,  But wait, what is the current status of Incline Village property - not looking so good.  TheMadHedgeFundTrader always has insightful and interesting posts via ZeroHedge.  This on the real estate of Incline Village is no less.

Some properties have been on the market so long that snow drifts have collapsed balconies, the local wildlife have moved in, and prospective buyers are scared away by offensive odors. Break-ins by black bears have become a serious problem. Abandoned homes see their pipes freeze and burst, causing irreparable damage.

In Las Vegas foreclosed homes can be easily spotted from the air by their dead lawns and green swimming pools. In Incline the “tells” are the ten foot high mountains of frozen snow dumped there by snow plows. I guess all real estate markets really are local.

Think Twice Before Buying That Vacation Home

Submitted by madhedgefundtrader on 03/21/2010 21:53 -0700

• Housing Market
 
• Las Vegas
 
• Meltdown
 
• Real estate
 
• Recession
 

If you’re thinking about buying a vacation home any time soon, I’d think again. In my annual review of the residential real estate market in the High Sierra mountain hamlet of Incline Village, Nevada, and I am sad to report that antidepressant addiction among realtors there is still at epidemic proportions. Conditions here are as bleak as in any vacation destination across the country, from Cape Cod to San Diego’s Coronado Island.

This is the town on the shores of sparkling Lake Tahoe that is the home to the Godfather III, former junk bond king Mike Milliken, the mythic arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, and a high school with one of the worst drug problems in the state. Devoid by edict of the down market fast food chains that afflict most of America, Incline boasts two municipal golf courses, where at 6,300 feet, the air is so thin that your drive travels an extra 50 yards. If you want a Big Mac, you have to drive down the road to California, if the road isn’t blocked by snow.

Incline is also a Mecca for libertarian millionaires drawn by the absence of a state income tax. Unfortunately, they also possessed the financial sophistication to buy trophy waterfront homes, extract cash-out refi’s all the way up, invest the proceeds in the stock market, and lose it all in the subsequent crash.

The result has been a meltdown of Biblical proportions in the housing market. Of the 8,000 homes in the village, 400 are for sale at distressed prices and another 400 or more discouraged sellers hang over the market. Brokers report a brisk business in short sales, foreclosures, and sales on the Washoe County Court House steps at prices down 60%-70% from the 2006 peak.

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