Reno Real Estate Logic

On September 6th, Senator Harry Reid (D)  US Senate Majority Leader will sign a historical operating agreement for the Truckee River. Over a hundred years of battles have occurred over the water rights for the Truckee River and the storage of this precious commodity.

The focus at the agreement is to preserve water storage for the citizens of Reno when we hit those inevitable drought years. The Truckee Meadows Water Authority, or TMWA will be given the supplemental water for it’s customers and if not needed the water will be in a protected water shed system for our beloved Trout.

Reid said that it has taken 20 years to craft and execute this agreement which involved the decision makers of Reno, Sparks, Pyramid Lake, Truckee River, Carson River, Lake Tahoe and the Paiute Indian Tribe.

The benefit to the Paiutes will be $65 million for economic development and fisheries. I get a lot of questions when I am promoting my builders and developers in the Reno area regarding how much water can sustain the local growth? I have been advised by the water masters that all planned development and approved future development has been calculated in the water tabulations. Let’s hope that they have done the math correctly.

 Good job Senator Reid, now if you can just keep the Yucca Mountain from opening you will have accomplished a lifetime of meritorious work.

10 Cities Where Jobs, Home Prices Are Growing by Forbes, check out the article, I like Albuquerque New Mexico a lot, close to Santa Fe and Taos. I love Portland, Oregon and Austin, Texas. Nice digs, nice alternatives but don’t forget Reno is rated in the top 50 cites by National Geographic in the Septembers issue!

To determine where home prices are expected to rise most in the next couple of years, Forbes.com looked at projections for housing starts from the National Association of Home Builders and job-growth projections from Moody’s Economy.com.

Forbes identified cities that are likely to be vibrant markets because jobs are increasing and the housing market wasn’t overbuilt during the boom. “The logic is pretty straightforward,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “People will spend as much on housing as their income will allow them. House prices are very closely tied to household income over the long run when you look at business cycles.”

According to Forbes, these are the 10 cities where home prices are most likely to rise: Albuquerque, N.M. Charlotte, N.C. San Antonio, Texas Portland, Ore. Austin, Texas Salt Lake City, Utah Colorado Springs, Colo. Minneapolis Atlanta Oklahoma City

  http://www.burningman.com/

For those people who are not up to speed on the Burning Man Global Event that emerges in the Black Rock Desert Preserve outside of Gerlach Nevada every year with masses of people from all over the world attending this week long adventure, here’s their mission statement.

Mission Statement

Our mission is to produce the annual event known as “Burning Man” and to guide, nurture and protect the more permanent community created by its culture. Our intention is to generate society that connects each individual to his or her creative powers, to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society. We believe that the experience of Burning Man can produce positive spiritual change in the world. To this end, it is equally important that we communicate with one another, with the citizens of Black Rock City and with the community of Burning Man wherever it may arise. Burning Man is radically inclusive, and its meaning is potentially accessible to anyone. The touchstone of value in our culture will always be immediacy: experience before theory, moral relationships before politics, survival before services, roles before jobs, embodied ritual before symbolism, work before vested interest, participant support before sponsorship. Finally, in order to accomplish these ends, Burning Man must endure as a self-supporting enterprise that is capable of sustaining the lives of those who dedicate themselves to its work. From this devotion spring those duties that we owe to one another. We will always burn the Man.

The burners will be out there until September 1st. Expected population to exceed 50,000 descendants. The commerce from this event is one of Reno’s annual paydays. I have never been to the event but many people from Reno are attending from all walks of life and the reports are beyond imagination…Take care this weekend,  have fun and be kind to our travellers, we love their annual donations in the Reno coffers.

Newly released 3rd quarter market trend sheets from Chase International.

RenoSparks2008

TahoeTruckee2008

 You can get ready for the next war by reading the explosive report called The State of the Union’s Finances A Citizens Guide to the Financial Condition of the United States Government. Here’s your link pdf.http://www.pgpf.org/resources.dyn/PGPFCitizensGuide.pdf

Presented by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation which is dedicated to “increasing public awareness of the nature and urgency of several key challenges threatening America’s future.” The Foundation is dedicated to reforming the existing entitlement programs, educating the public on trade deficits and giving America’s a chance to conserve their country assets for the future generations.

The documentary IOUSA has hit the ground sweeping the nation with dooming projections of our nations interest and debt toppling the country within 25 years if we do not take immediate fiscal action.

Warren Buffet has warned that if we do not heed the financial crisis our country is in presently, the future will be devastating…Others are claiming that the future will make the sub-prime melt down look like a training course.

The Citizen’s Guide gives you 12 important steps to initiate as a member of the Republic and helps assist you in becoming a better citizen by actualizing your rights to knowledge and accountability of our elected officials. Jump in and help out. Read the report, sign up to vote, declare war on debt.

In the upcoming September edition, National Geographic has rated the top 50 Great Adventure Towns to live in America and we got ranked. Here’s their view, “Parked next to the aspen-fringed Mount Rose Wilderness, Reno has a wealth of hospitality jobs, a refurbished downtown, and a new $1,5 million whitewater park-all reasons enough to stick around. Reno and Tahoe are making a serious bid for the 2018 Olympics, but the smaller sister city has enough chops to merit consideration in its own right.”

This is why we live here and now thousands of people who will read about our biggest little city will want to check us out. Put on your party hats folks, we are heading for a course correction in the marketability of our space.

All the best to those who have held on and to those who are coming in for a landing.

Finally, (amazing grace) the home sales in Washoe County are on the up swing and in a market that’s been like a game of jumpin jacks, we are very glad indeed. Our MLS reported that sales are up 31 percent from last year at this time, phew. It’s been a long haul for most of us and for our clients, that’s really good news even if the prices are down an average of 5% from last month and 22% from last year at this time. I’ll take the improvement. Statics are proving that we are gaining on lowering the existing inventory and this should help out the resale market considerably.

I’ve been in Montana for the last week and things are certainly different up there. In Kalispell construction is cranking and everywhere you look new roads, buildings and houses are being built. My brother Patrick and wife Julie are in the construction and real estate business up there and when I spoke about hard times in Nevada, they were pretty much unaware of how difficult things are down South. The weather is what slows down the market up there, snow, lots of it. But despite only 90 days of sunshine, property values are stable and growing.

I think the best place I visited for relocation has to be Whitefish. Patrick told me that it’s going to become the new Aspen and already property is pricey, pricey, pricey. Pretty much like Tahoe. I loved the town, surroundings and great restaurants. You are just about 30 minutes from Glacier Park, certainly the most beautiful part of Montana. We spent abundant time at Glacier scouting out fishing sites, mountain goats, big horn sheep and found them all. For those who have never visited Glacier Park, it’s a absolutely must do in your lifetime. We travelled the Road to the Sun, a historical engineering feat built in the 1930’s through the park twice. Incredible vistas and incredible majestic peaks. The road is seasonal so get there before the end of September.

If I wasn’t so invested in Reno, I think I would pack up and go North. Check it out, there’s still a lot of opportunity up there.

The Reno City Council is having a special session today to focus at how the newly passed Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 will impact the city of Reno citizens who are in dire need of assistance to prevent foreclosure on their homes. The act also  has granted $3.9 billion in funds to be distributed to local governments for aid in their communities to purchase homes and fix them up for rentals I presume or for the homeless. The council meeting will be addressing all of these facts.

Anyone can attend the meeting and for investors, it just may be a great way to widget some opportunity with the city. Check it out, 10:00 am in the Council Chambers at 1 E. Street, downtown Reno.

This morning I woke up to the Reno Gazette Journal searing article on the housing projects that are being abandoned by developers that are having to let their projects go back to the banks. Five major builders are in default and a few more heading there. What is amazing is how deeply these projects cut into our local economy and how many jobs have been lost because of these large projects are just not getting out of the ground.

Reynen & Bardis walking from the Upper Highlands in Wingfield Springs $15 million default with First Horizon Bank and $14.5 million construction default with Washovia. The Stonebrook project in Verdi, a 700 acre PUD with a $27 million dollar default. The Callamont development was hit with a $10.8 million dollar default and then a blanket default on Reynen and Bardis Communities LLC for $13.7 million.

Copper Canyon a huge residential, commercial and industrial park on 1,300 acres went to auction with no bidders on February $35 million in default. This is a raging location and project.

Shadow Ridge in Spanish Springs by Syncon Homes of Nevada in default for $14.98 million.

R & K Homes at Tucker Ranch, a 690 acre PUD is in default of $19.25 million and is now listed with Grubb and Ellis for just $7.55 million.

City View Terraces in Sparks is in default for $7 million.

So, it looks like a developer who can sustain the next couple of years can purchase some ready to build property and get ready for the next cycle which is bound to hit Reno.

According to the Center for Regional Studies and UNR, there are 103 subdivisions approved with tentative maps which can start pulling permits if you walk into the building department. Metrostudy Consultants have numbered the building sites available to 14,475 lots with final maps and 41,779 lots with tentative maps in Washoe County. The stats reveal that we have 6.7 years of standing inventory and another 19.3 years for future inventory if the projects go from final to tentative.

My thought is that there are great projects out there already to go and a developer can just about cherry pick what ever they want without having to go through the years and investment of putting something together from scratch.

 It’s always amazing to me what the spirit of entrepreneurship can create. Here in Reno on Rock Blvd. in a small warehouse, Mike Hess has created and is now distributing the worlds smallest wind turbine that can be used for small properties including homes.

What’s so incredible about this machine is that it can produce enough energy for a home and costs only $4995 per unit. Hess anticipates selling 18,000 this coming year and has moved his construction operations to Youngtown, Ohio because of the 1.8 million interest free loan from Youngstown to move them and boot up operations in Ohio.

Another great company building on the opportunity with Mariah Power is Atairnano Reno which will produce a lithium battery system that will attach to the turbines and store power for future use.

One of the features of the windmill is that it has a thirty foot height but it’s blades revolve around the pole instead of extend like a star. Very edgy and cool design, plus it’s suppose to be extremely quiet. That’s a go for me. I asked my husband Shane if he thought we could put one up here in ArrowCreek and he looked at me and said, hummm not a bad idea. We get a lot of turbulent winds up here.

Good luck Mike Hess, great story and a great idea. I’m ooking forward to seeing one of these windmills in our back yard.