Lake Tahoe Vacation Rental

[Shane Vince]

Looking for advice in the lake Tahoe area.

We are thinking about buying either a condo in a full service community on the water or a single family home, with the intent to rent it out as often as possible and use it when its not.  Any advice on areas?

Were thinking incline village, it is expensive but the area is the best. 

How is demand for rentals in winter and summer?

Thanks in advance

[Jon Crosby]

Hey @Shane Vince, I have/had 2 properties in Lake Tahoe, one in South Lake Tahoe and one in Tahoe City (North/West Shore). Just sold my South Lake property to diversity a bit though.  I actually just stayed last weekend in Incline at a friend's property in one of those full service communities.  

What makes you say incline is the 'best' just out of curiosity...best at what exactly?  Incline is definitely one of the more affluent areas making normal purchase prices only available to condos for the most part.  There are a few golf courses and a really nice Hyatt on the lake and some really old casinos at the state line down the road.  But not much other than that in my opinion.  Other areas in Tahoe have better downtown shops and restaurant areas for walking and touristy stuff. 

South Lake Tahoe is in an STR regulation crisis at the moment but it was by far my biggest money maker, booked over 200 days a year a few years even. My Tahoe City property is new but so far it's fully booking out most of the summer weekends and since it's only 10 mins from Squaw Valley I'm confident it will do well this winter.

My numbers show an average occupancy rate for Incline at around ~50% overall so hopefully that helps give you some idea on demand.  But that really depends on the marketing the full service provider is giving you.  My biggest issue is those full service providers certainly make it easy to own and maintain but not all of them do a great job marketing the properties, so just be aware of that. 

Hope that helps a bit and feel free to message me directly if you have any other questions you think I could answer for you. 

Cheers!

PS - You might want to post in the STR forums also as there is a lot more people in there with expert knowledge on vacation rentals in general.