Tahoe Snow Country Home Buying Guide

The Tahoe Winter Home Buying Guide When buying a Tahoe home that you will use in the winter, it's important to buy one that will preform well in a winter like we just had in 2016-17. Many of our older homes here were built as summer cabins. They may not have insulation, the plumbing may be susceptible to freezing and breaking, there may be many things would would need to change to use it in the winter. Sometimes the property is so special that it’s worth all of the work to upgrade the property. Here's some of the things you should be looking for. A Roof that does not shed in front of the garage or entry door. It’s nice to have a covered porch over the entry door. Sometimes the snow coming off the roof can connect with the snow on the ground, thus covering the windows and making a house dark. Metal roofs are always shedding and can be very noisy. When they unload they can also be a hazard for pets, kids or anyone under the eve of the home. Cut up roof lines can create ice dams. The more complicated the roof is, the more potential problems you can have. North facing driveways can take much longer to melt out, sometimes up to a month or longer than a south facing driveway to melt. Narrow streets have no room for snow storage. If someone else’s car gets stuck in the street you cant get around it and you could be stuck to. Lower elevation homes are easier to live in and the houses will likely have less problems. Make sure there’s room for snow storage on the property for snow removal out of your driveway, decks and hot tub areas. If you have a roof that doesn’t shed like a composition roof then you don’t need to deal with the snow that slides off the roof, but in big years you may need to shovel it. We get winters like that about every 6 or 7 years. This winter there were several homes that had roofs, decks any garages collapse due to the heavy snow. Homes in the higher elevation areas get much more snow and are more prone to this. Looking for a house right now is good as there’s still some snow and you can see how it falls and where it stays on a home. If you are considering buying a home in the Truckee/Tahoe area or would just like to chat about homes, I’d be happy to talk with you or meet you and go and look at some properties. My Name is Chris Hinkel and I’m with Sotheby’s International Realty. You can reach me at 530-412-2644.