Montreux sales get boost from local move-up buyers

Prices at Montreux, the luxurious residential community at the base of Mount Rose, didn't climb nearly as sharply as prices elsewhere in Reno in the past few years.

But those modest increases 5 to 10 percent a year, at a time that increases elsewhere in the market were 20 percent or more appear to be giving sales at Montreux a boost today.

Out of the 17 houses priced at $1 million or more that sold in southwest Reno in the first eight months of this year, all but one was in Montreux.

And Brooke Sullivan, a Dickson Realty agent who handles sales at Montreux, says move-up buyers from other Reno neighborhoods are accounting for an increased number of her sales.

Sullivan's thinking: When development of Montreux began in 1997, the difference between prices in the upscale neighborhood and the rest of the market was so great that move-up buyers didn't feel comfortable making the big step.

But as prices in the rest of the market moved up more quickly than prices at Montreux, Sullivan says move-up buyers increasingly could justify the purchase.

Since the start of this year, Montreux has focused more marketing attention on those move-up buyers.

Recent ads, for instance, show a jeans-clad young couple dancing in the Tahoe-styled rooms of their home in The Chalets, a Montreux community.

That's a far reach, Sullivan says, from the commonly held misconception among potential buyers that Montreux is a community of rich retirees from California. In fact, she says, residents include 200 children.

Even as Montreux finds marketing success in the move-up market, Sullivan says it continues to draw a steady stream of buyers fleeing California's state income tax and a smaller stream of buyers who have wearied of living in the snow of Incline Village.

Sales at the community have slowed just as they slowed elsewhere in the market, and Sullivan says potential purchasers seem to be taking longer to make up their minds.

For the first eight months of the year, the average sales price of $1.62 million in Montreux was up 8 percent from year-earlier figures. The average lot sale price of $492,758 was up 11 percent.

A development of a group headed by the Sam Jaksick family he also developed Lakeridge in Reno Montreux includes 588 parcels. It's about 70 percent sold out.