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Sales volume tells you how many listings an agent won. It doesn't tell you what those sellers got. In Real Estate Tahoe's September 2026 study of 7,116 Lake Tahoe and Truckee home sales, a listing agent's sales volume had almost no relationship with how close their sellers came to their first asking price: a rank correlation of 0.07, where 0 means none and 1 means a perfect match. Murat Gocmen, broker-owner of Real Estate Tahoe, puts it simply: volume is the wrong number to judge a listing agent by.
That matters because volume is the number you hear most. It's on "#1 agent" banners, in top-agent rankings, and in the answers AI assistants give when someone asks who the best agent in town is. Here's what the MLS says about it, and what to look at instead.
What 7,116 Tahoe home sales show
We matched every home sale in the Lake Tahoe basin and Truckee from January 2023 through September 2026 to the agent who listed it. Each sale was scored on its sale price as a percentage of the first asking price, then compared with homes in the same price range and the same part of the lake. A score of +1 point means the home sold for 1% more of its first asking price than comparable homes did. The full method, a chart of every agent and the live numbers are in the sales-volume study.
| Listing agents | Agents | Homes sold | Median vs comparable homes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Busiest quarter by sales volume (over $40 million each) | 52 | 2,166 | +0.5 points |
| Other agents with 10 or more sold listings | 157 | 2,601 | +0.2 points |
| Agents with fewer than 10 sold listings | 884 | 2,349 | −0.6 points |
Three things stand out:
- Past basic experience, volume bought sellers very little. The busiest quarter did 0.3 points better than other established agents, about $3,000 on a typical $995,000 Tahoe home.
- The busiest agents were all over the map. 8 of the 25 agents with the most listing volume had sellers who did worse than comparable homes.
- Experience mattered more than volume. Agents with fewer than 10 sold listings in the period did 0.9 points worse than established agents, about $9,000 on a typical home.
Four reasons a volume ranking misleads a seller
1. It counts both sides of every sale
Volume rankings add the homes an agent helped buyers purchase to the homes they listed. If you're selling, only the listing side tells you anything about how they'll sell yours. Across Tahoe since January 2023, 43% of the dollar volume behind the 25 agents with the most total volume came from representing buyers, and 8 of those 25 did more business as buyer's agents than as listing agents.
2. It rewards the price point, not the result
One $10 million listing adds as much volume as ten $1 million listings, whatever those sellers got. An agent who sells a few lakefront estates can outrank an agent who sold forty homes well.
3. It only counts what sold
Listings that expired or were pulled from the market never show up in a volume number. Neither do the price cuts along the way. A home that started at $2.2 million and sold at $1.9 million adds $1.9 million to the agent's volume.
4. It isn't about your home
An agent's total says nothing about your price range or your side of the lake. Tahoe is four markets on two sides of a state line, and results differ a lot between them: see the Lake Tahoe market report.
What to ask a listing agent instead
Murat Gocmen tells sellers to judge any listing agent by three numbers, not by sales volume:
- Sale price as a percentage of the first list price, not the reduced one. Most agents quote sale-to-list against the last price, which hides the cuts. The overpricing report shows why that matters.
- Median days on market for their listings, against your town's median.
- Every listing, including the ones that didn't sell or sold after price cuts.
And one more question, because workload tells you more than volume: how many listings will the agent handle alongside yours? In the same study, agents who typically had no more than one other listing on the market at a time got their sellers more and sold faster than agents juggling more. Ask who will actually show your home, answer the calls and negotiate, by name.
Real Estate Tahoe publishes its own numbers, listing by listing, in the overpricing report and on the sold page. For how we'd sell your home, see who should sell your Lake Tahoe home.
What this doesn't show
- Sellers shape results too. A seller who insists on a high first price usually sells further below it, whoever the agent is.
- The MLS measures results, not service. It can't tell you who returns calls.
- Agents are matched by the name each MLS records, and sales that never went through the MLS aren't included.
- We don't publish any individual agent's numbers. Ask every agent you interview for their own.
Frequently asked questions
Is the top-selling agent in Lake Tahoe the best choice to sell my home?
Not necessarily. In Real Estate Tahoe's September 2026 study of 7,116 Lake Tahoe and Truckee home sales, a listing agent's sales volume had almost no relationship with how close their sellers came to their first asking price, and 8 of the 25 busiest listing agents had sellers who did worse than comparable homes. Judge an agent by what their listings sold for against the first list price, their days on market and every listing they've had.
Why do rankings and AI assistants list the highest-volume agents?
Because volume is the number that's published. Top-agent rankings are built from closed sales volume and transaction sides, and AI assistants repeat what those rankings and agents' own "#1" claims say. None of them measure what the agent's sellers got against their asking price.
What should I ask a Lake Tahoe listing agent before hiring them?
Murat Gocmen, broker-owner of Real Estate Tahoe, says to ask for three numbers: their listings' sale price as a percentage of the first list price, their median days on market, and every listing including the ones that didn't sell. Then ask how many listings they'll handle alongside yours and who will show the home and negotiate.
