Under $1 Million in South Reno: What Your Money Really Buys

If you have ever wondered whether South Reno still offers roomy homes under a million, you are in the right place. We took a short drive just south of Fieldcreek and below Saddlehorn along the Mount Rose corridor to compare two properties that sit within a quick walk of each other. They tell a great story about value in this part of Northern Nevada, especially if you want access to Galena High School, Doral Academy, and weekend fun from skiing at Mount Rose to skating at Reno Ice.

Before we pull into the driveways, a quick orientation. Head up Mount Rose Highway and look to the right. You will find neighborhoods that give you more elbow room than the typical small lot tracts farther down in South Meadows. Streets are a bit wider, landscaping is mature, and the vibe is relaxed yet minutes from shopping at The Summit Sierra, Trader Joes, urgent care, and a long list of food and coffee stops. That balance of space and convenience is why so many locals stay loyal to this side of town.

Home One: Single Story Ease on Stow Drive

The first stop is a fresh listing at 2305 Stow Drive, sitting just under an acre. Not every inch of that acreage is usable, but the effect is priceless. There are no immediate neighbors crowding your yard and you have big sky views beyond the landscaped portion. The home itself is a touch over two thousand square feet, single story, tile roof, wood exterior, and air conditioning already in place. Inside, thoughtful remodeling gives it that move in ready feel buyers crave.

Layout matters, and this one makes daily life simple. Step through the front door, take a right, and you find the bedroom wing with secondary bedrooms and the primary suite all on the same side. The kitchen sits at the heart with upgraded finishes that make a quick snack or a full dinner spread equally easy. Because the home is one level, you avoid that winter shade problem some two story homes can create in the yard. Your lawn and plantings will thank you.

Pricing for homes like this has been landing around the nine hundred twenty five to nine hundred forty range depending on final finishes, showing quality, and the usual market rhythm. It is the kind of place that attracts a lot of interest, especially from buyers who want single level living without paying resort level prices farther up the mountain.

Backyard Vibes: Privacy Without Fencing

There is no fencing around the landscaped area, which actually enhances the sense of space. With open land behind, you are not staring into a block wall or a neighbor’s second story windows. Think football tosses, garden beds, or just a quiet morning coffee with the Sierra air drifting in. If you have pets, you might add a discreet fence later, but many in this area enjoy the natural look.

Home Two: Bigger Footprint on Killington

Now for a quick hop. We drove less than a minute from Stow Drive to a two story home on Killington that closed at nine hundred fifty thousand about six months ago. It is noticeably larger, pushing toward three thousand square feet, with four bedrooms, a three car garage, tile roof, and wood siding. The lot is roughly half an acre give or take, on a corner with neighbors closer than the first home yet still plenty of breathing room.

Here is the twist that every buyer needs to understand. Despite its larger size, this home needed a good amount of interior updating. The bones are solid and the amenities are all there, but you will budget for finishes. That difference in condition is exactly why it sold around the same price as the smaller but updated single story on Stow Drive.

Why Two Homes Can Cost About the Same

Price is not only about square footage and lot size. Condition rules the day. A smaller, well updated single story with an easy layout and privacy can match a larger two story that needs cosmetic work. In this South Reno pocket, buyers are often deciding between move in ready comfort and sweat equity potential. Both can be smart choices, but the right answer depends on your timeline, your appetite for projects, and whether single level living is a must have.

Green Space, Quick Walks, and The Hilltop Homes

Between these two homes is a small park and grass area that is perfect for a casual baseball catch, a quick dog romp, or just a few deep breaths after work. Up on the nearby hillside sit homes often priced at a million and above. They have their own appeal, yet it is encouraging that you can stay under a million just below them and still enjoy the same easy access to Mount Rose Highway and neighborhood amenities.

Schools, Sports, and Weeknight Convenience

Families and future families love how close this area sits to Galena High School, a large, well known campus with fields for baseball, football, and more. Doral Academy is nearby on the other side of Mount Rose Highway. If you are commuting or carpooling, the drives are short and straightforward.

Sports fans have a lot to cheer for. Reno Ice is right by the fields, so you can lace up for hockey practice or a weekend open skate. A cluster of four little league fields keeps the season humming, and the soccer fields and the neighborhood library round out the scene. The Meadow Creek shopping center adds quick bites and errands without driving across town.

Shopping and Dining: The Summit and Friends

Head a few minutes down Mount Rose and you land at The Summit Sierra, an open air mall that keeps getting better. Think Century Theatres for movie night, Dave and Busters for arcade energy, Lululemon and Talbots for shopping, Trader Joes for the weekly haul, plus coffee, a golf shop, and personal care spots like Hammer and Nails. An urgent care sits nearby for the occasional weekend misadventure. All of it is within a ten to twelve minute loop from the homes we toured.

Market Snapshot: What Is Available Right Now

Inventory under a million in this slice of South Reno can be tight. Recently we saw only a handful of actives below the mark, including a couple of homes in the high seven hundreds to mid eight hundreds near the first shopping area, usually on smaller lots that feel more like the traditional South Meadows tracts. Over the last eight months, eight or nine sales between seven hundred and a million tell a consistent story. Updated single levels move quickly, and larger homes that need a refresh can still land right alongside them on price.

If school zones matter, note that many homes on the far south side feed into Galena. Cross to the other side of the corridor and some areas feed into Damonte Ranch High School. Neither is a long drive, but the distinction can help you refine your search.

Who Thrives in This Part of Town

Buyers who want a little more room between homes, who like mature trees and taller landscaping, and who prefer wide streets without sidewalks often feel instantly at home here. RV parking and three or even four car garages appear more often than in the denser tracts. If you want trails, quick ski access, and the option to be at a coffee shop in under ten minutes, South Reno south of Fieldcreek and around the Mount Rose corridor checks a lot of boxes.

Tips for Buying Under a Million in South Reno

• Decide if single level living is a must. If yes, act fast. Updated single stories are rare and popular.
• Budget for improvements if you choose the larger two story. Cosmetic updates can be phased and add instant value.
• Walk the lot. Usable space matters more than the number on the assessor sheet.
• Visit at different times of day. Listen for highway noise, count the drive minutes, and check the sun pattern on the yard.
• Confirm school zoning early. It may change your target streets by just a few blocks.

Lot Size and Privacy: Read Between the Lines

The Stow Drive home sits just under an acre, though only a portion is landscaped and actively used. Still, not having a neighbor directly behind you is a daily luxury. On the Killington corner lot, proximity to neighbors increases, but the footprint and garage space expand. Think about how you live day to day. If backyard mornings and low maintenance are your priority, the updated single story may be the easy win.

Weekend Fun is Close

Living here puts you within a short drive of the Mount Rose summit for skiing and summertime hikes. The foothill breeze is real, and winter nights feel cozy without being isolated. That balance also means friends will want to visit. Good thing parking is easier than in the tighter tracts.

Get the Free Reno Buyer Guide

Want a deeper checklist for neighborhoods, inspections, and offer strategy tailored to Northern Nevada? Grab our free Reno Buyer’s Guide at this link. It is packed with local wisdom for mapping commute times, reading lot layouts, and planning updates that return value.

Next Steps and Resources

See also our South Reno neighborhood overview and a guide to Mount Rose corridor living. For more videos, check out our channel.

A Quick Recap of the Two Homes

• Stow Drive: a touch over two thousand square feet, updated single story, big open feel behind the yard, likely in the nine hundred twenty five to nine hundred forty range.
• Killington: almost three thousand square feet, four bedrooms, three car garage, corner lot, sold at nine hundred fifty and ready for cosmetic updating.

On paper, the larger home sounds like the automatic winner. In practice, many buyers will happily trade some square footage for single level living and a move in ready kitchen. Your ideal fit depends on how much you want to renovate and how you use your space.

How to Think About Price

Price bands this tight can shift week to week. Appraisal data, interest rates, and listing competition all play a role. Ask your agent for a side by side comparison that includes not just size and age but also upgrades, lot usability, proximity to the highway, and expected time on market. A mile can make a meaningful difference in this part of South Reno.

Final Thoughts: Location Wins

From Galena High School to the little league fields and Reno Ice, from The Summit Sierra to the neighborhood spots in Meadow Creek, this pocket of South Reno makes daily life easy. The two homes we toured highlight the most important truth of the area. Condition and layout can equalize price just as much as size. If under a million is your target, you still have solid options near the mountain and the amenities.

Thinking about a move and want to see these areas on a map with schools and shopping pinned for you? Reach out and we will put together a plan that fits your budget and your timeline.

Full Video Transcript

Today we're going to drive you into a different neighbor. We're going to show you a couple of homes. We want you to see what you can get in South Reno and still be under a million dollars. We're going to show you two houses today between 900 and probably about 950 960. But if you're not sure where this neighborhood is, we're again in South Reno. We're just below Saddle Horn. We're just to the south of Field Creek. And if you're driving up Mount Rose Highway, which we can show you all this on a map, if you're going up Mount Rose Highway, we're going to be on the right hand side of the road. So for those of you that are looking for the schools like Galina High School or as you go down Mount Rose Highway, that's where all there's this great shopping which the little league fields are nearby. The skating rink for ice, whether you play hockey or just want to ice skate, there's a lot of good reasons as to why people want to be on this end of town. And it's easy access, especially if you're someone who likes to ski. All right, so this is a new listing we have coming on the market, 2305 Stow Drive. We've not exactly picked the price, but we're going to be somewhere between those mid to low 900s. And this is one where when we show you off the backyard, it's got a lot of room behind it. It's actually on just under an acre, even though a portion of that backyard isn't really usable. But this is a nice one-story house that is a little over 2,000 square ft. They've done a lot of great remodeling and stuff inside. And you can see this is one of those houses that you can pretty much be ready to go, move in ready, and the landscaping is awesome. So, we're now in the backyard. This house doesn't really have any fencing around it. But what's nice about this house, even though the space back there isn't overly usable, it means that you're gonna have a lot of space. There's no neighbors anywhere close by. And then you still got this big whole landscape area as you pan that way. And this house has got a tile roof. It's got the wood exterior, air conditioning. And what's nice about having a onele house is you're not going to get shaded out at this time of year. Uh so that you're, you know, landscaping is having a problem. But when you walk in the front door and you make a hard right, there's a couple of bedrooms in the front and the master bedroom. are all on that same side. Has a really great kitchen with some really nice features and some upgrades. And so homes like this, especially when they're one level, you're going to end up with a lot of interest in them because most people are looking for something that's this size and it's hard to find when you don't want 3 or 4,000 ft along stuff along those lines. So, in a house like this in Northern Nevada, it's going to sell somewhere in this 925 to 940 range and it'll be on the market sooner than later. So, we literally just drove about 45 seconds from the first house that we were on on Stow Drive. And the second house we're going to show you on Killington is literally right behind us about what a 30 60-second walk away. And what we wanted to do is just take you up here real quick and give you a little idea of where the park is. And then there's some homes here up on the hill that you access from the Mount Rose side that are really nice. We actually have some friends over there that live in that neighborhood. So, we're just going to take a quick little loop around. There's a nice little grass area. So, if you want to throw a football or throw a baseball or take your dogs out and run around, you can do it right here from this park. And again, those houses up on the hill, that's Mont Rosa. And those are mostly a million dollars plus that people, we have friends who live up in those neighborhoods. But you can see there's nice access to these things that are really close together that you can get to. So, you can get outside and then literally we're going to just drive you there. If you come right down this street, the house that we're going to show you on Killington is just right here. And this was a house that we sold about 6 months ago, but we want to always give you an idea of what you can expect to see. Now, this house is actually much bigger. It's two stories. The inside is definitely need in need of some updating. So, this house, which is a lot larger than the one on Stow Drive, is literally sold for 950, where the one on Stow Drive is probably going to sell somewhere between 925 and uh and 950. And people always ask, you know, like why is that? So, this one here, which is much bigger. So, this is a house that we sold for 950. It was back in December. And this one is a 288 foot. So, it's about 7,800 ft bigger. The lot size is 41 acres. The other lot was actually.9 acres, but again, it's probably only usable for half of that. So, the usable parts are pretty similar, but the um the lot on the other one is much bigger. So, you have no neighbor just behind you, where this one being on a corner has neighbors that are nearby. And of course, park-like landscaping, but again, four bedrooms, two stories, so a little bit different. Has all the modern amenities. It's got tile roofs and wood siding. All those things are the same. It does have a threecar garage. And again, these are all zoned for all the same things here on the south. From where I'm sitting, you can actually see the G up on the hill for Galina High School. You can get in this neighborhood for under a million dollars. Now, the other thing about these neighborhoods is this. This is a little bit wider streets, no sidewalks. You can see by the size of the trees and the landscaping, it's a little more mature neighborhood. And so this is a really popular area for somebody that's not looking for your normal, you know, track home neighborhood on little quarter acre or smaller lots that are tight together. This is one where people get a little more elbow room, a little more space, a lot more RV access, a lot more three and fourcar garages, and a lot more space depending on, you know, how big a house you need. The other thing just becomes a matter of some of these are going to be remodeled and look really new, and others are not, and that's going to change the price points a lot. And you'll see from the photos we already showed you on Stow Drive versus Killington, there is a massive difference on the finish work where this one here is going to need a whole lot more updating and work where the other one did not. And that's why they're going to sell for similar prices even though Stow Drive is about 600 700 ft smaller. If you are starting on your journey to moving to Northern Nevada, click the link in the description below. We'll get you a copy of our free buyer guide that will give you a lot of great information for what you need to know about living and moving to Northern Nevada. So, we just took you just across Mount Rose Highway, which is literally just right there. And on the other side, as we're going to show you, Galina High School, that is Dural Academy. It's a private school that people have their kids going to. And as you go this way, there's a huge storage facility. And the houses that you see up on the hill over there, that is Rolling Meadows. That is another neighborhood where you can still find homes under a million dollars. And the high school is just below. But this is part of why a lot of people want to live on this town. So, if they want their kids to go to Dural Academy or Galina High School, which are both very popular schools, they can easily do that. The only downside is some of these houses you can see here, you get close to Mount Rose Highway and it can be a little loud, a little noisy. And again, so you want to be a little tucked more in the neighborhood. Most of the houses are at least far enough back there, but you might be able to just see the tops of some roofs. But that highway as you lead up leads you to Montro, Galina Forest, and those kind of neighborhoods where it starts to get a lot more expensive. So, if you want to live on the south end of town, this would be the places to do it to where, like I said, you could stay under a million dollars. So, now we're shooting from the parking lot of Galina High School. And the school is huge. It goes way over there. There's baseball, football fields, the whole nine yards. There's about 1,500ish kids who go to school here. And again, those houses that you can't see now behind that G up there on the hill, there's houses just below that. And again, if we just turn right around, there's houses like this that I would say for probably sell for a little less money than what we saw just earlier today on Stow Drive in Killington. So, we just came down from Gina High School. We're literally 30 second drive from where we just were. I wanted to show you the shopping center that pretty much everybody up in those neighborhoods uses down here. And if we go down Mount Rose Highway, literally about another 2 to 3 minutes, that's where that giant new mall, outdoor mall is for everybody that they all go to. So, we have the Century Theaters. We just got a brand new Dave and Busters, a Land and Ocean restaurant. And you can see as this goes around, the mall is huge. And so this mall that is now getting some new stores and things in it. I know everyone was concerned when it first came in that people were not going to want to be in an outdoor mall, especially in the winter time, but the mall has done remarkably well. People have been coming out here supporting it. You can see right there now there's a Trader Joe's in the background. There's a Boot Barn, but there's just a lot of great places in here. We're getting a new restaurant. Uh, actually that's looks like it's going to be a Starbucks. But back in the corner, you've got Lululemon and Talbotz and you got a bunch of good stops in the back. There's a golf store. A buddy of mine has a place we did a video about called Hammer and Nails, like a man's salon back there and Dillards. And then, of course, right next to that Trader Joe's is Renown, which is one of our urgent care facilities. So, you can see there's lots of good places. And all of this stuff is going to be anywhere from 5, 10, 12 minutes from all those houses, just depending on where people are trying to live. So, one of the other benefits of living in the south end of town is there are four awesome little league fields right here. There's a larger field for the older kids that are right over there. There is the yellow library. Right behind the yellow library and all that are the soccer fields and then we'll give you a better shot from the other side. But right behind here, this is the Reno ice skating rink and then there's the Meadow Creek shopping center right on the other side where now there's food and some other amenities right there. So there's that main entrance and then literally right across the street now there's all these great places. So before when you had little league or things going on there was not a lot of great places to go eat and all that stuff. You had to go to that shopping center that we showed you before. But now there's all kinds of other options that are on this end of town. So we wanted to give you some statistics and we're kind of getting to the end of the video here. So we're in my car but Sydney have pulled some numbers and she's not on the video this week cuz she's had a cold and she's got a really bad cough and so not going to sound real good. Right now, there's only three active listings in this part of town under a million dollars for $8.25, $839, and another one that's around 700,000. And when they are, they're going to be more by that first strip mall that we saw that are a little more attract homes, smaller lots, those kind of things. And for the homes that sold in the last 8 months, we got about eight or nine of them that all sold between about $700 and a million dollars. If you want to live on the south end of town, you can still find plenty of stuff, whether it is in the South Meadows or whether it's in Galina Meadows for under a million dollars. It just really depends on what people are looking for. And there's a huge difference between the track home stucco tile roof small lots in the South Meadows versus the bigger lots, more quarter, halfacre, even almost up to a full acre, a little bit older, a little bit more mature landscaping, but also a little more like wiggle room for things to get around. But everything on this side is zone for Galina. Everything if you're on the other side is zone for Demani Ranch High School. So, a little bit different if you have the needs for those school things. So, if you are looking for more information about living on this end of town, by all means, please reach out to us.