Bonnie Brae is a pleasant little lane that runs south, towards the lake, off of Snake Road. If there are pockets of lakefront that are more desirable than others, and there are, then Bonnie Brae is smack dab in the middle of the most well known high rent district the lake has to offer. Bonnie Brae, to be succinct, is a very nice street to have adorn the return address section of your monogrammed note cards. That I know this is a nice location isn’t surprising, but that many, many buyers didn’t know it until recently certainly is. In a sign of a soft market, four acres on 150′ of frontage managed to sit on the open market for nearly a year before the sale was consummated last week.
The most recent lakefront sale on Geneva is that of a large lakefront home on 150′ of frontage off of Snake Road’s Bonnie Brae (shamefully, with a heavy heart and a bowed head, I must tell you that I was not involved in the sale…). This fine property closed at $2.625MM last week, off of a most recent asking price of $2.95MM. The original list price of this brick home was $3.995MM. The Overton Window of real estate was in full effect on this sale, as evidenced by a original list price that set the tone to afford a significant price reduction which in turn, ultimately, attracted interest. The pricing theory that I explored last week was also on display with this sale, as the final asking price reflected both a huge reduction off of original list, and a huge increase over the price that the seller paid just 11 years ago. Mr. Altucher is not pleased with this seller for buying at $1.65MM in 2000 and selling for $2.625MM in 2011. Mr. Altucher probably could have done a fine job turning that $1.65MM into at least $1.8MM over those short years, but he would have never known the joy of reviewing his bank statements while prone on a white pier.
The pricing strategies aside, the sale doesn’t provide much of a sign for our market moving forward. Some sales are harbingers of things to come, this sale was simply a sale of a nice house on a nice lot at a pretty attractive price. I’m not sure why a buyer didn’t see value at a higher number, but it might have had something to do with the honey-oaked interior trim. The style that sells best on Geneva tends to be the sort that features robust white painted trim, or deep walnut, or rustic alder. Buyers opt for beautiful Water Works tile and fixtures, and white paneled walls and wide planked wood floors. Buyers want what they see in Architectural Digest and Coastal Living, and if they find it on Geneva, they typically reward the seller who put such a fine assortment of materials into place. While four acres of wooded land and 150′ of elevated frontage are indeed signs of value and should attract a plethora of buyers, some white painted trim and dark oak floors might be even more effective.
Looking forward to the next several weeks of activity, the short sale on Fontana’s north shore should be about ready to close (though it’s a short sale, so no one knows except the bank and the agents involved), as should the private sale on the south shore of the sheriff’s sale purchase. I remain puzzled as to why the huge lakefront on the north shore of Geneva hasn’t sold, but expect it to do so soon. I’m personally bringing two lakefronts to the market in the next week, and that photo in the header this morning offers a peak into one of those ultra fabulous new listings. The lakefront market typically ramps up activity over the next six to eight weeks, as buyers brush off the nonchalant attitudes that are comfortable to adopt in the middle of a Midwestern winter and view their calendars turning from March to April and soon to May. And then, in May, delineated by a huge red circle surrounded by several small red hearts, lies the Friday that brings us Memorial Day weekend. Ready or not, with lake house or without, another Lake Geneva summer is about to begin. Congratulations to the buyer of Bonnie Brae on their fine purchase.