Your cat may have taught you all you need to know about life, but one sentence in one description of one condominium can teach you all you need to know about Geneva National. The property of which I speak needn’t be identified, but you should know that it is incredibly cheap. Like overwhelmingly cheap. The description proclaims this property, and I quote, “the deal of the year”. Normally such hyperbolics aren’t to be taken seriously, but in the case of this offering, the description might be more apt than it is ambling. Why does this quote provide a snapshot into the market at Geneva National? Because that comment is in place in the description of a property that was originally listed over 400 days ago. Ouch.
As my back slowly increases in strength and my tolerance for pain slowly increases commensurate, I’m looking forward to golf this year more than I have during the last three springs. I’m excited to get out and actually work on my game again, and while success for me is defined in measurements that may spell ruin for others, I’m positive I have an 80 in me somewhere this summer. And if this summer does indeed find me swinging my way across manicured fairways, it will find me at Geneva National. One needn’t be a golf enthusiast to own a vacation home in Geneva National, but an affinity for the sport that is presented at such a high level there is a motivating factor for many of the purchases, as it should be.
Geneva National the golf is unmatched in the region (you heard me Medinah), but Geneva National the housing market remains stuck in first gear. Then again, such a comparison to a gear known for high RPM’s and swift acceleration may not be the most accurate way to describe a market that might be as dead as any single market I’ve ever seen in my 15 years of selling the wares of the Lake Geneva real estate market. The MLS shows 115 residential properties available in GN at the moment, with just two of those reflecting an accepted offer. I would guess there is more activity in GN than those numbers suggest, but over the past two years GN has done a wonderful job at declining any invitation to the market resurgence party being hosted by the glib Geneva Lake vacation home market. It’s important to notice that distinction- years that spell recovery for one segment of an individual market may not mean anything to a similar segment in the same overall market. Write that down somewhere.
Geneva National has done well to not add too much inventory, as the inventory has been fairly stable at GN through both good times and bad. 115 units on the MLS might sound like a lot, but in a development with over 1100 units, that’s not a scary figure. There are developments within GN that are in dire straights from a market standpoint, and other enclaves that are depressed as a function of the entire market being down. If a rising ride really does lift all boats, then in GN a falling tide is dragging the units down with similar effectiveness. Throughout the first two months of 2011, there have been three MLS sales in GN. Three. And all three were considerable values.
Perhaps instead of looking at Geneva National as if it has coodies we should look at GN as a bastion of incredible opportunities. While much of the Lake Geneva vacation home market is full of sellers who believe all to be well with the world, GN is full of sellers that understand the painful realities of a downtrodden market. While Abbey Springs sellers have been lucky to be largely immune to the miseries of a depressed market, the sellers at Geneva National have been huddled under their blankets for two years, unsure whether or not they have a cold, or the flu, or both. This market awareness that exists in much of GN signals tremendous buying opportunities for buyers who had been previously priced out of Geneva National. Over the long term, I believe in Geneva National, and in its ability to perfectly fit the needs of a huge group of buyers that will always have a presence in Lake Geneva. You do realize that if 1100 units exist, and roughly 100 of those sellers want out, that means that, at any given time, roughly 1000 property owners in GN are happily duffing and lounging their way through cherished Lake Geneva weekends.