Lake Geneva Lakefront Update

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Early this year, I wasted a whole bunch of time putting, and then keeping, together a deal on a lakefront listing of mine. After deadlines were met and dates were extended, and after the things that typically happen during a real estate deal happened, then it was all proven an epic waste of time and the deal blew up. This week, a lakefront home in the South Shore Club closed for $3,591,000. You might not think much of that, as it relates to my waste of time farther down that southern shoreline, but the two events were connected. The deal falling through at Loramoor freed up a buyer to pursue what I perceive to be truly bigger and better things. The South Shore Club home sold because the other home did not.

That’s a market update, sure, but it’s more about marketing than anything. The broker of the SSC home, which was, rather obviously at this point in this post, not me, could have advertised that home all over the place. They could have put an ad in CHINA DAILY. They could have reached those Russian buyers by placing a huge, dimly colored ad in THE MOSCOW POST. They could have spend untold fortunes pulling full page ads and putting on champagne brunches. They could have, as I saw on television this week, invited some exercise company to shoot an exercise video there. For what? To market the home to the broad masses? Why do that when the home sold to a buyer who had a already developed an acute interest in Lake Geneva?

There’s a marketing thesis in here somewhere. I might be able to sell a can of Diet Coke to someone who has been suffering along with Diet Pepsi all these years, but can I really sell a $3.5MM house to a buyer who has yet to realize he’d like one? The answer, over my 18 years, is no. I can present a home to a broad buyer base, to blow up my own ego and tend to my personal satisfaction, but does that really sell a home at Lake Geneva? The buyers who buy here are largely buyers who know here. They know what they’re looking for, and they know what they’d like to pay. A billboard in Madison for Montana might make a family stop and think… hmmmm…. maybe we should go to Montana. But a full page ad in an expensive magazine doesn’t generally result in a family saying….hmmm…. I’ve never heard of Lake Geneva, but honey grab the checkbook, let’s go spend $3.5MM there!

Anyway, the South Shore Club home sold, as I told you it would. It was a heavy house, burdened some by those North Shore finishes from the 2000s that blended french country estate with medieval dungeon, but it was an undeniably nice house. The finishes were superlative, the location within the club as good as it gets. The price range that I defined for the club long before anyone else ever had the confidence to suggest a target has become the norm. $3.5-$4MM for the lakefront homes, a couple in the $3-3.3MM range that border those true lakefronts, $2MM to $2.6MM for the off-water, on-circle homes, and $1.7-$1.85MM for those homes on Forest Hill. Speaking of Forest Hill- I have reduced my listing there down to $1.895MM, which is a heck of a deal. Check the MOSCOW REPUBLICAN for my next ad.

Another lakefront sale this week was in the Birches. If you question which home in the Birches sold, that’s a normal condition, because at some point over the past few years it seems as though every home in the Birches as sold. This one was the basic home on the top of that big hill that had been listed over $2MM for some time. It had a contract last year, but failed to close. The asking price then was in excess of two million dollars. The price was adjusted a few times this year, down marginal increments, until it was slashed to $1.55MM. A buyer jumped at it, and there’s a new entry level lakefront buyer in a fairly decent lakefront house.

That home proves something about the entry level lakefront market. The days of buying a decent lakefront for $1.2MM are gone, for this cycle anyway. I sold a whole lot of lakefront homes in that price range over the last three years, and all of them have proven to be substantial deals. Now, the entry level still exists in that $1.3MM range, but it exists for bad houses mostly. The better values are those homes that might sell for $1.5MM or so. If I could buy an impaired lakefront for $1.3MM or a decent lakefront for $1.5MM, I don’t believe I’d have to tell you what I’d do.

Two lake access homes sold in the last week as well, those being an okay house with a boatslip in Academy Estates for $640k and a vintage spread in Glenwood Springs with a lakeview, a double lot, and a private pier that sold for $730k. I didn’t love the Academy house, even though I do love Academy Estates. If you’re looking for a Realtor to show you around either the SSC or Academy Estates, consider I’m probably the only Realtor alive who took Driver’s Education with the cadets at Northwestern Military Academy, AND played basketball against those cadets in their little, tiny, gym. I took Driver’s Ed there with some girls from my school, and if you’re imagining the cadets lining up from their dorm rooms and whistling and catcalling those girls, you’d be exactly right. Still, Academy Estates is nice, even if I wasn’t involved in that sale.

The lakefront remains active, and though I’m expecting a short lull around this time of year, I haven’t really felt that lull yet. There are buyers busily hunting, and sellers positioning their homes for the fall market. Price reductions are common right now, so buyers heading into fall are in a slightly improved position from where they were a month or more ago. It’s raining right now, and it’s cool outside, and it’s also the start of Labor Day Weekend. Be safe at the lake this weekend, and if there’s anything at all you feel like buying or selling, just let me know. I’ll be busy placing my next ad in the CARACAS DAILY NEWS.

About the Author

I'm David Curry. I write this blog to educate and entertain those who subscribe to the theory that Lake Geneva, Wisconsin is indeed the center of the real estate universe. When I started selling real estate 27 years ago I did so of a desire to one day dominate the activity in the Lake Geneva vacation home market. With over $800,000,000 in sales since January of 2010, that goal is within reach. If I can help you with your Lake Geneva real estate needs, please consider me at your service. Thanks for reading.

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