Lake Geneva Upper Bracket Inventory

20140324-eck_pool1.jpg

There are many, many things you can do to sell your home. You can put a sign in the yard, because that often works. Or you can hold an open house, one where you make cookies and lemonade, even though I don’t think lemonade goes well with most sorts of cookies. It would be more appropriate to offer cookies and milk, but who offers milk at open houses? You could do that, and you could put an ad in the local paper and another one online, and you can wait. Ideally, someone will come to buy your house soon, because that’s always nice. Chances are, if your house is unique or overpriced or otherwise difficult, it’ll sit. And sit. And then once you think it’s finally ready to sell, it’ll sit some more.

The best way to sell a home that has been sitting is to hope and pray that your wealthy neighbor buys it. He doesn’t have a tennis court, and he should have one, but your home is in the way, and so, without ceremony, he buys your house and demolishes it to make space for the court and the net and the fence. That’s what happened this winter at Alta Vista, and one family paid $3.6MM for their neighbors lot, which, for a while after closing, still had a house on it. The $3.6MM price won’t be reflected in any MLS searches, but it is the recorded price for a home that was listed originally in 3009 for $5.9MM. It was never worth that, mind you, but when the listing expired last fall the price had fallen to $3.95MM. The $3.6MM price paid by the neighbor (more accurately, by the entity that these properties are held under) was a fine price, but with 101 feet of frontage and a shared driveway, the property was obviously worth the most to this neighbor, and that’s why he bought it.

This move brings to light a test that is forthcoming for our market. Geneva Lake is famous not for our bread and butter lakefront homes, those priced from $1.5MM to $3.5MM, but instead for our estates. A boat tour will rarely point out the house that Tom and Sally Jones bought for $1.8MM last year, instead it’ll point out the true palaces of our lake, those large estates owned by household names. Spectators will see those lavish estates, and their eyes will be drawn to the new versions of those turn of the century showcases. These are the new mansions, the large, shiny ones. These are the homes that have been built over the past decade, the magnificent displays of lakeside confidence.

For all the wealth surrounding Geneva, and all the deserved acclaim that this venerable body of water has elicited, these upper bracket homes are not as easy to sell as you might think. On any given year, we may sell one home priced in excess of $5MM. Some years, there will be two or even three sales, other years not a single transaction will print in this thinner air. This year, our market will be tested as we search for not one of these large buyers, but several of them. There is inventory coming, and in fact, some of it has already arrived. A new lakefront, built just last year, has come to market for $6.25MM. It’s a beautiful home, on a mostly deserving lot, and it is now in pursuit of a buyer that has proven elusive.

There is more inventory coming, too, as I’ll be bringing new large estates to market over the coming weeks. One estate is about as perfect as any estate ever was, ideally engineered for a vacationing family to indulge. The home is large, spanning 12,000 square feet, the land wide and deep, amassing two and a half acres, the frontage level and ample, at 165′. There is a guest house, a tennis court, garage parking for 8 cars, and a brand new three-slip pier ready for whatever water chariots the new owner wishes to pilot. This is an estate in turn key condition, a newer build, and it’ll be hitting the market in May in the high sevens. It’s a rare estate, to be sure, and if there’s a buyer out there in search of a showpiece, this is the home he, or she, will buy.

Another one coming is heavy on land, bringing nearly 5.5 acres and 230′ of frontage to the table. It’s a rare estate with all of the estate components that one would expect in the high fives. There’s a swimming pool, a tennis court, a guest house, a storage barn, and a driveway that winds and spins through acres of woods. It’s a value play for a land baron, and it should sell somewhat easily when it comes to market in a week or more. Both this property and the one mentioned above are unique, treasured, and obviously valued in close proximity to their respective asking prices, but will they be easy to sell? I suppose that depends. On a lot.

The lack of steady upper bracket (defined as $5MM+ in this context) sales is a chicken an egg sort of dilemma. Do these homes not sell routinely because there are few buyers, or do they not sell routinely because they are not readily available on our open market? We do not need masses of lakefront buyers for these sorts of homes, and we do not need billionaires, even though this lake has at least five such owners positioned along its shores. All we need are buyers capable of swinging large properties, and there are so many buyers of this make and model that to sell two or three of these $5MM+ homes during this calendar year should not come as a surprise. I think it’s a given that we’ll end 2014 with at least two sales in excess of $5MM, and likely there will be three. Why? Because we have inventory that should excite, and quality inventory here tends to be more rare than quality buyers.

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.

Leave a Comment