Geneva Lakefront Sale

If you took a snapshot of the lakefront, choosing any particular stretch of homes that numbered at least 100, I would estimate that as many as 30 of those owners have no real business owning a Geneva lakefront home, though they can obviously afford it, and they can easily justify the ownership. And when asked at parties, with champagne in hand and pressed suit or gown draped over their shoulders, they will tell that person that they love Lake Geneva. Yet on any given weekend, their beautiful house will sit empty. Shuttered to the sun, drapes pulled to obscure the view in and certainly the view out, and several weeks worth of Sunday papers will litter their drive. These are vacation home owners who know they want a Lake Geneva lakefront home, who love owning a Lake Geneva lakefront home, but who also, as a little side note, have no real idea how to use their lakefront home. For many, the purchase of the crowning jewel that is a lakefront home on Geneva is akin to someone purchasing a Ferrari only to later realize that they have no idea how to drive a stick.

These sorts of owners are in every market, and personally, I have little time for them. In my eyes, they are wasting a most precious gift, and while they are free to do as they choose, I am considering starting a rescue for abused lakefront homes. In fact, the only way to abuse a lakefront home is to ignore it. It’s this realization that makes my lakefront sale from last Friday all the more special. Sometimes, the right people find the right house. When this happens, it’s always a good thing. But when this happens and as a result fulfills a lifetime dream, well, then it’s just plain amazing.

The home at 190 Circle Parkway is a relatively simple home, with four bedrooms and three and a half baths, and a front lawn that slopes gently to the lake on a Parkway where most homes dive violently towards it. It’s a comfortable home, with two fireplaces, hardwood floors, an updated kitchen, and a refrigerator that appears to have never been used. The views are dramatic, the property well maintained, and the square footage befitting the hustle and accompanying bustle that flows nicely out of most lakefront homes. But to stop the description at the obvious would be a mistake, as the true story of this home is one that needs to be viewed in context of the market.

In May of 2005, 190 Circle Parkway was listed fro $2.495MM, and then, in September of 2005, it inexplicably sold for the exorbitant sum of $2.2MM. To be fair to the then buyer, the market was hot in 2005. To be unfair to that buyer, the market was not that hot. The price paid was ridiculous, even for that time, but the sale was $2.2MM nonetheless. About this time, a wonderful couple from the western Suburbs had all but given up on their dream of owning a lakefront home. Having watched the market escalate from the 1990s onward, homes like 190 Circle shot from valuations in the $500ks in the early 1990s to over $1MM by the late 1990s, to this high point of $2.2MM in 2005. The lakefront market by then had reached unattainable levels, and dreams were crushed just as others’ dreams were fulfilled.

Then, in 2007, the market changed. Skepticism entered and grew, and by 2008, prices began to soften. The owner of 190 Circle listed the home for $2.5MM in the spring of 2008, with the intent of selling to move upward still in the lakefront market. Then in September of 2009 the price “dropped” to $2.45MM. By the fall of 2010 the list price was down to $1.825MM, and by late fall of 2010 the list price succumbed to $1.5MM. This dramatic decline prompted buyers to act, and in December of 2010 this lakefront home sold for $1.2MM- exactly one million dollars less than it sold for just five years prior. Rumor has it there were personal property concessions that my have raised the actual price, but even so. The buyers who were priced out of the market in 2005 took notice.

In May of this year, the buyer from December listed the home for $1.795MM in an attempt to make a quick buck and flip a home that was obviously undervalued at the recent sales price. An offer quickly materialized and the deal was set. Around this time, the buyers from the western suburbs were picking around some lakefront homes with me, convinced by their own eye and by my rhetoric that this year was the year when they might finally realize their dream of lakefront ownership. Mere weeks after the other spring buyer entered into a contract, the deal fell through, and my buyers, who may have been at exactly the right place at exactly the right time viewed the home, wrote an offer, waited out the seller, and closed last Friday for $1.44MM. Their price paid represents pure value no matter how the deal is dissected.

The home should now have found suitable ownership that will last not just decades, but perhaps generations. There is a stability to the new ownership, the sort that comes from a lifetime of dreaming. This is a house that will now become a home. A home where grandchildren will learn to swim and learn to sail, and where grandparents will beam with pride knowing that their sacrifice and Job like patience made it all possible. When families gather at the lakefront, some families have no idea how blessed they are to be in that moment, at that location. I have a feeling that this family will be different. Each moment will be appreciated, each season celebrated, each summer owned. This will not be that house on the lake with curtains drawn tight on sunny August afternoons, nor will any papers ever have a chance to accumulate in the drive. This is a home now owned by a family that knows the lake and loves it, and in that, I feel as though I may have played a role in rescuing yet another lakefront home. A great big thank you to the new owner for letting me represent them in this fulfillment of a lifetime of lakefront dreams.