Year To Date figures are sort of fun, particularly in March. Or April. In those early months, the figures can either bring a huge dose of excitement for what might be, or they can temper any hopes with dismal reality. If your annual income is typically $30k, and by March you’ve already made $25k, this is exciting. Boy is it ever! The calculator becomes important then, and we figure out that if we could only maintain that level of income we’d make $100k. Triple the norm! That’s why early YTD statistics are fun, but they are also depressing. Just as March YTD totals mean very little, September YTD figures mean a whole bunch.
See, there’s not much time left in 2012. In March, if the YTD figures are bad, no matter, there’s time. On the 17th of September, there isn’t much time left at all. No time to make up for a slow month here or a slow month there, because if the three months left are also slow there’s no way for the YTD figure to improve. The clock stops. So these numbers are pretty important now, which is why we have no choice but to take a snapshot of the Lake Geneva real estate market today, right now. We’re going to stop comparing so much to 2006 and 2007, and we’re all going to do our very best to forget what happened in 2008 and 2009. Today it’s about 2012, and it’s about how 2011 looks from this cool fall day.
I write often about the lakefront market on Geneva Lake. That’s because my business name is Geneva Lakefront Realty. This isn’t some loosely cobbled name, thought about over a drink one night, it’s a name that states a mission. This business is about selling lakefront homes, so it’s only natural that I write about that market the most. This segment of our market drives the entire market, and success in the upper bracket generally will mean success in the lower bracket. Even though O doesn’t understand that things do trickle down, I do. But that’s because I’m actually in business and not academia, you know, like a regular person. As goes the upper bracket, generally as will go the rest of our market, and this is just the way it is.
As of September 17, 2011 we had closed 11 true lakefront properties on Geneva Lake. Of those 11, I had sold three of those, which is a fun fact. Those 11 sales were varied in price, with the most expensive two closing at $3.1MM (Oak Shores) and $3.5MM (Born Free). As of this same day in this year, we’ve closed 11 lakefront homes. There will be two more sales if we consider the South Shore Club in those figures, but we’re not really going to do that today just because. Of those 11 this year, I’ve sold two of them, and if we do decide to count the South Shore Club, well, then I’ve sold four of those 13. So that’s something. There are several lakefront homes pending sale right now, so the 11 YTD sales on the lakefront are going to increase to what I presume will be 14 or so sales by the end of this month, or perhaps by the middle of the next.
The lakefront condo market during 2011 was as a tomb; rather silent and sort of dusty. There was just 1 lakefront condo sale (Fontana Shores) from January 1st through September 17th of 2011. This year, this much better year, we’ve had 6. Hurray! Of those six, four were at Geneva Towers, another was at Eastbank and another at Bay Shore. The non-Towers sales were both to my buyers. There’s another sale pending at Fontana Shores today, so the YTD figures for 2012 are effectively blowing away the 2011 misery. But even with this new found volume, the increases are not even, and the condo market still wobbly at best in terms of current activity.
Geneva National had a great spring this year, but the 25 YTD sales (I’ve sold three of those) lag behind the pace of 29 set in 2011. This isn’t good news for GN. The market there was quite active earlier this year, as I just said, but that activity obviously waned over the long hot summer, and only the fall market is left to pile on enough sales to push 2012 ahead of 2011. To grow volume numbers year over year is very important, especially in a market like GN where disinterested ownership badly needs to be weeded out.
Abbey Springs has had a curious year, as the typical steady flow of activity has ebbed and flowed a bit more than it normally does. Even so, the 12 sales YTD from 2011 are mirrored by 12 YTD sales in 2012, so all must be well enough at Abbey Springs. There are a couple properties pending now as well, so the lull from the summer must have been a reaction to the intolerable heat and less some sort of omen as to the future health of this large association. Expect Abbey Springs to remain a stalwart in our market, not remarkably sexy, but certainly far from anemic.
Lastly, the lake access market surrounding Geneva Lake: YTD 2011 we had 38 off-water lake access sales. This year, this year that feels so much better than last year, we’ve had just 33. Go figure. Seems to me that the lake access market has trailed behind the rest of the market just a bit, and this YTD deficiency proves that feeling to be correct. Even so, I suspect by the time 2012 turns to 2013, this lake access number for 2012 will look very much like 2011. Going back to the GN comment, it’s important that this lake access market tread water as it moves forward. To regress in volume is not a good sign for any market, unless that volume shift is a result of decreased inventory, which in this case it really isn’t.