This platform hardly seems large enough to deliver to you the news of the day. However, since most of the nails and lumber in Walworth County have been swallowed up by my new house project, there’s little chance of building a stage big enough to support the weight of this incredible, shattering news, so instead I must just sit here in this chair and type on this screen. Today, there is a pending sale at Vista Del Lago.
I know, I know. It’s bigger news than you expected. I apologize for writing this so early, before you’ve had time to be even the slightest bit productive at work, because I know now that your mind will be shot, awash in a mix of disbelief and excitement. But at moments like this we must press on. We cannot spike the football and dance. We must act like we’ve been here before. In fact, we have been here before. Vista Del Lago has had lots and lots of sales, before. Back in the fall of 2010 there was another sale here, so this new pending sale is poised to break a two and a half year silence. For this drought ending, we should be thankful.
Sarcasm aside, the condo market on Geneva Lake has had a documented rough run over the last few years, but there appears to be at least a shimmer of light at the end of this entirely too long of a tunnel. There is some new inventory with compelling pricing, and for the first time in a while I scan the lakefront condo market and see not only two pending sales, but at least two or three other listings that a reasonable man, perchance a man such as myself, could anticipate selling in fairly short order. That’s bright news on a cloudy day.
My listing at Eastbank is both rare and priced well ($835k), and I expect it will sell this season. There’s nothing quite like it on the lakefront, as it is both large and clean, and there’s a lakeview and a canopied slip. It’s a nice product for someone seeking a large (roughly 3000 square feet) lakefront residence where a side bonus is the ability to walk to Boatyard Bagel or Starbucks for a morning paper and coffee. I just brought a rare offering in the Fontana Club to market last week, a unit that I sold as new back in 1999 to the current owner. It’s a simple two bedroom unit, but the views are beyond incredible, as is evidenced by this photo above that shows a snowy view from the middle of this petulant winter. Imagine all that white painted blue, and then you get the idea. At $549k it’s a nice condo in a residential neighborhood positioned roughly 60′ from the lake.
The other pending sale today is at Somerset. This is the unit that I had for sale some time ago, the unit that, at $1.295MM didn’t fit the market well. Today the unit is listed at $699k, and it’s pending because of that dramatic price reduction. This is a short sale, but the distressed nature of the sale doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good thing for the market. Remember, eliminating weak or disinterested ownership is the goal here, and if this sale accomplishes that then it is a good thing for the market, even if the price will leave a bit of a crater for the other Somerset owners to crawl out of.
There is inventory this morning at Bay Colony, Bay Colony South, Fontana Shores, Fontana Club, Eastbank, Stone Manor, Geneva Towers. These available units lack any pricing consistency, with some units available at 2006 prices, others at 2010 prices, and a few at 2013 prices. For the record, those 2013 prices should look a lot like the 2003 prices, so use that as a measuring stick as to the market worthiness of any individual list price. There’s a good chance that the current low interest rate environment will hasten the sale of a few of these lakefront condominiums, so expect 2013 to look a little better than 2012 on the lakefront condo front. If the two pending units close, and another two or three of the active units find buyers within the next 60 days, we’ll be on our way to slowly, but surely, turning this market around. If you’re in the market for a lakefront unit, there’s not a single agent anywhere that knows the lakefront condo market as well as I do. Seriously.