Happy New Year

I sat at dinner the other night, on the eve of this new year, looking around from table to table. Mostly, everyone was happy. They were imbibing and gorging, ordering appetizers as though there was a contest that no one told me about. They were extra happy, and I wondered to myself what the big deal was. Later, I asked my wife if she noticed that everyone looked happy and excited, if there was some reason that pushing closer to all of our deaths was such an exciting event. She returned my question by saying something was wrong with me, but I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking of those people, all of them acting as though an award had been given to everyone just before I walked in the door. I wondered why I don’t feel the same bubbly excitement about a new year, and instead feel reservations about it, and instead of celebrating wildly I prefer to quietly consider the past year and wonder if the new one will be any good. While everyone watched various celebrities ring in the new year, I wondered what was so bad about the old year.

2013 was indeed a banner year of all sorts. I’m writing this and you’re reading this, which means we lived. Some were not so lucky, so perhaps happy new year’s eve celebrations are in order to simply mark another year spent living. I was blessed beyond most of my reasonable dreams ($18MM in sales), and 2013 found my family in a new home, with continued health, and continued real estate success that has somehow become expected. I spent most of my life working for sales, while wishing and hoping and humbly praying for them. These days, I still do that, but the sales are expected events, and I sometimes step back and look at this business and marvel at just how fortunate I have been. 2013 was another year to be grateful for, but it leads into this year and the work that is keeping that heavy ball rolling steadily up this big hill.

2013 had me continuing most of my bad habits, and indulging in some new ones. I continue to have too many hobbies. I continue to hope for little more than some gas in my boat and a sunny afternoon, though I alternate that theme by hoping for steady wind for my sail. I have grown in fatherhood, finding that as my son ages I live increasingly vicariously through him. I never really understood much of that psychology until this year. When I was a kid, I never felt that my father lived vicariously through me. He does that now, but not so much then. With my son, age 10, I see him now in sporting events, and I cannot bear the stress that falls upon me when he comes to bat, or when he heads to the free-throw line, or when he turns his boat to catch some wind at the starting line. I watch him now and want nothing but the best for him, and I feel now as though his successes are my own. I don’t know if I like this feeling, but it sure is exhilarating.

The Lake Geneva real estate market loved 2013 as much as I did, as sales were plentiful. It was also a year that found impulsive buyers back in the marketplace, and their presence skewed some numbers higher and created a general motivation in the market that had not been there for quite some time. Prices rebounded at least a bit, as we’ve discussed recently, and buyers gobbled up everything from entry level lakefront to some larger estate type parcels. There were great deals (Folly Lane perhaps the best printed value of 2013), and there were strange deals (paying 97% of ask on a property that didn’t have multiple offers?). There were buyers who pined for a vacation home for years who made 2013 their year, the buyers who spent the fourth of July lakeside for the first time in their lives and loved the way that felt. Those buyers who bought into this lifestyle in 2013 should count the blessing that is a vacation home high on their list of reasons that 2013 was a year worth remembering for all the right reasons.

We leave behind that last year, and I leave it without any animosity. It was a good year. One of the best. But we have reason to think that 2014 will be the same, or better. It’s the better that keeps us motivated. Our collective happiness isn’t contingent upon the strength of a real estate market, but a fair share of my personal happiness hinges on it. I see the 2014 market as a growth year, where we fail to match the 2013 volume but we add a few percentage points to our median value. I’m hearing from the smart people that the stock indexes will be flat this year, and if that would be the case Lake Geneva would not suffer for it. If we see a reversal in the markets, Lake Geneva would indeed suffer. I’m rooting for stability, as the market gains from 2013 should be sufficient to push buyers into the vacation home market. If 2014 finds volume a touch down, as sellers stiffen, and prices rising a few points in accordance, then I’ll be happy enough with 2014.

Here’s to a most healthy, happy, Lake Geneva filled 2014. Here’s also to 2013, a magnificent year whom I will forever remember fondly.

Above, your last glimpse at open water until some glorious day in March, or more likely, April…