The most important lakefront home I’ve ever sold is 1014 South Lakeshore Drive in Fontana. I sold that home for the first time in 2010 for $5.885MM. At the time, it was the largest sale I had ever completed, by a factor of at least two. It mattered, this sale, it mattered a whole lot. The fact that I sold the home owned by the owner of our largest local brokerage was something that people noticed, and it helped propel me to the volume that I’ve been pleased to represent since. Last week, I sold that home again. This time for $7,350,000, and as you could imagine, the sale matters this time around as well.
I first listed that home two years ago and received an offer within a few months of the initial listing. That offer didn’t come together, and then the property sat on the market for all of the following year. The reason it languished for some time is simple: when buyers are looking to spend $7.95MM they are expecting perfection, and any slight blemish that might interrupt that perception is cause for rejection. And so I worked and I worked and then over the summer a new contract, a new scheduled closing date, a new buyer on the line for 1014 South Lakeshore.
In the months that followed there were plenty of ups and downs, other buyers wishing to buy the house came forward, and the house that I couldn’t sell for nearly two years became a house I could have sold two or three times. The market turned, buyers at the higher levels materialized, and 1014 South Lakeshore became a house that was no longer just an expensive house in Fontana. It was THE house in Fontana. Last week it closed, and I remain eternally grateful to the seller who has trusted me with so many lakefront purchases and sales. Loyalty is a frail thing in real estate, and when a client remains loyal over a fifteen year period that’s a special and unique thing. To that seller I owe much, perhaps a career.
Another sale last week, this one with more intrigue. In November of 2015 pier 514 sold for $3.95MM. It was a nice sale, a good market price for 186 feet of Fontana frontage spread out over 4 acres. That lakefront just sold again last week, this time for $5.45MM. There is no typo here. There were no improvements done to the house, unlike the sale at 1014 that underwent a supreme facelift and renovation over the years since the 2010 print. Pier 514 just sold for $1.5MM more than it sold for last year. 12 months, 38% appreciation. Wow.
So did the market move that much? Of course not. To suggest it did is pure insanity. The market didn’t move more than a few points, but some buyer from somewhere, perhaps a buyer with a penchant for filming Lincoln commercials, that buyer thought $5.45MM was a reasonable ransom for that large property. Do I think that buyer overpaid? It doesn’t particularly matter, because if a buyer wanted 186′ in Fontana with 4 acres of woods, there were no other options. Personally, I like my sale near Pebble Point with 181′ of frontage and 4 acres for $3.93MM much better, but that’s just me, and I’m value minded. For the market, it’s a terrific sale, for that buyer turned seller, a magnificent maneuver in a typically stodgy market.
Another week, two more sales, both over $5MM. I wasn’t involved in the lower priced sale, but 2016 has now seen six lakefront properties print over $3.9MM. Of those six, I’ve represented either the buyer or seller in five of them. Those sales have helped push my sales volume over $56,000,000 on the year, and I don’t mention that to be vain. I simply mention that to prove a point. If you’re a lakefront buyer or seller with a Geneva focus, now we both know I’m the guy for you.