There are several unavoidable truths involving the Geneva lakefront market of 2018. The market is frustrating for buyers. It’s awful, really. Limited inventory, quick sales, more buyers than sellers to the tune of five or more to one. This is an unfair fight, and the sellers are winning. In the end we know it’s the buyers who win, the buyers who pay the ransom to receive a lifetime of change. But for now it doesn’t feel that way. The market is tilted heavily towards sellers, and we know this. We understand this. It wasn’t always like this, but from 2010 through 2015 you were too timid to buy. This is what happens, this is what happened, and this is the overriding truth of the market.
A lesser known and seldom understood truth is that the aged inventory on Geneva Lake isn’t just aged because no one wants to buy it. As a buyer, this is the easiest conclusion to make. That house has been for sale for a long time, no one wants it, I’ll be able to steal it. This was the conclusion that I came to and lived in from 2010 through 2015, and that conclusion helped me close the most volume of any agent in the county over the last eight years. That conclusion also helped those buyers smart enough to work with me score tremendous value on lakefront properties. Today, that conclusion is still made, but it’s no longer accurate.
Lakefront buyer activity is at insane levels. It’s not insane that so many families and individuals wish to spend their time on our shores, actually, it’s insane that so many people choose to spend time on other, inferior, faulty, embarrassing shores. The sheer numbers of buyer traffic is somewhat overwhelming. Last Sunday I showed lakefronts, which I tend to do every weekend. But last Sunday I showed three different lakefronts to three different buyers. Back in 2007 I used to work with three different lakefront buyers, too. It was called an entire summer. This market is buzzing, but what exactly does that mean for a buyer, and does that mean value still exists?
What it means for a buyer is painfully simple. If you like that house and you like the number enough, then you’re going to have to move swiftly to buy it. The number isn’t going to initially feel all that good. There are deals to be had, in spite of this activity, but for every deal there are five sucker deals, those homes that will sell to buyers who either don’t have skilled lakefront representation, or those buyers who are working with agents who lack discernment in this marketplace. If you think selling real estate is easy, you’re right. If you think selling the real estate at the right price is easy, you’re wrong. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and this isn’t about me it’s about buyers and that faulty conclusion regarding aged inventory.
When a buyer keeps seeing a lakefront for sale, the buyer might be tempted to think the seller is getting desperate. You can’t hold out forever, seller! Buyers sense a seller’s wariness and assume that a screaming deal is going to be possible. That the aged inventory has fallen out of favor with the market? That there is a deal just waiting to be made! That the buyer will win. An asking price of $5MM and a couple of years on market? That sounds like a $4MM print to me! This was how I thought a few years ago, but this is no longer the typical outcome. The painful thing that buyers must realize in this market is that sellers are receiving offers. Sellers are generating showings. Sellers are seeing activity. And those sellers who are on the receiving end of activity and offers are simply holding firm. The market hasn’t forgotten these properties, it’s just that the sellers aren’t playing ball.
I see several pieces of aged inventory on the market today, and if I look through my old lenses I see opportunity. But I know those aged bits of inventory have had offers that exceed the price I’d be willing to help a buyer pay. These properties that look idle on your computer screen, with Days On Market piling up and dust collecting in the corners of the photos, those are properties that are only still for sale because sellers are too confident. The properties aren’t sitting because no one wants them. They’re sitting because of sellers who are negotiating from a position of strength, and confident sellers are poison for a buyer looking to score value on aged inventory. I see that old inventory, and I’d love for you to steal it. You see that aged inventory and you know you’d like to steal it. The problem is the seller sees his aged inventory and has a hunch that someone is going to pay him his number, even if it takes another year.