David Curry

When a real estate market is slow, the fundamentals matter. The price per front foot, price per square foot, of the land, not house- this isn’t Beverly Hills- it matters. … Read more

At first blush, it makes no sense. Why, after so many years of a predictable pattern, are homes in excess of $4MM selling so frequently and easily in 2015? The … Read more

I took my car in to be fixed. The mechanic was nice enough, the dealership shiny and large. Emblems and logos, everywhere. I normally sit in the lounge, where they … Read more

There are old maps that were drawn by those important men who lived a long time ago in Nantucket. The maps show these entire United States, and Nantucket encompasses most … Read more

A marriage can really only work if both parties have some leeway to say things that the other person may not like, without fear of devastating reprisal. For instance. If … Read more

Back on Wednesday with all sorts of riveting commentary. For instance, did you know that all the cool people are at Lake Geneva? I spent Saturday aboard a most beautiful … Read more

The thing about real estate, the thing that we’ve discussed at great length, is that the valuations within a market are subjective, but the assessment of performance is not. This … Read more

There was a time in the town when the towns people who had chosen real estate as their profession held houses open, for the public to see. The sales people, … Read more

There are things that must be remembered on Memorial Day Weekend. First, this is a weekend to remember. Not to remember what it’s like to grill and to boat, nor … Read more

I have never bought something of relative cost without some form of regret. I bought a YETI cooler last year, mostly because I’ve always wanted one. I thought loosely about … Read more

I like the Lake Geneva Club. I like it better than its neighbors, but I like the neighbors plenty, too. The Lake Geneva Club has always been a nice mix … Read more

I do not know why the Maytag family dug out the Ceylon Lagoon, now known simply by the area that surrounds it: Big Foot Beach State Park. I don’t know … Read more

There are many reasons to sell your house. For instance, if you live in a small house and you’d really like to live in a big house, you sell the … Read more

The mighty Oak tree. For all of the moving I’ve done, and all of the land that I’ve called home, I have only owned one prized Oak tree. The trees … Read more

Many years ago, I decided to buck the most important trend in real estate salesmanship. I decided that I didn’t like every single sale. Contrary to current mass email form, … Read more

When I was in High School, Keanu Reeves came to Williams Bay for a few days. I don’t know where he stayed. I do know that he ran through the … Read more

If you are a seller of real estate, particularly the luxury brand of such, arriving at your wits end is not an uncommon scenario. Luxury real estate, by its very … Read more

When on a property tour with a buyer, whether the first time out or the fifth, I possess a relatively incredible ability to see the market through the eyes of … Read more

Fontana is not a large city. It’s not even a small city. It isn’t a town, either. It’s a village. A little, sleepy village. Sure, it has a beautiful lakefront … Read more

The first person we meet in the movie “Low and Clear” is JT Van Zandt. He has a famous father, but that’s not important. He’s calm, reserved, and he loves … Read more

There’s a new commercial on television that features a couple about to board a flight. Just before they step on, a guy carrying flowers rushes up towards them. He’s happy … Read more

Because I’m nothing if not community minded, I’ve been hard at work this year trying my best to quench the market’s thirst for new inventory on the lakefront. It’s not … Read more

In Some Town, Illinois, a Realtor is walking into his office. He’s done this every day for years, parking in his spot, walking down the sidewalk, up the steps and … Read more

For a little while, I considered buying a vacant lot in Abbey Springs. This was when I played golf often, when my game was strong and my vertebra were aligned … Read more

I liked it when I was young. Back then, I thought my parents refusal to buy me things was part of some master plan carefully engineered to teach me responsibility. … Read more

There’s very little in our way now. The ice has been turned back to water, the snow has melted, the streets have been swept clean of their winter dirt. Grass … Read more

I suppose a better person wouldn’t have to do what I have to do. But, alas, it goes something like this: Today, we must guess. Not for prize, but for … Read more

In all things, there is good and bad. Some call this the silver lining, but I’ve never seen, with these two eyes, an actual silver lining on anything. Like if … Read more

By now, everyone knows the lakefront market experienced its pricing peak in the middle of 2008. Or at least everyone should know that. What’s lesser known is that by the … Read more

In basketball, the head fake is a pretty important variety of fake. It’s usually best if accompanied by a bit of a shoulder shrug, some elevation of the tops of … Read more

Of myself, there is very little that I don’t, or that I won’t, share here. I tell you about my struggles and about my successes. I tell you of my … Read more

Earlier this year, a famous flame thrower bought a lakefront house in Fontana. The house was large. It was fancy, with a master bedroom suite to die for and the … Read more

I think it’s good that we give our Federally mandated Thanks next week. It’s good because I have had harvest decorations up around my house for a month or so, … Read more

It was still warm when everyone told us it would be cold. They said that the cold would come from the north, which is where everyone already knew it came … Read more

There’s a generally acknowledged acceptance of community. If we haven’t yet moved to a community, be it a town or a subdivision, we search for such a community populated by … Read more

A few short years ago, there was a fire. Abbey Hill, the wooden alpine-styled condominiums on the hill near the stop and sock, suffered a casualty. The cause of the … Read more

When that one guy went to Alaska to live, he chose a spot with straight trees. Had he been truly rugged, he would have chosen a plot with crooked trees, … Read more

I recognize that from time to time, or all the time, I sound like a broken record. I say the same things over and over again, disguised with different words … Read more

I readily admit that I do not understand space. I can’t fathom what it is, how large it is, and the concept that there is no end to what I … Read more

If given a choice, most people would not say that they prefer November. There’s not much to November. In the progression, August is summer. It is filled with all sorts … Read more

Times were, a condo buyer was a condo buyer. They wanted a condo because they liked the idea of having someone to handle their maintenance for them, and they weren’t … Read more

I rarely play the lottery. That’s not because I once won a huge sum of money via the lottery and now I don’t need to play the lottery, it’s just … Read more

If you pick a basket full of mulberries, you’re in luck. You have a tremendous basket full of mulberries! Your basket full will look luscious, and the contents will glisten … Read more

I’m not a big fan of the term “new school”. In the same way, I don’t like “old school”. I mean, I do like the part where Frank shoots himself … Read more

Google tells me this: Since peaking in the early 1800s, use of the word “abbey” has declined steadily and thoroughly. I would assume the television show would have caused a … Read more

My appetite for the written word isn’t as voracious as it should be. Truth is, I read lots. I read lots and lots. But I don’t read too many books, … Read more

A few months ago, or maybe it was only a few weeks ago, a home in Cedar Point sold just a bit under $1.6MM. That’s not really a big deal, … Read more

The boy and his dad. It’s sweet, really. The boy isn’t so much a boy as he is a man, old enough to be one anyway. He’s playing catch with … Read more

The SSC now has just two developer owned lots left, those at lot 6 and lot 32. Priced at $595k and $649k respectively, they are fair lots and they will … Read more

The problem with being in the real estate business is that if you’re doing it all the time you lose sight of pretty much everything else. I can remember days … Read more

There was a time when I could remember things. Back then, if you were to give me your phone number, I wouldn’t write it down, at least not right away. … Read more

I spend most of my written capital giving advice to buyers. I tell them when it’s a good time to buy, when it’s the right house to buy, when they … Read more

Boating in the summer isn’t very difficult. Neither is walking down the shore path in the morning in whichever direction offers you coffee. Sitting in a lawn chair, watching the … Read more

There are too many assumptions made in the statement that claims a rising tide lifts all ships. First off, tides are anything but stable. They are predictable, sure, but they … Read more

I could never live in a small condo in the city. My brother does this, the city living in the small condo. I don’t really know how he does it … Read more

This rain is getting to be entirely too much. I’m not a farmer, though if you caught a glimpse of my strawberry patch you might be willing to consider a … Read more

I’ll live my entire life without buying Waterworks tile. I have dabbled with buying a Waterworks faucet or two, but even in that I’ve backed off in the later innings … Read more

Last summer, on a particularly sunny, remarkably humid day, I walked into that house for the first time. It wasn’t much of a house, and the land was wide but … Read more

I once had a client refer to a million dollars as a stick. Like, a stick. A woody thing that fell or was chopped from a tree. It would have … Read more

In certain price ranges here for certain sorts of properties, the buyer doesn’t need to possess any real vision. Chances are, if you’d like a nice enough home for around … Read more

The business of making pools is, well, pretty big business. A rapidly growing segment of the pool market is in so called “natural” pools. The concept of fixing nature is … Read more

That many lakefront home buyers are already lake home owners makes a lot of sense. If I have a $4MM home for sale on the lake, I need a buyer … Read more

The lakefront market on Geneva is a strange creation. It is at once a whirlwind of activity, of showings and tours and offers and emails. It is a dizzying flurry, … Read more

The roads in Manitoba are really quite simple. Some of the roads run North and South, while the other roads run East or West. This is the entirety of the … Read more

There was a time, not all that long ago, when I bought old houses and did my best to fix them up. I can’t say that I enjoyed this, but … Read more

All homes generally do one thing well. In the game of real estate, it’s usually that one thing that makes a house valuable, or otherwise desirable to at least one … Read more

If the song is right, and the foot bone is connected to the ankle bone, which in turn is connected to the leg bone, then it shouldn’t be such a … Read more

This is either an extremely exciting week, an extremely busy week, or an extremely depressing week, a soul crushing span of five work days. In the winter, it’s easy to … Read more

It would be easy to confuse this day with any other that came before it. It’s gray in the sky and cold in the air. It’s wet underfoot. It’s snowing … Read more

No one would say that Abbey Springs is an architectural gem. I suppose that’s not entirely true, as people once bought bright blue PT Cruisers and they drove them home, … Read more

It’s raining again. Sitting in a dark house, with stone walls and large timber framing that reaches from wall to wall, exposed. There’s rain outside, pittering and pattering against the … Read more

It wouldn’t have been that hard to find me. The sun was out, the grass was growing, my orange and white Simplicity lawn tractor had at least fifty cents of … Read more

When a market is down, I have absolutely no problem kicking it. I also don’t like to make excuses for market segments, as I’d rather try to identify the problems … Read more

I am not in the business of manufacturing. I do not make anything, I do not warehouse anything. I do sell something, and I do so through a network of … Read more

It’s sad when it’s only the 22nd day of the new year and one of my most important predictions has already been proven untrue. The lakefront inventory, I supposed, would … Read more

There are times when a one week vacation is exactly what the doctor ordered. These are times when we are especially tired, especially cold, especially bored, or especially interested in … Read more

I think I miss those old days. Back when a foreclosure was a rare, mostly unspoken thing, back when no one knew much about the procedure except for hardened, narrow … Read more

There are trout streams in Iowa. They snake through the hills of Iowa’s Driftless, emptying mostly into each other and then into the Mississippi, pushing south and collecting all sorts … Read more

Apparently I bought one of those cameras that only adds 20 pounds to the oldest male in the picture…

For as long as there have been economists, there have been those who tell us that owning a home is a bad investment. This is a popular point of view … Read more

Cars. They get us where we’re going. They haul things where those things need to go. They can wrap the driver in luxury, cradling them in the softest of leather … Read more

I was going to write about the Chicago Tribune’s ridiculous attempt at “discovering” the Lake Geneva dining scene, but I’d rather not. It should be enough to mention that they … Read more

What a wonderful legacy it is to leave a Lake Geneva vacation home to your heirs. This lake is dotted with such properties, be those large sprawling estates or simple … Read more

Earlier this year, I decreed that we should no longer look back at YTD figures from the hellish years of 2009 and 2010. I said that we weren’t going to … Read more

I had this impressive stack of firewood delivered last June. My wood guy delivered the cut oak and dropped it in a pile at the top of my gravel driveway. … Read more

On a cloudless day, the summer sort that make even the most ornery people feel like considering a smile, there is little reason to walk onto a pier and romanticize … Read more

There are many things in the works today, and not one of them is deserving of an entire post, so consider this an odds and ends update of sorts, which … Read more

Sam Zell, facilitator of many great real estate deals and at least one very, very bad newspaper deal, recently spoke of the real estate market. He told the interviewer that … Read more

Five days a week I drop my two kids, aged 10 and 7, off at school. My thoughtful son, intent on pleasing both his teachers and his parents, gathers his … Read more