Congress Club Market Update

I’ve lived most of my life in the shadow of the Congress Club. Not a figurative shadow mind you, rather a literal one. The lakefront home where I enjoyed my spoiled (in terms of lakefront lifestyle, not material possessions) youth is a mere three lots north of the Congress Club. The Club consists of 10 homes that share a 7 acre parcel of land, with over 300′ of lake frontage on Geneva. The location, tucked just to the North of Conference Point, lends itself to calm waters as the canopy of trees on the point shield most of the prevailing southwest summer winds. The association is bucolic times ten, with white clapboard (unfortunately many have been resided with aluminum or even, gasp, choke… vinyl), set off with green roofs and rather simple two story cottage designs. The homes are far from elaborate, though many of the original ones do have some fine interior features that generate plenty of compliments for their owners.

The Congress Club is a leasehold ownership situation, so like the Harvard Club and Belvidere Park, you don’t actually get a deed to the property. In this co-op style ownership there is also no financing allowed, unless you’re able to secure some form of chattel mortgage that would rely solely on a personal guarantee and not on the collateralization of the real estate. That said, I’m not an attorney, so if you’re checking into the Congress Club, be sure to get some solid legal advice to make sure you’re comfortable with the requirements and relative limitations.

Restrictions aside, the Congress Club oozes charm. Aside from the Chicago Club- a model of the Congress Club on steroids- there is nothing else like it on the lake. Inventory is always low, but unlike Belvidere Park and the Harvard Club, properties do seem to turn with some regularity. If a Congress Club cottage is available on the open market once every 10 years, that’s still far more common that seeing a Harvard Club listing during the same span. I remember showing property in the Congress Club soon after I started selling real estate in 1996. The lakefront cottage on the southern end was for sale, with a list price of $599,500. It ultimately sold in 1998 for $550k. Soon after, a cottage further towards the middle of the development, but still on the south side, sold for $310k. Today that cottage has been torn down and rebuilt and is currently on the market at $1.775MM. The cottage up front that sold for $550k is pending a sale that is supposed to happen this week, and while I don’t yet know the price of the sale, the owner was asking $1.6MM for it (ads that you undoubtedly saw in Crain’s).

Now that I’ve sufficiently stroked the Congress Club, it’s time to play devil’s advocate. The Congress Club is charming and wonderful and leafy and pretty, but at the current prices, it makes very little sense unless you’re so enamored with the easy charm of an 1800’s lakefront club that you’re helpless against its advances. There are currently two cottages available, one at $1.775MM (essentially brand new), and the other at $1.3MM. For my money, I’m only interested in the one listed at $1.3MM. The other one is too new, and not of a caliber or location that I’d want to spend anywhere near $1.775MM to own. Even the other property at $1.3MM, in spite of the soon to be consumated sale of the “on-water” cottage, seems heavy to me. As with most of my pricing theory as it affects lake access properties on Geneva, it all comes back to what the entry level lakefront market is doing.

No matter how lakefront like the Congress Club seems, it’s not lakefront. If given the chance to own private frontage with your own pier and your own lawn and the ability to park your car right next to your house (Congress Club has a parking lot), 97 out of 100 people would choose the private frontage. It’s freeing, plus you can mortgage the property should you choose, and no one else is sunbathing on your private pier. I respect the Congress Club immensely, but I can’t say that unless prices come down to the very low $1MM’s that I’m a fan of it. I base that off of the existence of deals on the lake involving private lakefront homes right now that can possibly be bought in the $1.25MM to $1.35MM range. If that outlay buys me private frontage, why would I spend the same to be part of a club with shared frontage?

Listen, I love the Congress Club. I love walking by it and I loved steering my remote control cars in its parking lot when I was a kid. It’s everything that a classic lakefront association should be, and more than I could personally ever dream of owning. That said, the prices have to come in line with the market. If there are buyers paying the higher asking prices that are present today, there’s at least a very good chance that it won’t be one of the buyers that trusts me for advice.