There were three Lake Geneva vacation home sales this week, so that’s something. The lake access market is humming along, doing quite nicely, but seemingly content to just be okay. While the lakefront market is on a serious tear (with potentially two new contracts written in just the past couple days), the lake access market is certainly not without activity, but it isn’t all that inspiring. Even so, we mustn’t compare siblings for fear of giving one a complex and another a big head, so for now we’ll just pretend that each segment is doing just fine. You’re all winners!
Coincidentally, the cheapest sale from last week was my absolute favorite. I think I’m mentioned before how much I used to loath modern stylings. I didn’t like anything that looked even remotely like contemporary design, and this was true for me from birth until roughly four years ago. Today, I like modern design done well, and I can’t think of anything more fun than a pure, accurate, modern design. There’s a modern home in the 700 Club that I absolutely adore, but it isn’t for sale and I don’t know the people, so it isn’t like I’ve ever peeked inside the giant shade-less windows. Of course I haven’t done that.
So modern style I like, and Brookwood I like too, so when the two meet I find that I like the components well enough but I like the sum of their parts even better. What could be better than an affordable (closed at $245k), modern home with really cool space in a fun lake access association on Fontana’s southern shore? Few things, but when you consider there was some sort of bomb shelter in the backyard of this home, now you’d really have to spend some time searching to find anything better. At least now we all know to go in December when the earth loses its gravitational boundaries.
That Brookwood sale I liked, and aside from my sale in Oakwood Estates and the other one in the Loch Vista Club, I don’t think there has been an entry level lake access sale that I’ve liked more. It should be noted that I, with tremendous shame, did not represent the buyer nor the seller in this deal. For that matter, I didn’t represent the buyer or seller in the deal in Country Club Estates that closed this week either. That sale on Forest for $277k was a fine sale, but nothing that deserves more than a few sentences this morning. I guess it should be celebrated whenever a seller sells for $277k after having paid just $295k for a home in 2006. You know, 2006, the peak of our market here. Homes in Country Club Estates that lack finishes, economy, or location (perchance view), don’t do much for me. They fit our market needs, but only in the way that a wrestler who is pinned with a leg twisted behind a shoulder might knock on the mat. Country Club Estates in this price range for a normal house is fine, but it always strikes me as a bit of a tap out move. Uncle!
The last sale was on Pine Tree Lane, which as far as I can tell, looks to be a lane with just a few Pine Trees. So there aren’t so many pine trees that the name fits, and there isn’t a complete lack of pine trees to make the street name somehow ironic. Anyway, the house that sold had been on the market for a long, long time. It finally sold, this week, for $635k. There’s no slip there, but there’s a view, and the house in light of my Aweogon sale for $610k last month makes some sense in the marketplace. It should be noted, in all the time that this home was on the market, I never once showed it. That should tell you most of what you need to know about how I felt about that sort of home in that sort of location with that sort of price. It just wasn’t my thing, but it’ll be a great big home with a beautiful view for the new buyer, and for that we should all be happy.
There is still plenty of value in the lake access market. Some listings are getting cheap. My five bedroom on Upper Loch Vista is down to $399k, so that’s worth a good look. The listing that I lost on Oak Shores (for $675k at the time…..) is now re-listed and down to $549k, so that property just replaced a ranch in the Lake Geneva Club as my favorite value with a slip in this market. That’s a rare number for that sort of an association, and it should be seized by someone, soon. There are other values as well, and there might be no better way to discover these different properties than by just sending me a quick email right now.