The entry level lakefront market is a perplexing little market. On one hand, it’s obvious that a cheap lakefront on Geneva will always find an audience. This is unavoidable. On the other hand, the inventory is slight in this segment and yet there have been two entry level lakefront homes toiling under $1.4MM for much of this year and nearly for all of last. In the same segment, a new lakefront was listed last week and has since gone under contract (I’m not involved in the transaction). Not only is the new home in the same segment, it’s on the same street, and it sold without much ado even as the other two sit. This bothers me, but it proves the market absolutely loves new inventory and at the same time finds something distasteful about aged inventory, no matter what benefits the aged inventory can offer. New inventory good, old inventory bad, or so the market proves.
Last month the wide frontage on Basswood closed for $3.55MM. Lest you think this was some amazing, full depth Basswood lot, I assure you that it wasn’t as ideal as it first sounds. The property was wide at the lake, beautiful indeed, but the lot angled back to a sliver as it headed towards Basswood. Compare this to my listing on Basswood (more money, granted) that runs a complete rectangle from lake to Basswood, full of old deciduous growth. Still, the lot that sold is nice and the house could very well be renovated. I’ll be curious to see if there’s a sizable renovation there, or just a lipstick renovation, or if the structure follows the well worn path towards demolition. Time will tell.
That sale was the seventh lakefront this year to print at or over $2.75MM. Not coincidentally, of those seven sales, I represented either buyer or seller in five of them, including the three highest priced sales of 2016. Last year at this time we had closed just four lakefronts at or over $2.75MM, so there’s little doubt that the market at the higher end has much more strength now than it did before. As I wrote last week, what this upper bracket markets wants now is more inventory. We can’t sell what we don’t have available, and so there are buyers on the hunt and increasingly less game in the field. My large lakefront in Fontana is under contract, leaving just 11 lakefronts priced over $3MM for sale. Of those, two or three of them are in no danger of selling, perhaps ever. The highest priced listing to grace our lakefront this year has just been reduced from $16.45MM to $14.5MM.
And that brings us back to the entry level market and the lesson of the week. In this lower inventory environment, new inventory will always be met with excitement. Sellers who are thinking of waiting until next spring to list their lakefront home are doing themselves a disservice by not taking advantage of the market conditions that exist today. Why trade the relative certainty of today for the complete uncertainty of some time far into the future? The thing is, even with this low inventory environment, there are deals to be had. There are aged bits of inventory that look appealing to me, but that’s because I’m value driven and I know that just because the market hasn’t been excited by a property that doesn’t mean there isn’t value hidden under all those days on market. Below and above, my Basswood estate listing.
https://youtu.be/bA2iU_Vo07M