Just like the broader vacation home market at Lake Geneva, the lakefront market statistics are not in line with the lakefront market activity. Yet. The lakefront market as of this morning appears to have just one single family home pending sale, with 34 other true lakefront homes available ($1.495MM to $7.95MM). For the sake of this post, I am excluding the South Shore Club, as the SSC has a little literary rear end kick coming later this week or the next. The lakefront showing activity continues to be significant, with dozens of active lakefront buyers on the hunt for their perfect vacation home right now. If those buyers can find the motivation that can only come from the thought of a lake-less summer, perhaps the sold statistics will more accurately reflect the actual activity over the next 6 weeks.
Housing on a national level has suffered over the last couple of years from increased inventory totals, and even though foreclosures and REO’s rule the day, if we could shrink the housing supply on a national level, we could do a great job at continuing some nascent housing momentum that has been slowly building. What plagues the national market is also what plagues the Lake Geneva lakefront market, just not in the way that you think. We’ve been needing new lakefront inventory for the past 12 months, and in the last week, we’ve been given some additional inventory to sell. This brick and mortar manna has come at just the right time, though we could indeed use a little more of it. With just 34 true lakefront homes on the market today, I’d love to see three or four new lakefronts in the $2MM to $3MM range hit the market over the next 5 weeks.
In the past week, there have been three new lakefront listings, and while one is a retread from last year (at a better price though), the two others are brand new offerings. They’re both relatively modest homes on beautiful lots, and both have a shot at selling in the near future. Both offer nice estate settings, and for a buyer looking to build a new lakefront castle (or cottage), either parcel would be a marvelous choice.
Traditionally, the lakefront market does quite well during April and May, but with April almost over and only one lakefront sale pending for the month, May is really going to have to come through in a big way. I’m not going to be angry with April though, as I’d trade fewer sales for more sunshine any time. A little known lull in the market arrives in early June, as we enter the dreaded wedding and graduation season. June is the month when it seems that everyone is either coming from, or going to a wedding and/or graduation. In the deep south, those two events may indeed occur on the same day. Sorry deep south friends, I couldn’t help it.
With Memorial Day weekend commencing a mere 4 weeks from Friday, it’s not hyperbole to say that you better get yourself in gear before you outsmart yourself into losing another summer. As a guy who tends to think in a fatalistic fashion, I’ve already purposed myself to live this summer as though it were my last. What horrible foreshadowing it would be if it indeed were my last, but at least when you’re reading my obituary on the front page of the Tribune you could shake your head, and while wiping away a steady stream of tears, eek out …“he told us this was going to happen”. Either way, this summer is the most important summer or our lives. It starts in four weeks, and in those four weeks there’s still plenty of time to identify value and sign up for a lifetime of Lake Geneva summers. See you at the lake.