Geneva National Market Update

I think the Pursuit is the finest center console boat made today. The Boston Whaler gets a larger share of the spotlight, but the beam of a Whaler Outrage is a bit too narrow for my tastes. Grady White makes a seaworthy boat, but the rise of the bow is a tad too aggressive, to say nothing of the fact that their overall design hasn’t changed since the Truman administration. A Yellowfin is impressive and obviously built for speed, but the profile is a bit short, if I am being forced to find a fault. So it leaves us with the Pursuit, the boat of choice, the boat that is my choice, the boat that I already own and the boat that I thought about buying last week.

I just said I already have a Pursuit. Sure it’s older and it smokes a lot, but it’s mine and it’s fine. The new boat, the one that caught my eye during a random Ebay episode, was like mine but better in every imaginable way. It was bigger, brighter, fancier, and where my boat has just one engine this boat had two. It was a boat that would sell for around $130k brand new, and the day I saw it the price was bid to only $10k. It was a bank repo, which meant, to me, that the price might stall and I might be the high bidder at a price that would obligate me to wear a black ski mask when setting up the wire. I was determined to wait and bid if the boat wanted to sell for $25k. If I couldn’t afford it, I figured I could always sell it for a handsome profit. I thought about this boat often last week.

I watched the bids creep slowly toward the $20k mark. No matter, I still had room. Then, in one unfortunate move, the price moved immediately and unexpectedly to $35k. My boat dreams were over. Crestfallen, I assured myself that it didn’t matter. I still had a boat. It smokes a lot, but what difference does that make? So I chug on like an old whaling ship, it’s no big deal. I didn’t need that big boat. I wasn’t even looking for a boat. I had no business even pretending to be in the market for that big, beautiful boat, but sometimes, like this time, price was everything and a discount was able to make a buyer out of me.

This is what it’s like to be in Geneva National these days. A foreclosed on home hit the market two weeks ago for $185,900. I sold a two bedroom condo in GN once that might have measured 1000 square feet for $188k. This home, with five bedrooms and a two car attached garage and a pool was less than that two bedroom upper Fairway unit. A buyer of mine who had been looking in Country Club Estates was excited by the price of that new offering, and a week later that buyer who had never previously been inside the wooden gates of Geneva National was under contract to buy that large home with a pool and some rather off-putting pink Aztek inspired wallpaper.

If buyers in search of vacation homes here aren’t at least considering GN, they are doing themselves a disservice. Having lived in GN over many years, I retain a fondness for the development even in spite of its market difficulties. Some view those difficulties as a warning, I view those difficulties as an exciting and rare opportunity to wrestle value out of a slow market. Lots in Geneva National that were once $150k are currently poised to trade for $30k. Condominiums that were $300k are now able to sell in the $180k range. And homes, like the Aztek wallpaper house with the pool, that were once valued in the $400k range are now set to sell for sub-$200k. I realize not everyone is a buyer, but at valuations that can exceed 50% off previous market highs, don’t we at least owe it to ourselves to take a look?

There are still trouble spots in GN that I wouldn’t touch with the longest of borrowed poles. Any condominium enclave that isn’t sold out is one that I would avoid. I don’t like the possible price reductions that can occur in those sorts of situations. If a development has 100 units, and 80 of them are left unsold, it’s obvious to us now that the first 20 buyers paid too much. And after a serious round of price cuts, the next 20 buyers in will feel as though they’ve achieved some great discount off of retail. After all, the first 20 buyers are the ones who paid too much. What is forgotten in this scenario is what happens to the next 20 deals, and the 20 after that? Developers can and will continue to cut prices to attract buyers, and buyers who pay prices that they perceive to reflect significant discounts are merely setting themselves up to be undercut in the future by even deeper discounts. This is why I’m avoiding developments that host units still held by the developing group unless there are fewer than 15% of the total units left. This is a good rule of thumb to abide by whether the real estate is in Geneva National or the Gold Coast, or Naples.

Geneva National will slowly attract more attention as 2012 wears on, but that attention won’t necessarily come from dedicated GN buyers. It’ll come from buyers who view GN like I viewed that Pursuit. Sure they won’t need a condo or a townhome there, but if some seller is willing to bend over backwards to entice an offer, how can opportunistic buyers resist? Today there are 83 condominiums and homes on the market in GN. Not all represent value, in fact, most do not. But there is value on that list, and I’m happy to point you in the right direction.

About the Author

I'm David Curry. I write this blog to educate and entertain those who subscribe to the theory that Lake Geneva, Wisconsin is indeed the center of the real estate universe. When I started selling real estate 27 years ago I did so of a desire to one day dominate the activity in the Lake Geneva vacation home market. With over $800,000,000 in sales since January of 2010, that goal is within reach. If I can help you with your Lake Geneva real estate needs, please consider me at your service. Thanks for reading.

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