I am officially the worst blogger ever. I just don’t think about it enough, as is evident by the fact that my last post was in August! I’ve been noticing some other real estate blogs that focus on the Lake Geneva area, and I’m a bit disenchanted by them. I thought a blog was supposed to be some insight into the market, not a place to post new listings… I’ll bet I get in trouble for that. Anyway, here’s your market update.
Slow. In a word, that’s how things are right now. Slow, but not dead. Geneva is a resilient market, with affluent sellers butting heads with affluent buyers. Prices rarely drop here, they just stay the same. So a seller who want’s $2MM for his place right now, isn’t likely to accept a $1.5MM bid for it. He’s likely to wait six months, or a year, or two years until he gets his $2MM. It’s a power struggle, and sellers usually win in this secondary market.
There are exceptions, and this market right now as plenty of value to offer most buyers. The key is to have a broker who’s smart enough to identify those values, so you don’t buy the wrong property for the wrong price. I’ve been doing this full time for 12 years now, and I’d like to think I have a pretty good handle on what is and what isn’t a good buy right now. For the right buyer, with wisdom and solid information, there are deals to be had.
One constant with most slow markets is a rise in inventory. Inventory county wide is indeed up from previous years, but let’s look at the inventory that drives this real estate machine- the lakefront inventory on Geneva. A whopping total of 13 homes are for sale on the lake right now. 13! And a couple of those are in the South Shore Club, and a couple others are in Glenwood Springs, without true lakefrontage. In other words, there’s nothing for sale. Must be a real tough economic setting if none of these lakefront owners need to sell! Here’s the link to view every available lakefront home on Geneva (cut and paste the url)…
http://public.mlswis.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?20080104184349254072000000&id=1
In the mean time, come up to the Lake for a weekend and take a look around. You just might find the home that will be in your family for generations to come. Summer 2008 will be here sooner than you think.