Real estate markets are decidedly unfair. If you’re the sort that understands real estate markets, then you know that it’s the buyers who might act unfair, seeing as how the buyer is the market. While sales like my Belvidere Park property leave all parties with wide smiles and well slapped backs, sales like last Fridays Hunt Club Lane property produce more sighs of relief than resounding proclamations of success. After the Belvidere Park closing on Friday, I headed over to Lake Geneva for a quick lunch (I’d plug the Grandview here, but they refused to advertise in my magazine…) and the closing of a listing that I had had for sale for far too long. N1880 Hunt Club Lane was a unique piece of property, but I unfortunately was only able to find a buyer willing to pay $625k for this home that had, at one point, been listed for as much as $865k. If Belvidere Park had me feeling like a success, Hunt Club Lane brought me back to the cold reality of a market that is still heavily weighted in favor of the buyer.
I originally listed this property for $839k this spring (it had been for sale previously with another broker for the higher price), and found the unique nature of the property wasn’t as appealing to the market as I had hoped it would be. The home was contemporary in design, though not so contemporary as to feel cold and unwelcoming. I found the design a sufficient mix of a design that was obviously of European influence with some attributes, like fir floors, that would be easily at home in an old Lake Geneva cottage. The lot was impressive, with 2+ acres of dense woods, and a winding drive that provides access for only a handful of owners who live on the lane. While the design was unique in a subjective way, there was nothing debatable about the quality of the lakerights. The property boasted a fully transferable deep water slip, which it should be noted, is called a “deep water slip” in something akin to a chef writing “roasted woodland prairie raised rabbit”- in other words, it just makes it sound more special.
In traditional associations, the term “lakerights” generally means there are a group of homes, sometimes as many as 200, that have access to a private, association owned lakefront. In the case of the Hunt Club Lane property, the home that I sold for a meager $625k actually had 1/3 ownership in the lakefront parcel that hosts the pier. So, instead of having only access to the lakefront, this home actually owned it. Strangely, this significant ownership meant little to the market place, and buyers were unwilling to reward us for our ownership interest in that private lakefront lot. Fair? Not really. A free market determining value? Absolutely.
Last Friday, I met with the owners for lunch, and took them to the closing. They were pleased to move on from the vacation home, as some health concerns had made visits to the lake too infrequent over recent years. At the closing, attorneys worked and others chatted, though underneath my mindless blabbing I felt subdued knowing that I wasn’t able to get this seller as much for their property as I had hoped to. While the upper tier lake access market has been full of activity over recent weeks, and our sale was a direct beneficiary of that increased buyer traffic, I’m certain that the unique, modestly contemporary design of this home was what held it back from fully realizing the potential value. If I just had a cottage with a fieldstone fireplace and worn white trim in those woods with those lakerights, I think $750k would have been an achievable price. Instead, one architects custom masterpiece didn’t appeal to a traditionally minded buying pool in spite of the fabulous lakerights.
I remain appreciative to the sellers of this fine home for the trust they placed in me, and only wish I was able to find them a buyer willing to pay a higher price. While the $625k sale might not seem fair, it is now the market price, and while list prices are subject to the whim and fancy of sellers everywhere, there is nothing subjective about a sale price.