I suppose there can be an initial struggle between lakefront and lake access, between similar price points and similar structures in completely dissimilar geographic locations. If a buyer is looking to spend $650,000 on a vacation home, this is a terrific budget to find all sorts of housing treasures, no matter where you’re searching. In sections of New York City it may afford you a studio garden apartment. In the suburbs of Nashville it will allow you to purchase the biggest home on the block. And in Lake Geneva, that sum of money will generally afford you either one of three things: Either a lake access home near the lake with a possible, slight view. Or, a lake access home up from the lake a ways with a boat slip. Or, a quite beautiful association home a long distance from the water without nary a slip or a view in sight. This is what Geneva around $650k looks like. And this, for some novice vacation home hunters, is a problem.
It’s a problem because the same budget, loaded into a surprisingly small suitcase and transported either North or West or East, but mostly some variation of North, will provide ample funds to purchase a home right smack dab on a lake. Pure lakefront living is quite divine, and most of us know this whether we are small children or very old adults. When lakefront is in grasp, we’re programmed to seize it, and if it isn’t in grasp, then we’re supposed to get as close to it as is possible. This is why you’d rather live on the East side of Highland Park rather than the West side. We like water, and that’s just the way it is. And this can become problematic for water lovers who are also saddled with this $650k budget.
Can I tell you, statistically what most buyers in the $500k-$650k price range do? Of course I can. If the buyer has an eye on Walworth County, because that’s the county that is closest to Chicago and lots of water without first having to subject yourself to the horrors of an I80 East trip, then the odds are that this buyer will choose lakefront on another lake here versus lake access on Geneva. It’s true. Buyers actually buy lakefront homes on other lakes because lakefront is just tempting, no matter the lake. This is why my brother drove 5 hours last week to rent a shabby home on a shallow lake. Never mind the old carpet and the old television, and never mind that he could walk out into the lake 250′ or more and still be standing in waste deep water, and never mind that his children now look like victims of a most severe variety of chicken pox due to the chiggers that ate their young skin while swimming in that shallow lake, this was a lakefront property and so this is where my brother vacationed. For his shame, and ours.
These buyers that choose lakefront elsewhere over lake access here are focusing on water frontage. They’re focusing on the location of the home first, and the lake second. This is like picking a car because you like the color and the way the sunlight glints off the chrome trim, rather than checking on whether or not the car actually possesses an engine. This is like buying a pair of pants only because they look nice in the store window. This is like proposing marriage because the girl wore a pony tail on your first date and you are many things but chiefly you are a pony tail connoisseur. Buying a lakefront on any lake purely on the merits of that property being, indeed, a lakefront, is a horrible thing to do. Just writing it makes me feel sad.
If I’m looking at Geneva, and I’m looking between $450k and $650k, here are my options. They are varied, yes, and some are very close to the water while others are relatively far from it. Remember, in the context of lake access homes “far from the water” still means geographically close, but it may mean the distance between a walk that looks like a sandaled saunter and a walk that involves lacing shoes and stretching first. There are homes wedged in tight to lake access associations, where borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbor is less a question and more an expectation, and there are homes in associations where your neighbors are trees and birds and deer and little else. There are options here, but they are housing options that exist only on the margins as the key to the focus is the lakefront. The lake. The access route and the pier layout, and the position of the pier on the lake- sunset or sunrise views or both? Is there a slip, and if so, how big is it? Is there a buoy, which would be great because I assume we’re all either sailors in practice or sailors by desire. And, oh right, what does the house look like?
This should be our thought pattern. If we can find a lake access home that affords that magical private access to that great big lake, then we’re so far ahead of the game relative to our friends who focus only on lakefront no matter the lake. If I were to dig a one acre pond on my property, and then subdivide off two small lots facing that pond, and I built a little miniature pier out of popsicle sticks, it isn’t a stretch to promise you that someone would buy those lots. They’d do so because I’d advertise them as LAKEFRONT!!, and I’d use those two exclamation marks to push anyone who was on the fence into making a purchase decision. Lakefront is lakefront, and if we’re buying it on Geneva then there’s simply no better place to be. However, if we’re constrained by budget, I’m here to promise you that lake access on Geneva beats the absolute living tar out of lakefront elsewhere.