There are certain things that I know without the slightest inkling of doubt. I know that summer days are best spent lakeside. I know it, you know it, remote villages in Africa know it. I know that pick up trucks should not be lifted as high as the pick up truck at the gas station right now is lifted. You can’t know this, but you’ll need to trust me on this one. It’s just too high. I also know that when a charming cottage in the Lake Geneva Club is listed for $600k it’s going to sell pretty quickly. These things are all different but all the same. They are summer-time truths.
You knew I’d sell this cottage. It wasn’t just my intuition. It was obvious. Yet, the first few buyers who looked at it didn’t find it to be an ideal fit. So the property sat on market for a bit longer than I would have thought, and last Friday it sold. $592k for cottage perfection, a boat slip, a large double lot, and easy access into the Lake Geneva scene. The property doesn’t require much explanation, it’s just an easy cottage in mint condition with a transferable slip and membership to a fantastic lakefront association. Beginning, middle, and end of story.
But the property does give us some insight into the broader market, and that insight should be shared. I sold this cottage in 2013 for $525k. If you’ll recall, our markets in 2013 were in decent shape, but activity was much less intense than it is today. The price recovery had begun, but only modestly. I’d guess that by the summer of 2013 the broad Lake Geneva vacation home market was 10-15% above the cycle lows. With a fresh sale at $592k, we can ascertain that the market has risen roughly 15% since that date in 2013. If we assume that the market was perhaps 15% better in 2013 than it was at the bottom of 2011, then we’re looking at a 30% increase from the bottom of our market to where we find ourselves today.
If we go a step further and remember that our market was knocked off 30-40% between the high of 2008 and the bottom of 2011, then it’s not a stretch to say we’re within 10% of our prior cycle highs. That’s not a universal truth, but it’s a pretty decent data point considering the history of this individual sale. The reason this particular sale is a decent indicator is because the cottage, while maintained, was not significantly upgraded over those years. If I show you a sale from 2013 of an old house and then show you the same fully remodeled house selling in 2017, that’s not a very good data point as the property itself was not merely riding the market wave, it was forcing an increased valuation due to the work that was completed.
Today, there are only two homes for sale priced under $748k with transferable boatslips. That’s remarkable, really. To make matters worse, both of those slips are far from ideal. So what’s next? What does this segment of our market do now? Well, likely nothing. Entry level lakefront inventory is light, which means the owners of a lake access home with slip don’t really have any immediate upgrade option tugging at them. Without that option to upgrade, the only people selling will be those who are no longer wishing to own a Lake Geneva vacation home.
A big thank you to the seller who let me represent them both in this sale and in their upgraded home purchase. And a big congratulations to the new buyer, who finally gets to look forward to the weekend.