In a way, it would be easier to do this job if I didn’t have any experience. If I just started selling real estate in the last decade, maybe because I was terrible at it in the Chicago suburbs and decided to move here to try my hand at this market, or maybe because I just came to the business later in life, I think things would be easier today. Without any memory of what markets act like when they’re not on fire, selling would be a cinch. Without historical context, every house is a good deal, every listing priced just right. What a world that would be. Alas, I cannot live in that world because I’m old now and the facilities that are slipping do not yet include my memory.
A house in Cedar Point Park for $1.4M, a long ways from the water with a generational waiting list between you and a boat slip? A newer agent might think that sounds right. I tour the house and think about how this house was $449k in 2019 and even then it felt expensive. A brand new house for a ton of money in an otherwise less than desirable association? Why not, says everyone. I think about the association and how no one wanted to be there before because of one reason or four others, and now no one cares. Remember the things!? I shout as I fade into the background. A house in Geneva National next to a corn field with vinyl windows and a Hot Point refrigerator for $1.2M? I shake my head thinking of a world where ugly ranches are now over one million US dollars. The world has changed.
But the market still makes some sense, except when it doesn’t. Right now there’s a unique phenomenon in our off-water upper end lake access market, and that phenomenon is in direct opposition to a trend that I have been keen to point out here over the years. The trend, or the theory, is that the higher quality lake access market is priced in direct correlation to the lakefront market. Specifically, the entry level lakefront market. If there’s nothing to buy on the lake for $4M or less, then the $3M off water home with slip is quite liquid, and quite desirable. That’s been the case for the last several years, but the theory has hit an interesting snag of late. In the spring of 2023 there were several off-water listings that listed at $3M+. Back then, entry level lakefront was still predictably priced around $3M, and there was some inventory here and there that would prove that price structure. The larger, off water homes in the low to mid $3s came to market during times of entry level drought, and caught bids. The theory that this segment closely followed the entry level lakefront market was so intact that the price gap between these two segments was quite narrow. This theory held up during 2023 and into 2024.
But in 2024 something happened. The entry level lakefront market continued its inventory drought, even as the off-water upper end offered inventory, and the market yawned. The lowest priced home on the water was $4.5M, yet the off water home with slip at $3M failed to sell. The two markets began to break their correlation. Fast forward to the fall of 2025, and the markets have separated in a more significant manner. Consider a home originally listed just under $3.4M in the spring of 2023 in The Lindens. I was pleased to represent the buyer of that home in a transaction that occurred last week at $2.395M. A spec house in Oak Shores came to market just under $3M earlier this year and even though the entry level lakefront market was devoid of opportunity, that home had to suffer a multitude of meaningful price cuts before it ultimately secured a buyer. A home in Academy Estates that was listed near $3M last fall and was then re-listed by me this summer at $2.795M is pending sale to a buyer at a number that is substantially lower than the 2024 ask. If the market connectivity that I’ve written about so frequently here was still intact, these sales shouldn’t be occurring at these lower levels.
The market looks like it’s ripping across all segments right now, and in pockets, it is. A parkway home in Cedar Point in the mid $3s is pending, even as entry level homes in Dartmouth Woods with private piers and canopied shore stations lag. In a market where value can be hard to identify, this disconnect just might represent value for buyers seeking to occupy this high quality, off water segment. Welcome to Lake Geneva, where things don’t always make sense.