I should, at this date in summer, be doing little but plodding through my work days and enjoying what I know to be a very short summer. I should work and play, play and work. Rinse in the lake, repeat. Nothing more, nothing less. Instead, I’m finding myself enjoying this summer, to be sure, swimming more and boating more than I have in recent years, but I’m also working far too much. Because of this, I am looking forward to fall. But who could do such a thing, especially when fall probably won’t have football or school and everything will be terrible then, just as it is now? This is the summer of my discontent, no matter what the sales record might suggest.
In the past two weeks, I’ve placed three lakefronts under contract. The nicer lakefront on Lackey Lane ($4.575M ask) is pending sale to a client of mine, only after a bidding war. The lakefront on Geneva Oaks ($6.195M ask) is pending to a buyer client of mine. And my lakefront on North Lakeshore Drive ($6.575M ask) is pending sale after barely a week on market. Aside from my personal activity, there was a new listing in Cedar Point ($4.1M ask) that hit the market and sold within a day or two, maybe three. The sorta-lakefront in Trinke’s ($1.8something ask) found a buyer last week, and several other lakefronts are fielding offers. It’s an all-out frenzy at the lake, which doesn’t make sense unless you understand that people like incredible places and incredible houses and they like the security that comes with a liquid market.
The danger for the market now is simple. And by “the market” I mean “the buyers” present in it today. There are bunches of them. Heaps, really. And those buyers are going to follow one of two paths. They’re either going to be whipped up by the summer market and the summer sun and those blue, soft waves, only to return to the city or suburbs in the fall and table their Lake Geneva aspirations. Or, they’re going to return to their normal lives and remember to stay keyed in to the Lake Geneva market (by working with me, duh). They’re either going to step back and stay engaged. There is no in-between. In this binary decision there will be winners and losers, but who is who won’t be super obvious until next summer. If you’re engaged now but you let the season dictate your engagement level, you’re going to lose. You’re going to miss out on the properties you could buy in October because it’s no longer June. You’re going to miss out when I tell you in January to come up quickly to view a new listing. And when next Memorial Day comes you’re going to be in the exact place you were this Memorial Day: at home. Or worse, in someone else’s VRBO, wondering if you can order a new mattress before bedtime because this one has blood stains on it.
It’ll take effort to stay engaged through late summer and into fall and then beyond fall and into winter. The romance won’t be there in November like it is in July. That’s why you’re going to have to stay disciplined. This market doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t take the winter off. It constantly moves and churns and spins and squirms. It’s a market for all seasons. If you’re a buyer for summer only, you’re going to miss out on the opportunities to come, and that won’t really bother me as much as it’s going to bother you.
Above, my listing at N1963 Birches Drive, $4.19M. Still available, for now.