Times were, late October had its own feel. Outside, it had a feel, sure, but that’s temperature related and not real estate related. Except back then, those two things were mostly the same. Colder temperatures meant fewer buyers, and fewer buyers meant more Ramen for the Realtors. Under the summer sun, buyers abounded. They do now, as they did back then. Buyers boated and then buyers bought, and they repeated this courtship time and time again, back then. October was a month of transition, when buyers stopped coming to the lake, and when they stopped making the drive they stopped making the buy. November was a month of dread, of dead trees and raked up leaves. December was different, too, but similarly dead. Snowy dead is still, as they say, dead. These are no longer those times.
If you’re nostalgic for these times, when a resort town truly became a shuttered resort town, at least for the bulk of the months when the water wasn’t warm enough to swim in, you can still find it. This phenomenon happens everywhere, in Door County and in the entirety of Michstakegan. Oh, you think Harbor Springs is super great? Take a trip up in January, where the determination of whether the trip was a success or not revolves solely around whether or not you, or anyone in your party, died by snow or by cold or purely of a lonely heart. Most resort towns still shut down, saving all of their energy for their super short summer weeks. If we were all billionaires, we wouldn’t mind having a summer home that could only be used for two months. In fact, if we were billionaires, we’d only visit for two weeks during that two month window, because we have places to be and many people to see.
Alas, we are not billionaires, and we are not patrons of those places that close. Geneva, it doesn’t close. It wouldn’t think of indulging such limited seasonry. That’s why the way things were are no longer the way they are. The old rules of seasonal real estate no longer apply. This day, this glorious late October day, the market is as it was in spring, which is as it was in summer, which is as it was on those cold days in January: Active. I cannot pretend to understand the thinking process of my seasonal-vacation-home-seeking-ancestors, I can only tell you what I see today. What do I see? I see a market that doesn’t care about the weather or the calendar, it instead only cares about the inventory. If there’s desirable inventory in June, it’ll sell. If there’s desirable inventory in October, it’ll sell. Desirable inventory on Christmas Eve? Sold.
This news is good for buyers and for sellers, but it doesn’t eliminate the risk that sellers face this time of year. The risk goes like this: Seller lists home in May. Hurray! Seller has lots of showings in June. Yippee! Seller has an offer in July, but who accepts an offer in July? Not this seller. This seller is super confident, so offers at 90% of the list price are spit from his mouth like luke warm Panera soup. In August, there are more showings, but no offers. No matter, says this seller, the buyer will appear, if only the agent would pull that full page ad in the Hampton’s Daily. That’s where the rich people are, says the seller, the Hamptons. The Hamptons!
In September, there are buyers. October, too. November, yes, buyers, but fewer of them. December, the confident seller of spring is no where to be found. Late season sellers are, typically, more motivated sellers, as the concept of waiting for the coming spring to sell the property doesn’t excite anyone. That’s a seller able to be picked off by a motivated buyer, and that’s a seller that buyers should now be looking for. But Dave, Dave, you just said the market is active all year, and only Michigan has to turn its lights off until that miserable old Lake Michigan warms to a tolerable swimming temperature sometime next July. Or August. Yes, this is true, I did say that. But just because buyers are active all months, and our lights stay on no matter the season, this doesn’t mean that sellers don’t feel a pinch when the clock turns back and the nights grow cold.
Over the past few weeks, there are offers galore. There’s a new deal on the last of two listings in the South Shore Club, leaving my listing for $1.895MM as the only home available there. There’s an offer on the Circle Parkway house listed around $2.3MM. A deal on the $1.3MM Cedar Point house, with the pier thing. There’s a deal pending with a buyer of mine on the vacant lot in Loramoor, a beautiful piece of dirt for around $2MM. There’s a contract on the white house on the side of the hill where Walworth Township touches Geneva, for $1.7MM. The beat up house on Sidney Smith that sits on nice dirt is pending with an ask of $1.95MM. Lastly, there’s a contract on the king of lakefronts, my pier 88 listing at a bit under $6MM. The market, it’s active, and it doesn’t care if we’re past peak fall colors.
YTD, we’ve had 17 lakefront sales. YTD 2013, we had 17 lakefront sales. YTD 2012, we had 16 lakefront sales. The market remains consistent, and with the buyer activity currently in the market, I’m betting we hang a year end total that bests the last several years. What then of the January market, when the snow piles high and the temperatures plummet low? Well, if there’s either quality new inventory or aged, motivated inventory, it’ll do just as it would do in August. Sell.