Normally, I prefer to write market updates on individual pockets of the Lake Geneva vacation home market. I think the market here is easily broken down into segments that when reviewed more accurately show the strength and weakness of the broader market. That said, today I give you a broad snapshot of the entire Lake Geneva vacation home market, with each individual segment receiving little more than a glossing paragraph. The snapshot is, unfortunately, not one that reflects a terribly active market. August is rarely a great month for home sales at Lake Geneva, and this August has proved to be no exception to that rule.
The entry level lake access market, those homes possessing private lakerights to Geneva priced up to $500k, is one market that has shown a bit of activity during August. There are three homes with pending contracts in this segment- though all of those homes are priced under $330k. Even so, this entry level buyer has been difficult to pin down over recent years, so this inkling of activity is a welcome development. Remember, this entry level market is suffering, in my humble opinion, because of a lack of home equity at the primary residences of this would be buyer. If the home equity is not existent or cannot be tapped, this purchase of an “affordable” second home is not so easily accomplished. Pending sales here are in Country Club Estates, Cedar Point Park, and Knollwood.
The next stretch of the market, one that I’ll lax the price boundaries of for the purposes of this post, is the lake access market priced from $500k to $1.2MM. I’d normally consider the market from $500k to $800k it’s own market, but not today. In this stretch of the lake access market, homes will often have slips or views, but rarely a slip and a view. There are plenty of properties available, including several fantastic ones, but only one property is pending as of this morning (per MLS). That property is priced at $800k, and truthfully, my brain cannot figure out why this property- of all the fabulous options in this price range- is the one with a contract on it. Buyers, please work with me. We’ll avoid these sorts of things together.
The entry level lakefront market, with homes currently priced in the $1.4MM’s to $2MM, is similarly slow. There is life in this market, but the life has yet to culminate in closed transactions of late. There isn’t a single property pending, though activity remains consistent. I’d really expect to see a couple of the lakefronts in this price range sell before the end of 2010. Remember, July and August aren’t great months for the Lake Geneva vacation home market, but September and October typically are. We’ll see you, Mr. Entry Level Buyer, in September. I hope.
Just as I lumped the upper tiers of the lake access market into one unwieldy grouping, I’ll do the same with the upper reaches of the lakefront market. Those homes priced from $2MM all the way to nearly $8MM, would normally form single file lines behind those homes priced first from $2MM, and again from those priced from $4MM. The reality is that we have, as with the entry level lakefront market, plenty of activity, but the activity has not as of yet translated into closed transactions. The only property pending is my lakefront deal in Fontana, which should hopefully be closing in the relatively near future (fingers, toes, arms, and eyes crossed). I still expect this market to finish the year with a relative flourish, as the market should respond well to children going back to school.
Abbey Springs is doing quite well, with two condominiums currently pending sale. This level of activity is pretty normal in Abbey Springs over the past couple years, as there always seems to be something pending, or something just closed. The market here has responded well to the infrastructure improvements of 2008, and as long as the dues don’t increase, I expect that the market here will remain strong into the foreseeable future. Foreclosures have also been kept to a minimum, which has helped buoy prices and keep the banks and their tendency to hack and slash prices at bay.
Geneva National is a bit of a different story. With inventory that has remained swelled for the past two years, there doesn’t appear to be more than one singular unit pending sale right now. This is not good. I think Geneva National is suffering from market abuse, and it’s unwarranted and ridiculous. When you find a better development with better golf and better amenities within 90 minutes of Chicago, please let me know. Until then, Geneva National is still king. An imprisoned, starving, beaten king, but still king.
That weird Shep Smith takes you around the world in 60 seconds, which to me, seems like no big deal. I just took you around the lake in like 820 words. See you at the lake.