It wasn’t raining when I drove to Ravinia two years ago to see Jackson Browne. It wasn’t raining as I walked the mile or more from where I parked to the front gate, with my friend, my friend’s wife, and my friend’s baby, and my wife, in tow. The friend’s baby wasn’t invited, not expressly anyway. When we walked through the gate, carrying all sorts of things that one must bring to make a Ravinia evening enjoyable, a list that doesn’t include a sick baby, it began to sprinkle. And within steps, maybe twenty or fewer, the skies opened and it rained. It rained so hard that water pooled on the lawns and washed over the sidewalks. I saw Graham Elliot float by, in the rain, wearing an unintentionally revealing white t-shirt. It rained so hard, and for so long, that when the rain subsided and the clouds parted, only those with the foresight to pack a tarp to place under their picnic blankets remained dry, a group that sadly didn’t include me. In between the crying of my friend’s baby, and the disdainful, penetrating glances from my friends wife, there was music. Much music. And when Jackson wasn’t spouting off about his liberal bias, he was singing, and it was delightful.
Sky Blue and Black, which is made perfect only when performed acoustically, features a line that reads, “There’s a need to be separate and a need to be one,
and a struggle neither wins”. This is a great line, about relationships obviously, but today, here, this becomes a line more about two Lake Geneva sales from last week than anything else. There were three lake access and lakefront closings last week, and I was blessed to have had a hand in two of those. On Wednesday, the Buena Vista lakefront )$1.495MM) closed to my buyer, on Thursday, a gracious cottage in Oak Shores ($627,500) closed, and on Friday, my listing in Country Club Estates ($335,000) closed. It was a good week for the market, a good week for me, a great week for one seller, and a so-so week for two others. If there is one truth about every transaction it is that there is generally a winner and a loser. The one who beats the market and the one who succumbs to it. As a broker, it’s fun to be on the winning side, though to be on the losing side is to be tight lipped and smiling, never admitting the not so obvious.
The Oak Shores and Featherstone sales bring to light that struggle, the need to win or the need to lose, the need to keep score. These sales approach that concept and lay quietly in between, neither winning or losing, but providing liquidity and opportunity. The seller on Featherstone achieved a sales price equal to 90.6% of her list, hardly a robust win, but a solid effort and a pleasing number that evokes quiet smiles more than loud celebrations. The sale on Oak Shores closed for 91.6% of its list, also a modest number revealing a a seller with enough motivation to do the deal, but not enough to reward a buyer with a rare reduction. It should be noted that both of these properties were working off of their original list prices, and both sold within the first few weeks of their initial list date. The Oak Shores property was one I referenced here when it was first listed, and I told you and several other buyers that it would sell quickly, which is exactly what it did.
Neither buyer nor seller won in these two recent examples, instead two sellers moved on to their next phase, and two buyers moved in to enjoy a summer of new experiences, and new schedules. Never before has either buyer experienced Friday workdays that will last as long as they will this summer. Friday’s are always long, but they’re longer when there’s a big blue lake waiting for you, calling your name so loudly that nothing else can possibly matter. This will be a terrific summer for both of these new Lake Geneva owners, even if Algore has been making modest inroads in disrupting the glorious weather pattern of 2010.
This last weekend was a bit quiet at the lake, at least on the real estate front. There were not bunches of showings, as there have been in recent weeks, though I owe much of that to Father’s Day and the festivities that surround it. The next two weeks will prove rather important to our market, as it remains to be seen if the current momentum here continues throughout the summer. July and August are typically quiet months for our market, as individuals seek to soak in as much sun and splash in as much water as possible, eschewing weekend tours in broker’s cars for weekend tours in their own boats. Last summer, the market continued to hum right through the summer, a welcome if rare occurence that pushed our market towards an even busier fall. This season, there has been significant activity since mid-April, and barring a complete and continued slide in the stock market indexes that market should soldier on.
When Jackson penned his masterpiece, I doubt he was thinking about buyers and sellers. But two sales last week proved that in some struggles neither party technically wins. But that’s a take that looks at transactions from a purely financial or market perspective. That’s how I see a transaction, scanning it from all sides to determine who won and who lost and who should have known better. The Country Club and Oak Shores sales from last week might not have had a technical winner, but to me, through my lake-loving eyes, the winner is always the person who finds a way to spend more time at the lake. An enthusiastic congratulations to the two buyers of these two fine homes, and a somber waive goodbye to the sellers whose Friday workdays will no longer be as tedious or painful without the anxious promise of a weekend spent at the lake.