There are different kinds of hot. There is summer hot, a delicious blend of heat and humidity that causes people to jump into large earthen bowls of water. There is spicy hot, the kind that has given Adam Richman a very lucrative career. There is internal heat, the sort that I feel now after discussing the state of the financial markets and the inept administration that has led us to a climate where wealth is evil and must be usurped in order to insure that lazy people get more free jars of peanut butter. And there is housing market hot, a heat that has not been felt for years but is nonetheless present if only you’d cast your dewy eyes to the Lake Geneva vacation home scene.
If I weren’t the thoughtful person that I am, I’d take one quick glance at the market here and assume all is well. I’d probably go as far as declaring the market healed, washed clean of any remaining trouble, baptized into a new era, the old market and its difficulties drowned in a pool of redemption. But I am a realist, and I understand the market, and I know that a spate of activity does not create a reconciled market, even if it is fun to watch and comment on once in a great while. The market at Lake Geneva, with some necessary reservations, is actually unapologetically hot.
This morning, the MLS shows 15 lakefront and lake access homes under contract. This activity is quite impressive, especially when viewed through the prism of annual market cycles. July is not typically the best sales month at Lake Geneva. May and June are usually far better, as are September and October, a noticed historical trend that makes July activity all the more invigorating. It’s the unexpected nature of it that makes it so precious. The pending sales include at least two listings in Country Club Estates, one in Glenwood Springs, five in Cedar Point Park, and a handful scattered throughout Sunset Hills, and The Birches. These homes range in price from $199k to $2.995MM, and feature several homes that I think might present memorable values depending on their ultimate sales prices.
Among the sales, two are the most important to watch, and both are in the $2.4-$3MM price range. The sale on Circle Parkway in Cedar Point is of interest to me, primarily because I thought the property might close at $2MM, and if it does, I’ll love the deal. Like intensely love it. The other is the pending lakefront on South Lakeshore in Fontana listed at $2.995MM, and I’m watching this for the final sales price to see if that sells in the range that I hoped it would as well. There are reasons to think that these two sales will be a fine indicator for lakefront valuations as we move into the typically robust fall selling season. I just karate chopped myself for writing fall.
The sales activity in the single family vacation home segment has not, unfortunately, as of yet spilled over into the lakefront condominium market. There are still stellar listings available, seductively showing their wares while buyers continue to pay no attention. I heard a rumor of a rumored deal in Stone Manor, but without the MLS telling me the rumor is true, I’ll just have to wait on that one. There is a lakefront foreclosure in the works at Bay Shore in Williams Bay, which might lead me to cut my price before that REO hits if I were a seller in that complex. Aside from that, the activity seems nominal at best, and sorely in need of an injection of confidence that has soared in the single family markets.
I would be remiss if I didn’t include this week’s stock market activity in this post. The market, in short, is the most important indicator for the current and future health of our Lake Geneva vacation home market. Remember, unemployment isn’t that important. Interest rates mean very little as well. What matters it the feeling of increased wealth that can be easily recognized when stock market indexes are high, or at least stable. When the stock market has an elongated hiccup, the Lake Geneva real estate market has a tendency to hibernate for a while. It’s still too soon to see what this week’s malaise will do to the immediate health of the market here, but it is safe to say that this correction isn’t a positive. Perhaps if wealthy people and corporations didn’t feel as though their income was targeted as a way for the government to generate much needed “revenue”, they might feel a bit more easy. There I go again, getting all sweaty and itchy, feeling hot, but apparently not quite as hot as my dear Lake Geneva real estate market.