Lake Geneva Market Update

I once had a client refer to a million dollars as a stick. Like, a stick. A woody thing that fell or was chopped from a tree. It would have to be small enough to be considered a stick, because anything larger would be a branch. If something fell from a tree and crushed your car, you would never tell someone else that a stick fell and crushed your car. You’d likely veer too far in the other descriptive, and tell that person a tree fell on your car, when it was really just a large branch. For something to be a stick, it would be small enough to hold, to poke with, to roast marshmallows from.

In this vernacular, the stick was a measuring point of a million bucks. We’d look at a house, and we’d talk about the house next door being worth 5 sticks. If we bought for two sticks, put one stick into it, we’d like it to be worth at least three and a half sticks. It’s difficult to know what is, in actuality, a half stick. It’s because sticks can be long or short and they’re still just sticks, so one persons half a stick that has been discarded will likely be the next persons regular old stick. But we’re missing the point about a stick being worth a million dollars.

I’m keen on talking about biting off properties. Not physically, of course, though my current pant size may forgive you for thinking I meant that literally. As with most things on this site, I only meant it figuratively, which is usually the case unless I’m talking about the grave mistake of not driving to Lake Geneva this weekend. That’s likely a soul crushing mistake, and I mean that entirely literally. If we’re looking to bite off properties, and we’re not shy about it, and we have many sticks or just a fraction of a stick to barter with, I’d buy these things:

Entry level lake access buyers would be well served to consider my cute cottage on Sioux Drive in Indian Hills. It’s down to $249k, and while we just had an offer on it that didn’t quite come together, it’s readily available. If you’re sitting in the suburbs this weekend, contemplating the emptiness that is your life, I’d encourage you to take a drive to the lake and hang out for a bit. It’s going to be sunny on Saturday, so do it then. Drive by Sioux, and if you like it, call me. Don’t expect me to run right over to show it to you though, because on weekends, contrary to public opinion, I do have appointments to tend to. If you’d like to spend under a quarter stick, consider Sioux.

I often wonder what I’d buy if I were a lake access buyer who wished to part with just a third to a half stick. I don’t know if I’d go for something nicer, say in Country Club Estates or Cedar Point, or if I’d look to find somewhere that I could sneak into with a boat slip. I say I don’t know what I do just for the theatrics of it all, because I know exactly what I’d do. I’d stretch myself and try to get a slip. If I’m doing this I’d look to my cottage in Glenwood Springs for $489k, or I’d try to tease one of the $500kish listings with a slip down into my comfortable spending range. I’d look for a slip first, proximity a close second, and I’d then consider everything else a distant third.

There’s a lot of decent inventory in the $500k to $1MM range right now, and for this range I would be looking for either a slip, or a view, or tremendous proximity, or some version of all three at once. I would also consider buying a fabulous house, with fabulous finishes, but I’d have to be really wowed by it to abandon my initial aim. I think there’s a house in the Lake Geneva Club that’s prime to be bitten off on the cheap, with minimal sticks required. I still like a listing in Hollybush, for no other reason than Hollybush is exclusive and I like exclusivity in real estate. I also like a couple homes in Glenwood Springs, and if I were up for a project, I’d look that way.

The entry level lakefront market will require the departure of at least one full, and one partial stick. Times were, I could give you one stick, and a quarter of another one, and you’d give me a house. Today, I may have to give you a stick and a half to buy a reasonable lakefront, so this is bad for me, but still good for the way I feel about Fridays. I wouldn’t look to the very entry level lakefronts at this point, because I don’t really like them. Instead, I’d look to some of the aged inventory in the upper one stick range, and I’d work to pull those properties down to where I feel comfortable. I think it’s important to be wary of entry level lakefronts that look interesting based on price, but find themselves in range locked neighborhoods. Don’t know which ones those are? You should ask me.

In the upper reaches of our market, the range that requires more than one and as many as eight sticks, I’d be looking for value that presents in one form or another. If I’m looking for a tear down, I want future value to support my mission. If I’m looking at something that is currently fanciful, I want to buy it for less than replacement cost. That’s a nice marker for value, to buy something for less than it would take to assemble on your own. A nice example is 1014 South Lakeshore. Yes, the price isn’t for the weary, but if you wanted to have the best that Lake Geneva has to offer, and you don’t want to spend ten sticks trying to make it happen on your own, you could give me the better part of eight sticks and you’d be set.

The thing about sticks is that they’re sort of neat. They’re fun to put in a pile, and go out to find more of them and place on that pile. But the other thing about sticks is that they’re sort of boring. You can’t look for too long at a pile of sticks before you get tired of them. Are they still there, in that big stack? Yep. Are they still boring? Yep. So, perhaps it’s time to gather a few of your extra sticks and swap them for something fun.