The ice is weak. It has been weak all season, since it first formed, just that skim coat at first, then more ice, stronger ice, but still weak. It has proven this time and time again, first with the great car-on-ice-caper of Winterfest Weekend, then again with the unfortunate death of a snowmobiler just two weeks ago. This is ice that cannot be trusted. This is the ice that must melt and leave us alone.
It melted two weekends ago. It melted more last weekend. The wind whipped it open in many spots, and those spots grew and shifted as the massive sheets of ice broke free and floated the way of the wind. The ice this morning is weaker still. It will be gone soon, gone by next week, by next Thursday, to be precise. Then we’ll be free to carry on as though the ice never was, because we never liked it, we never needed it, we never trusted it.
Spring is coming, and it’s coming fast. The days are longer. The nights are shorter. The winter market, once momentarily filled with the sort of fear that accompanies a tumultuous stock market, has soldiered on. Is this market just okay? Just barely hanging in there? Or is it robust, bold, strong and decisive, filled with buyers who seem to know what they want and others who, if given seven suitable choices, couldn’t even agree on dinner? It’s both, all things, both filled with motivation and filled with procrastination. As with all markets, the motivated are reaping the spoils of this market that is, as of this morning, in spite of the weak ice that still clings, alive and well.
This morning there are four properties with lake access pending under $300k. This is never a surprise to me, as it should always be an active, consistent market. Interest rates are low and this range of buyer always has inventory to pick from. Fixer uppers and finished products alike, the former being in that price range with better locations, the latter being farther from the lake but shinier, prettier, less troubling. From $300k to $1MM, just three properties are pending, one in the Loch Vista Club, one in Country Club Estates, and one to a buyer of mine in Glenwood Springs. This market segment is light on inventory, as buyers are interested in $500-600k homes with slips, they just don’t care much for the limited active inventory.
Over $1MM is where the real action is today. The single family condo home on Wrigley is pending with a $1.1MM ask. I showed that home far too many times to not be the broker with the buyer, but alas, life, like primary season, is unfair. There’s a deal on Forest Rest of an off water home just over $1MM, and the curiously goofy little lakefront in Knollwood is pending in the $1.1Ms. Last week, the Dartmouth Woods lakefront home that I tried so desperately to sell last summer finally closed in the $1.2s, and that buyer did well to join that nice enclave of lakefront homes on the north side of Fontana Bay.
The newer lakefront for $2.125MM that rests in the shadow of Vista Del Lago is under contract, that to a move up buyer from another area property. The Conference Point lakefront with an old red brick house and 200′ of frontage closed last week for $3.2MM, which is now our second lakefront sale at $16k per front foot this year. In case you’re wondering, no, that doesn’t make it a trend. While I love that location on the lake, I don’t know as though I’d be a dirt buyer in the $3s over there. That will make whatever is built on that property the most expensive property for at least a mile in either direction of shoreline, and I’m not convinced I’d want that distinction. If I’m a lakefront buyer, I want to be surrounded by like kind properties. That’s why 1014 South Lakeshore in the $7s makes sense. That’s why my lakefront lot in Loramoor at $2.34MM makes sense. That’s why my beautiful lakefront on Pebble Point for $4.475MM makes sense. I like to sell properties that make sense.
The Lackey Lane lakefront in the $4.5MMs is still pending to my buyer, and a new deal this week brings a buyer to a high $2s home in the Geneva Manor. That’s a home assessed at $2MM, so it’ll be fun when the reassessment of that property is done by the city, based on the new sales price. I have little else to say about that sale.
I will add that our local market loves it when out of town brokers show up with buyers. They generally buy things that don’t make tons of sense, which is why we love them. If you’re a buyer, read what I just wrote again.
Inventory hasn’t yet built, just in the way that it didn’t really build last year during this typical spring sales period. I expect lakefronts to trickle on to the market over the coming weeks, as I know I have at least three lakefronts coming soon under my brokerage. If you’d like to know about those before everyone else, you should be working with me. It’ll be fun.