When times were particularly bad and getting worse, I hatched a particular theory. The theory supposed that in spite of the various factors that we know prod consumers to buy and sell homes, things like interest rates and employment and marriage, there’s really only one thing that makes real estate markets move. In bad times, it’s fear. If you have $10MM in the bank and your $2MM home is only worth $1.7MM, do you need to sell it? Of course not. Then why sell it for $1.6MM? The answer, which we can only know now, is that you sell at $1.6MM because you’re afraid next month it’ll be $1.5MM. That’s why this market moved like it did from 2009 through 2012, because of fear.
And if it’s fear that drives a declining market to lower lows, then it must be the opposite that drives an escalating market to higher highs. Job growth is great, but it doesn’t fuel the top end at Lake Geneva. Interest rates are important, but are they? Stock market return are incredibly important to this vacation home market, and with steady returns piling up it makes sense that consumer confidence is as robust as it is. The opposite of fear is confidence, and it’s that confidence that’s driving the Lake Geneva market. And it’s driving super fast.
Another week, more contracts. More offers. More sellers wondering if their house is next, more buyers buying homes they didn’t know they needed but now can’t live without. There are 30 lakefront homes available this morning, per the MLS. Of those 30, nine are under contract. That makes just 21 available lakefronts. Of those 21, several have active offers being negotiated. 20 true lakefront homes have already sold in 2017, leaving us to assume that we’ll break the 30 home mark for 2017. Last year was a banner year, and we only closed 24 true lakefronts (MLS). If we break 30 this year, it’ll be even more important to remember that in 2007 we only sold 17 lakefronts. This new norm is really, really something.
This week, a lakefront closing. That of Kerry Wood’s house in Fontana. At $4.7MM it’s an okay sale. I don’t love it, and I don’t hate it. I’m ambivalent, which is how I feel about baked cod and maple syrup. It’s a lofty sale for the frontage (102′), and the location (mostly homes valued under $2MM in the immediate neighborhood). It’s proof, once again, that our market loves new(er) homes, and will do just about anything to own them.
More contracts this week as well. A new contract on my listing in the Elgin Club. A new contract on a large Fontana lakefront listed in the $6s. A new contract on the non-lakefront modern home ($1.85MM) that sits on the cliff overlooking Fontana Bay. A new contract on the house next to the Lake Geneva Country Club ($3.095MM), and a new contract on the Main Street, Lake Geneva lakefront ($2.495MM) that sits near the Library Park. Hillcroft, that big estate with an older house that anchors 415′ of Snake Road lakefrontage is still pending ($12.5MM), as is the spec home in Williams Bay ($3.85MM) and the Circle Parkway lakefront ($2.95MM). My South Shore Club lakefront also remains under contract ($4.595MM). Rounding out this flurry of activity is the small home on Marianne Terrace in Lake Geneva that’s under contract ($1.799MM). The market is searingly hot. Breathlessly hot.
Do you think every deal is a good deal? Absolutely not. Some of the deals I see are pretty awful. Embarrassing, really. But that ties in with Monday’s bit, so you already know how terrible this is. Still, the market is moving and there’s plenty of room left in 2017 for it to move further. Are prices increasing? Well, yes, they are. The wood sale just printed at $47,000 per front foot. That’s not the average, but a few of those in a year will skew our 2017 average to the very high end. Continue to expect sales as we finish the year, and continue to expect many of these sales to be carried out by buyers who really should have done some more homework before they docusigned on the dotted line.
Above, my dynamite Loramoor listing.