I heard over the weekend that it rained 22 out of the 31 days in October. I was surprised to hear that, because I can’t remember the 9 days where it supposedly didn’t rain. At least it wasn’t raining the day I took these pictures. October is actually one of my three favorite months of the year, but this year October really let me down. I’m not mad at October as much as I am disappointed in him. Yes, of all the months chock full of Y chromosomes, October might be the most masculine of all.
Back in October, I was anticipating a fairly active fall real estate market. Partly because the summer had been slow, and I knew there were quite a few buyers out there that hadn’t yet made up their minds but still had interest in purchasing real estate here in the near future. I wasn’t exactly correct in my fall housing forecast, and for that I lay the blame squarely at the feet of Algore. If this global warming thing was really happening like the stoic Tennessean claims, I have a feeling we would have sold a few more homes in Lake Geneva last month.
By my tally, there were four single family lakefront and lake access sales during October. Remember, we’re talking about closings, not accepted offers for the sake of this nostalgic look back. One sale was lakefront, the other three were lake access properties. The foreclosure that was listed at $1.2MM closed on November 1, and that sale in and of itself deserves some real discussion. The property was listed at $1.2MM, and sold for $1.25MM. There were either multiple offers or the threat of multiple offers that pushed the price over asking. Again, I did not feel that this property was any kind of a special value, even though it had the magical marketing word “foreclosure” attached to the description. The neighboring lots sold for $1MM each in a better market, making me wonder why this one was worth $1.25MM in a market that is off roughly 20% from the highs. Had this lakefront been $1MM even, or a mind blowing sub $1MM number, I would have been really excited about it. At this price, it’s a yawner for me.
The four lake access/lakefront sales were nice, but they only make up a third of the Lake Geneva vacation home action for the month of October. The lakefront condo market only had one sale, that being the Fontana Shores three bedroom that I closed on for $455k on the 30th. I discussed that sale yesterday, so there’s no need to expound. The lake access and lakefront vacant land market had a little bump of activity last month, recording three such sales in just thirty-one days. A vacant lakefront parcel on North Shore Drive in Fontana sold for $2.7MM, leaving two other adjacent parcels for sale with asking prices in excess of $3MM. This is a dynamite location, and one of my favorite on the entire lake. There was an Abbey Springs vacant lot sale for $280k, located on the same street as the Abbey Springs REO that has been on the market for a couple months now. The $280k sales price was a value, but the lot was a little impaired by the proximity to a nearby water tower. The third vacant land transaction of the month was in Woodale, East of Fontana on the South shore of Geneva.
Interesting to note that the transaction total for the three above categories exceeded 2008 statistics by three transactions. Not a big move, but every bit of increased volume it a good sign for our Lake Geneva real estate market. If you’re wondering how the buyers fared, the eight sales in 2009 closed at an average of nearly 20% off their original list prices. The original list prices are most important when determining a list to sale ratio, and it’s something you should always look at when weighing a real estate purchase. In other words, if a property hit the market for $500k last year, then was reduced to $400k and ultimately sold for $380k, the property sold for 76% of the original list price. That’s the way I’m figuring the stats to arrive at the 80% list to sale for the vacation properties sold at Lake Geneva during October.
All in all, it was a good month here. There were several new contracts written on lakefront and lake access property, contracts that I expect will all close before the year is over. The October market was solid when compared with last year, but real market strength or weakness will be measured in the November and December activity. I hope to see some solid sales yet this year, as buyers show up looking to take advantage of off season seller motivation. See you at the lake.