I generally agree with the concept that what happens on the coasts will someday find its way to Lake Geneva. This is the case with both good and bad. New York has fantastic pizza. Lake Geneva will someday also have fantastic pizza. Washington had a Starbucks, and then a couple of decades later, we have a Starbucks. This is good. In the same way, when something trendy happens on a coast, it’ll also soon happen here. But there are limitations to this, and that’s why the current correction of sorts afflicting Manhattan doesn’t mean there’s a correction coming swiftly to the Lake Geneva vacation home market. Here’s why.
My knowledge of the Manhattan real estate market is limited, obviously. If it weren’t, you could question my dedication to the Lake Geneva market. See, when Ryan Serhant opens offices in Miami and LA, he’s not doing so because he’s somehow a Miami expert. He’s doing so because he’s a businessman and he’s smart enough to know his name will mean something to people even when it likely means nothing. Anyway, I don’t know anything about Manhattan real estate aside from what I read and what I see on television. What I see on television is that new developments are coming online all the time, and those new developments are not loaded with $400k condos. They’re filled with $4MM condos and $7MM condos and $14MM condos.
Lake Geneva is filled with $200k cottages and $300k condos and $800k houses and $3MM lakefronts. It’s a mix of things, with no particular segment requiring a tremendous amount of liquidity annually. This is one of the problems with Geneva National, as you’ll recall. It’s simply too big to maneuver through years of low volume without causing a price adjustment in the process. The lakefront market on Geneva functions differently, as low volume is generally a result of low inventory, which in turn creates a market where prices escalate. So if you’re a buyer on Geneva you’re wishing for inventory and if you’re an owner on Geneva you’re wishing against it. This isn’t very difficult to understand.
But it’s back to Manhattan and those buildings and the sheer volume required to keep that market moving forward, appreciating and rare. What’s the number? I don’t know, because I’m typing from Williams Bay this morning. But the simple reality is that markets in forward motion require more buyers than sellers. Turn the tide and the market will stall. Turn it for long enough and the market will decline. If Manhattan is experiencing a decline, that’s too bad, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Lake Geneva. There will be a decline coming to our markets within a few years, this you can be sure of. But until the sellers outpace the buyers, that won’t be the case. I’ll be sure to let you know when it is. For now, I need to run home to snap some aloe open and lather it on my bright red nose and cheeks. The Lake Geneva sun was benevolent yesterday, and my face carries the proof.