Gym class was never a difficult class for me. I did most things well enough, even if my B- average extended into all things elementary sports as well. I couldn’t run fast, but I wasn’t the slowest. I couldn’t hit well, but I wasn’t the worst. I couldn’t jump high, but others jumped less. I did absolutely dominate Foursquare before it was an app, indeed before anyone knew an app as anything but chicken wings and cheese curds. I didn’t get good at any particular sport until high school, as elementary school was a handful of years where low-end mediocrity was my bag.
While most gym tasks were easy enough to pass, there was one distinct exception. Or two, really. I dreaded the season where we had to climb the big rope that dangled from the ceiling. That rope represented all things evil and shameful, and while the small kids, with their stout little legs and strong upper bodies, scurried up that rope like prisoners escaping a subterranean jail, I had no idea how to climb that rope. I couldn’t pull myself up it to save my life, and so when the time came to climb that rope I just walked up to it, grabbed hold of it, hung my head, and welcomed my fate. I would do no better climbing that rope today.
But while the rope was bad, it was one dimensional. There was nothing to do but climb up the rope, and then slide back down the rope. There wasn’t anything else to it. Jump rope, on the other hand, was an obstacle course of embarrassment, with so many different exercises designed specifically to humiliate the uncoordinated. There was the single jump, each with his own rope. This wasn’t so bad. I could, after all, jump in place and swing the rope under my feet. No big deal. Where I was left behind was in the double jump, the triple jump, the double dutch, and the team event. I still cannot fathom the physics that allows one to cross ones arms while skipping and not have the rope catch on your feet, or shins.
As bad as that was, the highest level of shame came during the multi-player games. Two people, spread many feet apart, swinging in unison to make that big rope swing high and low, high and low, scraping the ground with a familiar clank each time through. The small kids, the ones who loved the ropes, would eagerly jump into the mix, skipping and laughing and doing this timed jumping with great ease. And then, there were two ropes. Both swung in different directions, a tangled mess of ropes and laughter and childhood fear. These ropes would swing high and then low, intersecting each other at the same moment that the small kids would jump, clearing the hurdle again and again, shattering my dreams with each effortless hop. I stood in the shadows and understood there was no way I could do this.
But I had to. It was public school in the mid 80s, after all, and we were not yet allowed to sit out things that we thought might hurt our feelings. And so I’d wait, rocking into the swinging motion in an always failed attempt at timing the clanking of the ropes against the gym floor. I’d wait, I’d rock, I’d sweat, and then I’d make my move. You’d think I was a fish, and the ropes were nets, because I always found a way to be clumsily caught inside them, tangled and flopping, wishing someone would throw me back, back into the shadows were I could rest in jump roping anonymity. I never succeeded in those days, and it was always a timing issue. Thankfully, timing is now something that I excel at.
Market timing is a difficult dance, if not quite as difficult as jumping into two opposing swinging ropes. Buyers in the spring months, those March and April and May months, generally wonder if they’re paying some sort of premium for timing their move as they did. They wonder this, and I sometimes wonder it too, but I know that their timing is absolutely perfect so long as they are buying the property that they truly want. Buyers that buy in the summer, under that high, bright sun, they wonder too if they aren’t being caught into some great scheme to take more of their money than is necessary. And that begs this: When is the best time of year to buy a Lake Geneva vacation home?
The answer is easy, and cliche. The best time to buy is when you find the property that fits your needs and hits as many of your criteria as possible. If that property presents in April or May, jump on it. If it presents on the coldest day of February, pounce. The difference in the market today versus the market from two or three years ago is that passively watching properties no longer works. Back then, a measured approach was a wonderful and strategic thing. I loved that market far more than I could ever love this current one. That’s because today if you watch a property with some measure of longing, and you wish and hope for it to come to a level where you’d be even more tempted to buy it, there is another buyer doing the same thing. If his dream price is higher than your dream price, your dream will die at the moment that his comes true. He is the winner.
Aside from finding the perfect property at whatever time it arrives, thus making that your personal best time to buy, there is indeed a best time to buy, and it’s rapidly approaching. The market is hot at the moment, but this momentum cannot last. A few scattered buyers are paying fat lakefront prices for questionable properties, and this does not mean the market is forever wonderful, even if your breathless agent is telling you whatever you need to hear in order to find yourself jammed into the wrong home. This momentum will not be uniformly present over the winter, and there is a definite soft spot coming soon. The best time to buy a vacation home here is from mid-November to mid- December, and here’s why.
Buyers tend to think that the middle of winter is a great time to buy. When the snow flies and the ice spreads, and our lives feel, generally, not entirely worth living. This is what buyers think, and this is wrong. January, while cold and miserable, also marks the beginning of our spring selling season. Counter intuitive, I know. If a buyer looks in January, and finds what they have been seeking in that same month, they can allow for a 30-60 day closing time and when that closing is complete the calender may read March. March we know to be an inhospitable partner, but March is still sort of spring. That buyer who contracts in January and closes in March is a buyer who will have no excuse but to be ready for summer when it arrives.
The smart buyer will look for that brief window between late fall and early winter, when thoughts have not yet fully turned to Christmas and New Year’s celebrations and vacations. When winter has arrived and summer seems, because it is, forever away. Sellers who have grown tired of the market treatment of their property will generally see November and early December as their last chance to sell before succumbing to another winter and waiting to sell the following spring. This is a seller who can be quite accommodating. This is the seller we want to find, and this is the time to find him. Or her.
Gather your motivation, hug it tightly, and let’s start this hunt. There are properties that are tired. Properties that have, at their current price points, failed to sell even through this remarkable 2013 market. These properties are ready to sell right, if only you’ll let me help you. After all, my timing in 2013 is decidedly better than it was in 1985.