Earlier this month I closed on the house behind Casa Del Sueno for $3.175M. That house with a private shared pier and pool was a rare offering at the lake, that much is obvious. That home, now sold, gives the market a valuable comp of an off-water home closing north of $3M, which is a significant price point in the off-water, upper end market. All of this is easy to understand. What’s not so easy to understand is that this home sale isn’t necessarily representative of the broad market for similar homes. Allow me to attempt an explanation.
There are perhaps a half dozen lake access associations that I deem to be the elite associations at the lake. Glen Fern, The 700 Club, The Lindens, Academy Estates, The Black Point Condo Association (not a multi-family condo, as the name would suggest), Valley Park, and that’s about it. I might be talked into allowing the off-water homes on Hunt Club Lane in Linn Township into this mix, but that depends on how I’m feeling at the moment. If we have the kings of the associations now identified, let’s look at their valuation expectations.
We know that homes off-water in Cedar Point Park have sold around $3M. These homes are on parkways, those delightful grassy lawns that are currently covered in straw as the association seeks to finalize landscaping repairs made necessary by last June’s tornado that was, without apparent reason, particularly angry with Cedar Point Park. Those homes in Cedar Point lack assigned or immediately available boat slips, but have still sold in the $3M range, even with somewhat limited water views. There have been off-water sales over $2M on Aspen Lane, LaGrange Drive, in Indian Hills and Glenwood Springs. If these prices are possible, then certainly something in one of the elite associations with a slip should sell for more, right?
The high water mark for off-water lake access sales is that of a magnificent estate home with pool, acreage, and slip in the Black Point Condo Association, one that I sold last year for $3.55M. The next highest sale ($3.4M) was of a remarkable home in Knollwood, one that lacked a slip and a pool and any serious property. That home was special, and sold for that lofty price due to the superlative construction and styling combined with desirable proximity to the water. There have been other homes sold as tear downs in Valley Park and the 700 Club in the $2M range. There are new builds in off-water locations where the owners are investing between $3M and $7M to have a brand new home near, but not on, the lake. This new construction boom shows that owners are not concerned about a lack of comparable sales that might suggest their future valuation, and for good reason: High caliber new construction off-water lake homes with slips and/or pools just haven’t transacted yet. Does an absence of comparable sales mean these big new homes represent poor investments? Not at all.
Am I confusing you yet? Honestly, by now you should be confused. If my listing behind Casa Del Sueno can sell for $3.175M, why didn’t the similarly priced listings in the Lindens and Academy Estates sell last fall? Why do owners spend $6M to be off water in a new house when the existing supply priced around $3M has struggled at times to catch a bid? How can the market be both starved of inventory and still be a buyer’s market?
The questions prove one very simple truth about the market here: It’s complicated. It’s nuanced. It’s contradictory. While it might seem rather simple when viewed through a disengaged lens of a Zillow feed or agent email blasts, it’s not. A new house off water with pool and slip might be worth $7M. The same house on the water with 110′ of frontage in a desirable stretch of shoreline might be worth $17M. A new home without a pool or slip in a regular lake access association might be worth $1.9M, and that same house on a 50′ lakefront lot with small private pier could sell for $6M. There’s no math here that can make perfect sense of the market, there’s just an understanding of what associations and locations and build styles are worthy of a premium and which ones are not. Thankfully, I’m here to help guide you through the buying or selling process of what is, without any doubt, a rather sloppy segment of our vacation home market.
Above, my sale in the Casa Del Sueno Condominium. A note of gratitude for the seller who chose me to represent their cherished vacation home.