To be a seller in spring, is to be as a youth, full of optimism and energy, a spout of vision that has yet to be set off track by the harsh realities of time. Spring sellers are joyous, alive sorts, full of confidence and vigor, expecting all and fearing nothing. They are bold, they are brash, and when they get their price in their time, they are triumphant. To be a seller in spring who finds a sale in summer, that’s what we should all hope to achieve at least once before the lights go out.
To be a seller in mid-summer, it’s still good. The cicadas have barely begun their annual serenade, and all summer lovers know, as I do, that as long as cicadas sing there is summer to be imbibed. There are indulgences to be granted, there are buyers to be found. But summer, in case you haven’t noticed, is growing mature. Those fields that I know love, they are tall. The stalks are green, sturdy, but even they show signs of age in their yellowing trunks. There is summer left aplenty, but to be a seller in late July is likely to be a seller in August, and to be a seller in August puts one in a foul mood that can, thankfully, be tempered by a boat ride and a fish fry. But still, foulish to downright irritable.
That’s because a mid-summer seller understands that buyers are on the wane. The season at Lake Geneva continues in earnest until mid November, and buyers will appear in some numbers throughout the winter months with regularity, but that’s like picking up a straggler Salmon in a tributary in late October. Sure he’s there, but he had a whole lot more company a month earlier. Sellers today know that they are on the clock, and the smart ones are making adjustments today to capture the remaining summer interest.
The market is hot. It is. There are buyers about in serious numbers. There are offers, contracts, closings. It’s active. It’s fun, as a broker. But for all of that energy, aged inventory is sagging, and if it isn’t selling, it’s needing to adjust its price. You can only do so much to tweak the appearance of an aged offering. You can paint the front door red, except that you wouldn’t do that because this is real life and not life as portrayed on HGTV. Anyway, you can do this or you can do that, but whatever you do you’re going to have to drop that price. Sellers today are beginning to do just that, and buyers are immediately taking notice.
I see many things in the MLS every day. I see new listings and sold listings. I see expired listings, too. But I also see price reductions, and lately there are more of them. Proof you say? A lakefront listing in the Birches was $1.99MM or so, and it dropped last week to $1.599MM. It went under contract immediately after that significant hair cut. A listing off-water in Glenwood Springs on Linden was $865k. An aggressive seller price, the one that comes from a confident spring stance. Fast forward to a price reduction down to $765k, and that property is now pending sale. I had an aged listing in the South Shore Club last spring that was listed around $2.2MM. I dropped that price to $1.895MM and had a contract on it within two weeks. And most recently, I dropped the list price on a property of mine in the SSC from $2.149MM to $1.99MM, and activity has followed suit.
Not all inventory will be reduced over the next six weeks, but the old stuff will be. Newer listings won’t reduce, nor will listings held by owners who have time, and exclusivity, on their side. It needn’t be a lakefront home or a lake access home, either. Just yesterday I dropped an Alpine unit at Abbey Springs from $265,900 to $249,900, making that a downright steal for a nice two bedroom unit with ravine views. Sellers will be jockeying to capture warm weather market time, and buyers would do well to pay attention. Just because you hated a lakefront home at $2MM doesn’t mean you won’t fall all over yourself wanting to buy it for $1.5MM.