Blog : Lakefront Inventory

Indian Hills Sale
David Curry

Indian Hills Sale

Sometimes, timing is everything. Except in real estate, because then it isn’t so much sometimes as all of the time. You could list your home and watch it languish on the market for weeks. Then months. And years. Then a buyer shows up on a Sunday and another one arrives the following Tuesday. You have two buyers where once, forever, you had none. This is the timing of real estate and it makes very little sense.

Last week, I closed a lakefront sale in Indian Hills for $4,999,900. The seller had contacted me about selling, and around the same time a super smart buyer contacted me in search of a lakefront home. A week or two later, the deal was struck. And a few weeks after that, the deal closed. A happy seller, who sold without hassle, a happy buyer, who found what he wanted, and a happy Realtor, who was pleased to have the proper connections in place to make it all happen.

Should you navigate the market in this same manner? If you’re a seller, should you whisper about your property and hope your agent (that’s supposed to be me) knows a buyer who would be interested? If you’re a buyer, should you whisper around and ask about off-market inventory in the hopes that your agent (should be me, again) knows someone who is selling? No, you shouldn’t, because this sort of arrangement is rare and something that cannot be counted on. But if you’re working with the right agent (me), the odds of this sort of arrangement do increase. And if you’re a seller or a buyer, isn’t that what this game is all about? Increasing your odds of finding something rare, be that a buyer or a piece of inventory?

The answer is yes, and I’m here to help. This sale (and the two others this week) brings my sales production since 2010 to a market leading $300,000,000. But none of that matters now. What matters is if you’re a lakefront buyer looking for inventory, let me know. And if you’re a seller looking for your buyer, same.

Lake Geneva Lakefront Market Update
David Curry

Lake Geneva Lakefront Market Update

I was sitting on a pier last night, just after a lakeside dinner, watching the remnants of a cloudy evening sunset. Kids jigged for bass under the pier. Everything was quite fine. Fine, that is, until someone said that it’s almost August and when it’s August then summer is almost over. Sixteen weeks, someone else said, until Thanksgiving. This is what it’s like to be from the Midwest. We know when things are good, but we’re smart enough to know they won’t last forever.

If you must know why the market is still hot, take a look at your equity positions. They’re up, and when they’re up like they are, for as long as they’v been up, our market can’t help but follow. After a soggy June and a rather tranquil market, July has been as active as any month could ever be. It’s been hot outside, we know that, and that heat has poured over the market as well. If June had you thinking that the market was slowing, then July should have you feeling pretty silly for thinking such a thing.

New lakefront contracts have touched many segments of the market, with current pending deals on a charming home in Geneva Manor ($2.395MM), a new listing in between Pebble Point and Knollwood for $4.5MM, and a decent parcel on Basswood listed at $4.799MM. The Manor home and Basswood have both experienced some time on market, and both are testaments to the way our market behaves when inventory is tight. Buyers may choose to pass on certain lakefronts for a while, but after not finding a perfect match for some period of time, buyers will come back to the existing, perhaps aged, inventory and take another swing. But these two do not tell the story today, the lakefront by Knollwood is the one with the story.

I should note that this is not my listing, a condition that is causing me untold amounts of grief. This listing came to market last Sunday, and I acknowledged the really nice Lowell renovation on some of the interior spaces but didn’t feel overwhelmed with excitement. That property sold in a day. The lesson? If you have an older home that lacks excitement, and you’re thinking of selling it, you should consider your options before you list. Is your property on a large enough piece of dirt that a likely buyer will tear it down? Good, don’t remodel it first (see the Basswood pending contract). But is your property on a smaller piece of dirt that won’t necessarily make for an ideal tear down candidate, and is your house nice, but not super nice? Is it comfortable but not inspiring? Is it good enough, but not great? If so, you may want to follow the smart move of the owner on the North Shore and renovate before bringing home to market. Design tastes have changed, and if you want to capture a high dollar, you’d be wise to consider a remodel. Of course there’s only one way to determine whether or not this is right for you and your property, and that’s obviously to ask me.

For my involvement, you may have seen a listing in Indian Hills that I brought to market a week ago for $1.99MM. That lakefront home was the subject of intense showing and offer activity, but the sellers have decided not to sell. The market behaves oddly at times, and this is one of those times. Since I wrote that we’d be seeing price reductions, no fewer than six lakefronts have reduced their prices, proving that even in this active market sellers are still willing to accept the reality of their pricing aims. Today there are just 18 available lakefront homes to choose from, including one in Trinke’s, two in the South Shore Club, one at Westgate, and my listing at Clear Sky Lodge (reduced to $2.699MM over the weekend). Expect to see inventory increase over the next two months as sellers who wished for one last summer find themselves on the tail end of that summer, their wish nearly fulfilled in an exceptionally bittersweet manner. As always, if you’re looking to buy or sell on the lakefront and need help making sense of the highly nuanced and at times aggravating market, I’m here to help.

Above, the lakeside gazebo at Clear Sky Lodge.

Lake Geneva Price Reductions
David Curry

Lake Geneva Price Reductions

Now that was a weekend. Sure, we were forced to sweat through the first few days to get to the last few days, but what sort of people are we? Are we soft, like our southern counterparts? Or are we shook, like our western friends? Are we blue blooded like our northeastern brethren? Are we high, like our mountain friends? No we are not. We are tough and resilient, and we know that a few days of sticky sweat isn’t so bad if we end up at the throne of summer perfection. In case you weren’t here, that’s what the latter part of the weekend was: perfection.

But in spite of this perfect spate of Lake Geneva weather, and in spite of the way those waves lap and the summer sun warms, there are realities to embrace. The summer, sadly, is racing by. June, we can now safely admit, was a garbage month. What a terrible thing, June was. I’m generally quite strong, and as you know from my posts, my weather related malaise was heavy and dark. I nearly succumbed to the low pressure. Since June was terrible and July started in the sauna, summer might feel like it just started, but it pains me to remind you that it is well underway. I know this. You know it. Sellers of vacation homes? They know it, too.

While our market features all-year productivity, we still have seasons of particular activity. Summer is one of those seasons, obviously. Sellers who own properties that have endured some length of market exposure are aware that a summer buyer is more common than a winter buyer, and that’s why this is the season of price reductions. Spring sales are over. Summer sales are here. But fall sales are around the corner (sorry to write that) and it’s time to make an aged property more attractive.

I just reduced 246 Circle Parkway to $1.975MM. Pretend you’re in search of a lakefront with a dynamic lake view. Now pretend you’re not just looking for some regular lake view, but you want something amazing. You want to be in Eze, overlooking the Riviera, but you aren’t in France and instead you’re in the Midwest. But that view, man, that’s all you want. Now stop pretending and come to Circle Parkway. It’s the view of a lifetime. Of the century. The view that makes other views wonder what they did wrong. If I can reduce that price to be sub $2MM for 92 feet of frontage and that world class view, then imagine what other sellers are considering.

New inventory will come to market this month. It will. That new inventory will be priced accordingly. But today is about the aged inventory, and it’s about the price reductions. If you’re upset with the inventory choices and the prices, it’s time to reengage. And if you’re going to do that, why not work with the market leader? Why not work with the guy who knows that not every property is a good idea? Why not work with the guy who doesn’t want you to make a market mistake? If you want to be talked into something, work with anyone. But if you want to be talked out of a bad idea, work with me.

Lake Geneva Lakefront Market Review
David Curry

Lake Geneva Lakefront Market Review

It still pains me to write all of this on this open format. The thought of new agents reading this and adopting my way of thinking is bothersome. I’ve sat at this desk for 23 years to find this level of intelligence, and yet someone else might have just received their license last year and now I’ll deliver to them the information that they didn’t even know they needed. Regardless, there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’ll write it anyway. Without further ado, your 2019 YTD Lakefront Market Review.

The market is active, we know this. It’s hot, you know it. I know it. The new agent knows it, maybe too well. There’s very little pause here, and if we agree that the single greatest driver of our lakefront market is the stock market, well, the S&P just closed at record highs. Because of this, it’s no surprise our market is active. But just how active? Is it healthy? Are sellers reasonable and buyers motivated? Well, the answer to the last volley of questions is a resounding no. Some buyers are motivated. Some sellers are reasonable. Most sellers are not, and most buyers are not. This is the paradox of 2019. The market? It’s hot. The market participants? They’re all different. Lake Geneva, where I’ll cobble together the market to create some data, but where each weekend and each transaction is nothing more than anecdote.

YTD the market has closed eight lakefront homes, nine if you count the South Shore Club, which counts in market context but not for the representative data that we’ll review shortly. 2018 had experienced 11 closings by this date, which doesn’t mean our activity is less than last year, it just means that we had a bit more inventory and more carry over in contracts from the late fall of 2017 that closed in 2018. The highest price sale for 2019 is my sale on North Lake Shore Drive in Fontana, for $6.95MM. The high sale for last year YTD was Hillcroft, which closed north of $11MM. The lowest priced sale this year was on Walworth Avenue, at $1.25MM. The low sale for YTD 2018 was $1.126MM, also on Walworth Avenue. Walworth Avenue, do you sense a trend? I do.

We ended 2018 with averages of $27,684 for Price Per Front Foot, $625 for Price Per Square Foot, and $58.09 for Price Per Square Foot of Land Mass. Those averages, by the way, are seldom used (outside of the popular Price Per Front Foot), largely because they narrow down value ranges in a way that don’t apply to each transaction. A property might be sheer perfection, but the house might be lame. The house might be intensely beautiful, but on a small lot. The market is full of different makes and models, and when someone tries to point to value based solely on these metrics, they’re proving their ignorance. But these metrics do matter, and they do help take the temperature of the market.

Something that I’ve noticed of late is an immense level of would-be seller confidence. These are the sellers that are contemplating a listing. Prices are high, but seller’s prices are higher. This is where these blended averages can help. Consider the current cycle bottom was in 2011. That year, we averaged $20,241 Per Front Foot. 2018 proved the average was nearly 37% higher, which is impressive and at the same time misleading. Still, let’s presume that prices have risen 37% on average since 2011. If you’re a seller using that to justify a sky high price in 2019, are you willing to admit just how low your valuation was in 2011?

The YTD 2019 numbers are as follows. The PPF for 2019 is at $34,301. Price Per Square Foot is $750. The Price Per Square Foot of Land Mass is $62.63. Those numbers are great, but they’re so misleading I almost decided against printing them. Does this mean that lakefront prices are up another 20% from last year? Some people might like you to believe that, but the answer is no. The market is stable from last year, it hasn’t accelerated more than a few points. The accumulated value differences are due to an abundance of $2-3MM sales and a lack of $4-6MM sales that might temper some of those numbers. I fear that the current figures are going to give sellers a false sense of confidence as they look for pricing clues for their summertime offering.

That said, the market is humming along nicely. It’s functioning just as it should. We should appreciate it. I don’t see inventory building too much in the coming weeks, and I do think that value still exists in spite of some current asks. Expect to see deals pick up once our weather improves. It’s an old excuse, but it’s a valid one. 68 degree weekends with abundant rain have a tendency to dampen the spirits of those looking to park a significant amount of money on our shores. But we know what we have here, and we know how life changing a vacation home here can be. We also know that the showers have made our hydrangeas very happy, which will make for a terrific July show.

Lake Geneva Lakefront Inventory
David Curry

Lake Geneva Lakefront Inventory

Sometimes, I like to dance around a topic. Actually, all of the time. Except today, because I’m in a hurry and there’s no time. If you’re wondering what’s for sale on the lake this morning, CLICK HERE to indulge your curiosity. There are 21 homes for sale including the South Shore Club and the one in Trinke’s. If you’d like to know which homes are worth your time, and if you’d like guidance through this market that isn’t quite as easy to understand as some may think, let me know. I’ll have a more in depth review of the current market conditions and YTD sales on Friday. Until then, peruse away.

Above, the property at 246 Circle Parkway, Williams Bay. If you want an entry-level priced home with tremendous, value minded upside, this is a good one. If you want to buy on a street with no upside, this isn’t the right house for you.

Aged Lakefront Inventory
David Curry

Aged Lakefront Inventory

There are several unavoidable truths involving the Geneva lakefront market of 2018. The market is frustrating for buyers. It’s awful, really. Limited inventory, quick sales, more buyers than sellers to the tune of five or more to one. This is an unfair fight, and the sellers are winning.  In the end we know it’s the buyers who win, the buyers who pay the ransom to receive a lifetime of change. But for now it doesn’t feel that way. The market is tilted heavily towards sellers, and we know this. We understand this. It wasn’t always like this, but from 2010 through 2015 you were too timid to buy. This is what happens, this is what happened, and this is the overriding truth of the market.

A lesser known and seldom understood truth is that the aged inventory on Geneva Lake isn’t just aged because no one wants to buy it. As a buyer, this is the easiest conclusion to make. That house has been for sale for a long time, no one wants it, I’ll be able to steal it.   This was the conclusion that I came to and lived in from 2010 through 2015,  and that conclusion helped me close the most volume of any agent in the county over the last eight years. That conclusion also helped those buyers smart enough to work with me score tremendous value on lakefront properties. Today, that conclusion is still made, but it’s no longer accurate.

Lakefront buyer activity is at insane levels. It’s not insane that so many families and individuals wish to spend their time on our shores, actually, it’s insane that so many people choose to spend time on other, inferior, faulty, embarrassing shores.  The sheer numbers of buyer traffic is somewhat overwhelming. Last Sunday I showed lakefronts, which I tend to do every weekend. But last Sunday I showed three different lakefronts to three different buyers. Back in 2007 I used to work with three different lakefront buyers, too. It was called an entire summer.  This market is buzzing, but what exactly does that mean for a buyer, and does that mean value still exists?

What it means for a buyer is painfully simple. If you like that house and you like the number enough, then you’re going to have to move swiftly to buy it. The number isn’t going to initially feel all that good.  There are deals to be had, in spite of this activity, but for every deal there are five sucker deals, those homes that will sell to buyers who either don’t have skilled lakefront representation, or those buyers who are working with agents who lack discernment in this marketplace. If you think selling real estate is easy, you’re right. If you think selling the real estate at the right price is easy, you’re wrong. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and this isn’t about me it’s about buyers and that faulty conclusion regarding aged inventory.

When a buyer keeps seeing a lakefront for sale, the buyer might be tempted to think the seller is getting desperate. You can’t hold out forever, seller!  Buyers sense a seller’s wariness and assume that a screaming deal is going to be possible. That the aged inventory has fallen out of favor with the market?  That there is a deal just waiting to be made! That the buyer will win.  An asking price of $5MM and a couple of years on market? That sounds like a $4MM print to me!  This was how I thought a few years ago, but this is no longer the typical outcome. The painful thing that buyers must realize in this market is that sellers are receiving offers. Sellers are generating showings. Sellers are seeing activity. And those sellers who are on the receiving end of activity and offers are simply holding firm. The market hasn’t forgotten these properties, it’s just that the sellers aren’t playing ball.

I see several pieces of aged inventory on the market today, and if I look through my old lenses I see opportunity. But I know those aged bits of inventory have had offers that exceed the price I’d be willing to help a buyer pay. These properties that look idle on your computer screen, with Days On Market piling up and dust collecting in the corners of the photos, those are properties that are only still for sale because sellers are too confident. The properties aren’t sitting because no one wants them. They’re sitting because of sellers who are negotiating from  a position of strength, and confident sellers are poison for a buyer looking to score value on aged inventory.  I see that old inventory, and I’d love for you to steal it. You see that aged inventory and you know you’d like to steal it. The problem is the seller sees his aged inventory and has a hunch that someone is going to pay him his number, even if it takes another year.

Geneva Lakefront Market Update
David Curry

Geneva Lakefront Market Update

The way I see it, any buyer of a lakefront home here has two options. You can buy for now or you can buy for later. If you’re buying for now, you’re buying something that’s done, something that’s ready, something that makes you happy. That’s a house that already has a coffee table where you plan to put a coffee table, and the tile of the kitchen backsplash is the same tile you would have picked if you were the one tasked with the picking. Or, you can buy for later. You can buy because right now you’re not ready to pick the tile, but you are ready to secure your piece of this scene. You’ll be more ready next year, even more ready the year after, but you see what you know you like and you buy it because the property is all that matters. Who would buy a house based on backsplash tile?

Contrary to popular opinion, I do not necessarily prefer one approach over the other. If you can find what you love and it’s done, buy it. If you can’t find what you love, build it. And if you’re ready to buy now, buy now. If you’re ready to buy next year, buy next year. But a particular hybrid of that buyer is the one who knows he can more easily afford to buy next year, but he finds what he loves and he buys now instead. That’s conviction, that’s bold, that’s the sort of buyer I tip my hat to. Also, I think I might start wearing a cowboy hat. It’ll be hard to wear it in an un-ironic way, but if I stick with it I think people will come to appreciate that hat.

The lake this year has had plenty of  buyers, those buying for now, those buying for tomorrow, and those buying now because they don’t think they’ll find the same options tomorrow.  YTD we’ve sold 16 lakefront homes. That’s a very respectable tally, though it falls well short of YTD 2015 which had 23 lakefronts trade by this date. What’s different this year is we have 9 lakefronts pending sale as of this morning. That’s a whole lot of lakefront activity, and it’s wonderful. Last year we added another 7 lakefront closings between 10/26 and 12/31, bringing our total (including Glenwood Springs first-offs and the South Shore Club) to 30 on the year. This  year, it’s more likely that we end up around 27 or 28, but that’s still a most astounding total.

What makes it so incredible is the cycle of lakefront buyers. Typically, one high volume year is followed by a lower volume year, as buyers who buy are not always replaced with more buyers who buy. In my business, if I have a terrific year it’s usually followed by a less terrific year, because I’ve spent through the buyers and sellers that have employed me, and then I must go out and find more smart buyers and smart sellers to hire me.  That’s why the strength of the market in back to back years is far more meaningful than the strength of the market after a down year. In other words, this lakefront market, man, it’s something.

There are two deals pending in the Lake Geneva Highlands, both listed in the $1.3s. One listing is mine, so that’s good. Working up the food chain, I have a new deal on the last remaining Lackey Lane offering, priced at $1.95MM. That’s 100′ of level frontage on a quiet dead end lane, surrounded by $4MM+ homes. What’s not to like? Not coincidentally, if this deal closes in 2016 that will represent the third sale on Lackey of this year, and then I’ll have brought in the buyer for all three sales. Can you tell I like Lackey Lane?  There’s a lakefront home pending on Marianne Terrace in Lake Geneva in the low $2s,  with my listing right next door still available at a similar price. To note, my listing has undergone some nice clean up over recent weeks so if you’ve seen it already and thought it was boring, come back to see it again. It’s better now.

There’s a fresh contract on a lakefront in Cedar Point listed in the $2.4s, that of a double lot. I’m expecting this will be torn down and then we’ll see two homes built on this site. I’m just guessing, but that’s the best use of that property. There’s a new deal on a mid $2s lakefront in the Birches. I’m not a fan of that house, but it’s a big deep lot so it make sense that the market absorbed it. The Sidney Smith new construction in the $3.8s is still pending, as is my large lakefront estate at 1014 South Lakeshore listed in the high $7s. Rounding out the notable pending inventory, my Stone Manor residence listed just under $6 should be closing soon.

If there were supposed to be jitters leading up to this presidential election, I haven’t noticed any. The one thing that does help Lake Geneva during times of distress is our low volume, and our low inventory. We do not have spec activity here that drags on a market as soon as we need to take a pause. As of this morning, there are just 18 true lakefront homes available,  and that’s a shockingly low total. I expect that to remain the case through the Holiday season, which should keep buyers in the market as they search for something new to consider.