Summer Archives - Geneva Lakefront Realty

Weather Malaise

By David Curry david_curry
June 14, 2019
Musings

Well, I have it. The malaise. But this case is so severe it should be capitalized, like Malaise. I should add something more to it. Like The Malaise. You wouldn’t say there’s a plague sweeping across Europe, you’d say The Plague is sweeping across Europe, and the death toll is astounding. Bring out your dead, they’d call. And we’d wheelbarrow the dead to the curb and when someone asked what happened they’d already know. It was The Plague. This is how I feel today.

It didn’t have to be this way. In fact, I’m generally resistant to this strain of weather borne illness. When someone complains about the cold in January, I tell them it’s fine. Make a fire, I say. When someone complains about the rain in April, I tell them don’t worry. The flowers will come, and I have houses that need to be photographed for my May magazine and I need the rain, I explain. In October, when the rain comes and strips the leaves from the trees and everyone moans and cries, I know it doesn’t matter because the salmon won’t run unless it rains, so rain away. And in December when it’s almost Christmas and it hasn’t snowed yet I think it’s terrible but I can also go out and chop some firewood without getting my feet wet, so that’s nice. See, this is my generally pleasant weather disposition.

But that was before The Malaise. Part of this condition is owed to my firm belief in a very negative weather related thing. My belief supposes that if a rainy, cold, windy spring has not been shed by June 15th, then the entire summer will be awful. I don’t like having this belief, but it has been true most of my adult life, and I have no reason to doubt it now. Rainy and cold with wind in late May isn’t a big deal for me. It’s just spring, I say. But now, when I’m staring down June 15th on my calendar and I’m seeing the clouds of today and feeling the chill of late Autumn in the air I’m falling deeper and deeper into my despair. Will this summer be a bad summer? I suppose we have through tomorrow to find out.

There is but one way around The Malaise, just one vaccine, one antidote, one homeopathic cure. The Malaise will grab you. It’ll shake you. It’ll make you wonder what your life has become and where your life is headed. If you’re not strong enough to fight it, it can, and will, ruin your summer. The only way to stave off the terminal outcome of this condition is to fight it in moments. To disregard the forecast. To ignore the men and women who tell you to grab your umbrella, and cancel your afternoon BBQ. You must ignore the macro and focus on the micro. If a weekend is going to be bad, is it all bad? Is the entire weekend bad just because Saturday was awful? Is this Friday going to be wasted just because it’s supposed to be windy and the clouds are hanging low and my furnace kicked on overnight? Or will there be something redeemable today? Something worth our while. Something in the sky, some blue, some white, puffy clouds that will replace this heavy gray paint that now obscures the sun? If the day is lost because the forecast says so, is it really lost?

I read a quote this morning of unknown origin. As I was deep within the grasp of The Malaise, the quote felt timely.

The perfect future never arrives. Life is full of seemingly endless trouble, and then life ends. Find peace in the imperfect present.

Never mind the fact that I believe Jackson Bowne said it better:

No matter where I am, I can’t help thinking I’m just a day away from where I want to be.

The concept is the same. Enjoy the day. The weather might be terrible. It might be lame. But the day will wear away no matter the color of the sky, so just try to enjoy it. If we’re lucky, the sun might come out and The Malaise might blow over to Michigan, where it belongs.

W4396 Basswood Drive

It’s still for sale. It shouldn’t be. Reduced to $8.495MM. The most complete estate listed for sale this summer. Email me for a private tour.

Lake Geneva Lakefront Market Update

I spent much of Sunday on the lake. There’s a new boat in the Curry fold, and the boat must be used. Boats are like that. If you don’t use them, they’re no fun. Just like lake houses. You can own one, and the ownership won’t be all that much fun. It’ll be work. But if you use it, then it becomes fun. It’s like money. Having a lot of it is fun, I imagine. But what good is it if you don’t use it? Along that line of thinking, the boat, and that sunshine, and Sunday. And a stop at Gordy’s for lunch and a gawkers tour of the lakefront to see what has changed since last fall.

Like every year, the lake has experienced changes. New builds are underway. Some large, some small, mostly, however, large. Renovations, big, deep, heavy renovations. Some renovations that you drive past on the boat and wonder if the renovation was the right decision. Should the old house with old house rooms and old house stylings have been scraped and rebuilt, rather than rebuilt around what was old? A new house in Loramoor, beautiful. Another new one in the Lindens, beautiful. Some new homes here and others there. The constant on this lake is the scenery. It’s always the same, always green, always lush, always dialed in. The change is the shade of the siding and the roof pitches of the new homes. Each year, the same, yet each year, change.

Earlier this week, a lakefront sold on Walworth Avenue in Williams Bay. This was not my sale. The buyer paid full price for a cottage with 50 feet of frontage, which is now the last domino in a line of five lakefront homes to have sold in the past two years along this particular stretch of lakefront. There are rumors of new construction coming to these skinny, long lots. Tear downs, maybe. Each of those sales closed between $1.1 and $1.5MM, whith just one at the $1.5MM mark and the other four in a clearly defined range between $1.1MM and $1.25MM. If gentrification is coming to this stretch of the lake, we’re about to find out.

The question now for the owners is whether or not this stretch is worthy of the gentrification, and the bigger, market question is whether or not this is a smart decision. I would argue that it’s a good decision if the initial purchase and the initial budget is range-bound. I’m speculating here, but that’s what I’m paid to do. Speculate on the current status of the market. Speculate as to where it’s going. And help buyers and sellers react to the market in an appropriate and intelligent way. That’s why I’m here today to think about the lakefront market, and to think about these sales on Walworth Avenue. There have been too many of them to ignore.

Times were, you wouldn’t want to buy on Walworth Avenue and tear the house down. This had been done in recent years, but it didn’t make a lot of market sense. Now, today, on the heels of five sales in 24 or fewer months, has something changed. Does this now make sense? I would argue that it does, with a big caveat. That caveat is not a market based caveat, but a personal one. If a buyer wants to buy for $1.2MM on this lake, they have very few options. Historically they would need to be in the Lake Geneva Highlands or on Walworth Avenue, with a few other spots dotting certain other sections of the lake. If you’re a $1.2MM buyer, you typically would not have a lot of options, but with ample, steady inventory on Walworth Avenue, it makes sense that these buyers found their way to this specific shore.

If you’re going to tear down a $1.2MM cottage and build a new house for $1MM (the low end of new construction on the lake, in my opinion, even on a small lot), you’ll be $2.2MM into a brand new lakefront house. Admittedly, this cannot be done anywhere else, and if you’re a buyer with eyes on a new house for $2.2MM, this is indeed your only option. Build away, new buyer. But this article isn’t about that buyer, it’s about the buyer that might be able to do better. The buyer who could have spent $2MM on a tear down instead of $1.25MM. This is about the buyer who is going to build a bigger house. A better house. And with all things bigger and better, that also means more expense. This is about the buyer who settled for this location rather than reached for it.

This is about the mistakes that are made by seeking out lower priced land. Don’t forget, it’s only a mistake if a particular buyer has a personal economy that is healthy enough to reach for more. Because for that buyer, reaching higher for the land purchase will always yield a higher top end once the new home is built. If you can do better, why not hope for that improvement? Why not wait to find better land with a higher upside? Why build in a range-bound section of lake when you could build in another location that might have legs to reach to $4MM or beyond? Why be early to a specific shoreline’s gentrification when you can settle in to another shoreline that has already made those strides? Why entertain the risk of one location when another, slightly more expensive, location will all but guarantee a gain at the end of the project? These are the questions that I ask on behalf of my buyers, and these are the questions that every home buyer who is considering building new on Geneva Lake should entertain. Without working through this process, you’re just buying a silly house on a lake without any real idea as to what amount of money you may be throwing away.

The market today is active, we all know this. Even new agents who tell you that they’re lakefront experts in spite of never having any lakefront experience or success can tell you this (and they do, in postcards, weekly). But the market is not without traps, and the easiest trap to avoid is the one that would have you over improve a specific section of shoreline that has yet to prove it is worth the investment. If you’re stumbling around this lakefront market looking for guidance, I’m here to help.

Summer Homes For City People

By David Curry david_curry
May 28, 2019
Business

In case you’re not around Lake Geneva at the moment and would like to peruse the new issue…

Memorial Day Weekend

By David Curry david_curry
May 24, 2019
Musings

Well, here we are. On the cusp. Don’t forget, this isn’t it. This is the cusp. This isn’t summer. This is a dress rehearsal. This is the weekend where you do the things that you need to do in order to be ready for summer. Remember that.

But this isn’t a weekend for remembering that, it’s a weekend for remembering those who paid the price so that we could worry more about the weather than anything else. Will it rain this weekend? Probably. Does it really matter? Not really. Don’t forget those two things- it’s a dress rehearsal for summer and it’s really a time to pay respects to those who made our lives so very, unbelievably, easy.

It’s also the weekend where you’ll find the new issue of Summer Homes For City People. Pick up a copy or three. Put them in your guest bedrooms. Read them. Discover the errors that escaped my proofreading. There will be plenty of them, I’m sure of it. I hope you enjoy the new issue, and I hope you’ll patronize the intelligent businesses that saw fit to advertise in the issue.

For now, take a breath. We’re on the other side of that miserable, petulant winter, and we deserve whatever good things are coming our way. This weekend, it’ll be fun. Enjoy it. And hopefully I’ll see you at the lake.

New South Shore Club Listing

The South Shore Club is all quite nice. The pool and the entrance, the tennis courts and the piers. There’s nothing like it here, and likely never will be anything like it again. Within the South Shore Club there are nice homes, some better than others. Some new, others older, some by the pool and some near the tennis. But beyond the typical homes in the SSC there are the elite. There are the select homes that do not merely angle over lawn and towards the water, but those that sit right up on the water. The front row. There are four of these built homes that match this description, two of which sold in the past 24 months for prices broke the existing South Shore Club sales patterns.

N1619 East Lakeside Lane was one of those sales. It closed north of $4MM, and the new owners immediately began the process of making a 15 year old home new again. Styles have changed, a possible surprise to some, in the event that you are sitting at home with your feet buried in forest green carpet. The process was thorough. Painstaking. Expensive. But no stone was left unturned and a house that felt very much like 2002 now feels very much like 2019. The finishes are superlative, with Plato cabinetry and Wolf appliances anchoring a stunning kitchen. Where there once was carpet there is now oak. New paint, new trim, new floors, fixtures and stone. The audio visual components and hardware have been updated throughout and a theatre room has been added to the walk-out lower level.

There’s nothing lacking here. No space concerns, with four levels of living space spanning nearly 9,000 square feet. No quality issues, with the extensive updates and recent repairs. And quite obviously, no location issues. This is the front house. The best house. The lot that faces the water fully, with a slight western tilt to take advantage of the sunsets. The location on the water is tremendous, opening to the widest section of the south shore, offering easy viewing of the nearby Lake Geneva Yacht Club regattas. And now it also plays like the newest house in the club, and it’s being offered mostly furnished for immediate use this summer.

Offered today for $6.495MM. It will be on the MLS later today and available for tour this week. If you’d like a tour of this home and the remarkable South Shore Club property, I’m here to help.

Pending Lakefront

My newest pending lakefront contract, 389 North Lakeshore Drive, Fontana. It’s a great house on a great lot in a highly desirable location. I’m excited to bring a new family to the lakefront, and to help them make their weekends count. If you’re in the market to buy or sell in the upper bracket on Geneva Lake, there’s no question that I should be your agent.

Lake Geneva Market Update

I fished for a few hours last week. Me, the stream and the snow, deep and white, still soft, still clean, and the trout. It wasn’t a big stream, and I didn’t place much concern on the catch, but the sky was clear and the water, too, so I trudged through the knee deep snow and to the pool that ages of water had carved into and beneath that limestone bank. A solitary bald eagle sat in a nearby pine and kept en eye on my effort. I enjoyed that morning. I caught a few trout. It was a beautiful winter day in March, and that day is nothing like this day. Today, I’m ready for the melt.

The market, likewise, has spent this winter ready for spring. But unlike the icy hold on our landscape, the market thawed a long time ago. There’s a question as to whether it ever froze. It’s easy to sit back on a morning like this and feel the malaise of a late winter day. The ice and snow, clouds and wind. It’s all too much. But we aren’t long for it. Soon enough it’ll be spring and then summer and you’ll be sitting at your desk wondering why you let the malaise of March bring you down when you should have found the motivation of March, which is far more rewarding.

Around the lake today there is activity. Ample activity. A nonsensical tax bill proposed by The Billionaire Governor Next Door (that bill that supposes a hard working family earning one million dollars per year owes the same debt to society as a billionaire who made his money through the hard work of inheritance) is a headwind for our market, there’s no sugarcoating that. But in spite of this, the market persists. Activity is rampant in all market segments, from condominiums in Geneva National (at least ten under contract currently), to lakefront homes on Geneva. There is no let down here, just an unavoidable march towards summer, marshaled by those participants who feel like making this summer the best summer of their lives.

The lakefront condo market has had itself a nice little winter, with a rare pending sale over $1MM in Bay Colony, and another pending sale over $800k in Lake Geneva. The real tragedy here is that my Bay Colony unit, that one that’s so nice it’s almost difficult to comprehend, is still available. At $799k it’s being offered far below owner cost, and if you were looking to spend this summer lakeside in luxury, you couldn’t do it for less. Of course you could go to some other lake, but I know you’re smarter than that.

The lake access market is moving nicely, with twelve properties priced from $198k to $1.295MM currently under contract. Included in that list is my fine listing in Glenwood Springs, which remains the nicest off-water cottage I’ve ever seen. While this off-water activity is nice, the real action is once again found on the lakefront. My listing on Park Drive ($2.195MM) went under contract last week, as did another lakefront in Glenwood Springs in the high twos. A property in Shore Haven ($2.949MM) hit the market two weeks ago and was quickly purchased by another lakefront owner, as the trend of musical lakefront homes continues. It’s like musical chairs, but without the music or the chairs.

To round things out, the top end of the market received a nice jolt over the weekend with the fresh contract on my lakefront listing at 389 North Lakeshore Drive in Fontana. Newer construction in a desirable location is rarely offered on this lake, (note the desirable location part), so it shouldn’t be a surprise to see this lakefront ($7.385MM) find a buyer. If you’re wondering how important it is to offer your home to the market in turn key condition, I’ll point to this sale and give you a hint: it’s very important.

The lakefront market added four new lakefronts in the past month and three of those sold immediately. I’m expecting lakefront inventory to increase in the coming month, which isn’t especially profound. The market will continue to move as the calendar turns, and if we’re experiencing this sort of activity now, can you imagine how much better it’ll be when the ice gives us our big, blue lake back?

Park Drive For Sale

By David Curry david_curry
February 18, 2019
New Listings

Lakefront buyers know that a hunt for a lakefront house can be fun. Can, being the operative word there. It could be fun. Should be fun. But often, in this market, it is anything but. No inventory, stubborn sellers, too much competition amongst other, potentially more motivated buyers. Sometimes, it’s all too much. But in the process there is an education, as buyers come to understand what it is they should expect at certain price points on this magnificent lakefront.

Enter Park Drive. A south shore lakefront with almost 80′ of level frontage with a rare sandy beach shoreline. Lakefront home buyers understand that $2MM or so doesn’t typically allow for such a wide swath of level lakefront. What’s typical in this market now is fifty feet, maybe more, maybe less, on the side of a hill. Park Drive has a three car attached garage, into which you enter off of a private, paver driveway capable of holding several cars. Parking and a three car attached garage? Not common in this market at this price point, but you already knew that because you’re a $2ish buyer and you aren’t finding what it is that you want.

An old cottage, that’s what you’ll find here. Some lipstick, a heavy hand, and voila, that’s the cottage you’ll find for this sort of money. But that’s not what I have here at Park. I have a lakefront home built in 1996 with Viking appliances and multiple fireplaces and so much glass on that lakeside wall. Yes, you can find an old cottage on a hill for this price, with those fifty skinny feet and that little pier, but why would you keep looking for that house when this better house is right here, right now, ready for summer 2019?

Three bedrooms, two baths, a three car garage, private pier, huge lakeside deck and patio, 79 feet of dead level frontage, turn key condition. $2,195,000. Let me know if you’d like to see it.

Spring Market

By David Curry david_curry
February 4, 2019
Strategy

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the week that was. Monday we were roused from our slumber by snow, perhaps six inches of it, and we were glad. Or at least my kids were glad, because snow days are to be celebrated. Then the temperatures dropped, and Wednesday school was called, followed by Thursday. It was terribly cold, but you know this because you were there. Or here. The week was memorable, and in the dark depths of this important winter it would be easy to forget a very basic truth: Summer is coming.

This is true, whether it feels true or not. There is no way around it. Summer will be here soon. In the real estate sense, it’s right around the corner. January is gone, the boring, tedious Super Bowl is over, and what comes next is easy. Summer. Yes, there’s plenty of winter left. It will still be cold. There are months worth of fires left to be burned. There is work to be done, wintery work. Like any season, much of our time is spent preparing for the season to come, and since Spring isn’t so much a season as it is a petulant in-between that we must suffer, the next thing is summer. Ready or not.

I have to tell you this now because now you still have time. If you’re a vacation home buyer, you should be aware of your schedule. Looking for a house in February is good if you’d like to be contracted this month and closing in March or April. If you close in late March or April, that gives you a handful of weeks to prepare your new property for summer. There are sheets to buy and pillows to fluff. There are walls to paint and cabinets to wash. Hardware should be upgraded, because we all know you cannot abide a full summer with those terrible doorknobs.

I like June buyers. They’re nice. Sweet. Showings are easy and weekends are soft. June buyers are simple. To be a June buyer is to be motivated, sure, but motivated for what? To close quickly in July and suck a few extra weeks of real summer our of 2019? How much better it would be to be a February buyer. Time, that’s what this buyer has. If you’re buying in February you are seeing this market for what it is when the romance is gone. You see behind the veil. There is no clarity of vision in June, there is only the overwhelming urgency of summer. February? That’s the sort of buyer I’d want to be.

The good news for February buyers is that I’m here, and I’m at your service. The weather isn’t great. The lake is frozen and layered with weekend slush. There’s nothing here right now but the business of summer, and it requires your immediate attention.

One Last Summer

By David Curry david_curry
September 5, 2018
Musings

Somewhere, sometime, there was a decision made. It was a decision based on indecision, really. This would be it. A lifetime here, in this place, but the times had changed. Someone had died. Someone had graduated. Someone had moved. Their fishing hat, with lures he’d never used, still sitting on the mantle. The sailing shirts, accumulated over years of school, still stacked on the closet shelf. The place looked the same, but something was amiss. A change would be needed, no matter how badly everyone wished that wasn’t true.

Life brings change, no matter fervently how we root against it. There are times I wish for change as well. I live in the country now, content with it all. Content with the chickens and the bees and the dogs running free. But at times, like last night when the air was soaked with moisture and my expansive lawn needed cutting for the third time in a week, I thought maybe it was all too much. Maybe a house by the lake would be nice, with neighbors and a pier and a lawn that wouldn’t need so much tending. Maybe something simpler, something different. Maybe that’s what I need.

We’re all probably the same in this way, and that brings us to the family that decided in January, or last November over a great meal, or in May on that weekend when we remember, that it was time to make a change. The house had been a good house. A capable host. The catalyst for so many things, so many great times, so many memories, some good and others bad. But life changed, and when life changes, houses are often the casualty. The family made the choice back then, to spend one last summer at the lake.

It’s September now. Still summer, sure, but different summer. Old summer. Summer in the present addressed like it’s in the past. Summer, ish. For those families that made the decision, that last summer has run out. The bell has tolled. The clock has struck. The time is now. If you’ve ever sold a house in this manner, you know this feeling. Regret. Indecision. Resignation. But time wears on, and movement is inevitable. We’d all like to keep things as they are forever, to feel the permanence and comfort of what’s already known. But sometimes, there has to be a last summer. To those families grasping for one more day of that last summer, we salute you.

Gone

By David Curry david_curry
August 24, 2018
Musings

This week wasn’t like the other weeks. It wasn’t like the one before it, or the two before that one. It’s been a week unlike any since this week last year. No amount of sun can coax the summertime swimmers back to the shallow beaches. No particular special, even the all-time favorites, can tempt the diners back to those summery patios. There’s nothing that can be done now to slow this week down. The next week will come, soon enough. Summer is still here, but it’s mostly just a memory.

And we’re fine with that. Sure, some aren’t. Some are making their travel plans even this morning, as they sense the morning chill of September and wish it weren’t so. It’s too cold to golf today, someone will say. The club in Naples has their annual Welcome Back outing October 21st, and what an event that will be. It’ll be warm and sunny, so long as no hurricanes see fit to disrupt that ideal. What a life it would be, to leave summer and find your way to another summer. So much summer, all summer. All the time, summer.

With age, this is supposed to be what we crave. Summer, only. I had a good friend once tell me that it’s not good for kids to be raised in a climate where half of the year they have to stay inside. I agreed, thinking that Arizona would indeed be a terrible place to raise a family, what with the summer heat. I have other friends tell me they dream of days where they can transition from our summer to another summer, from our blue water to the bluer gulf water. From one summer utopia to a winter utopia that stays dressed as summer each day of the year. I say this is all foolishness.

We here count our perfect weather days on one hand. Maybe two. This past week was just fine for me, I liked it rather a lot. But it stormed on Monday and it blew on Tuesday and only Wednesday and Thursday were nice days. Today it’s Friday and it’s cool again, cloudy and sprinkly. Like a warm day in late October, except it’s August and some still crave summer. I don’t. The two days this week were plenty for me. I loved them very much, and yet in spite of this affection I feel no particular need to dwell in them. They’re too perfect to expect too often.

It isn’t just late August that has me in this mood. I felt this way earlier in summer, too. A stretch in July where it was hot and sunny, then sunny and hot. A week, maybe more. Steady and unwavering, sweaty and persistent. Then, one day, I woke up to clouds and a wet sidewalk. Rain. My eyes rejoiced in the relief. I needed that day, because who am I if not a Wisconsin creation through and through? I was not made for intense summer, for the constant pressure that it brings. Yes, I know I should go down for a swim because it’s so nice out, but what if I just want to rest once in a while?

Yet here we are. The end of a summer. The kids are back in school, and those that aren’t won’t be able to escape it forever. The forecast still promises summer, and it will for quite some time yet, but the mood has been lost. If you’re sad for that, and you’re ready to escape this place in favor of another place where the summer never stops, I wish you well. I’ll abide your irrational mistake.

But if you’re like me, then you’re reasonably disappointed that summer is over but you’re more than ready for what comes next. You’re ready for cool mornings and still afternoon waters. For a town set free from its summertime rush. You’re ready for all of the joys of a Midwestern fall, and in case you weren’t aware, our kind of fall is glorious in a way that few places can comprehend. But so is what comes after, the cold rain of late October and the transition of color from red and yellow to the dull calm of November. From November to Thanksgiving, to that great feast, and into the first snow. The firewood is idle now, but its time will come. I, for one, cannot wait.

Not The Same

By David Curry david_curry
July 25, 2018
Musings

I don’t really know exactly how Hamburger Helper works. I assume it’s just a powder mix, with some starch to bind and some salt to flavor. Maybe a dash of onion and garlic powder for good measure. I’m guessing you brown some meat, strain off most of the fat, and then stir in this powder. Give it a bit of time on some heat and it thickens and becomes Hamburger Helper. Maybe you add in macaroni or other noodles, I can’t be sure. But whatever you’d made you can eat it, and if you’re not a snob you can recognize that in spite of its name it tastes ok. It’ll satisfy your hunger, much in the way that a fine Porterhouse steak cooked on the dying embers of a wood fire will accomplish the same. Both are food, both come from a cow, and both will allow you to push away your pangs of hunger. In this, they are the same.

When I eat fish fry and tell the world about it, I get mixed reviews on my reviews. Some people like them. Good one, Dave. Other people shake their head because I just insulted their favorite restaurant. Others still tell me that fried fish isn’t good at all. That it’s not really food. Unless you’re grilling a fine piece of line caught Tuna or a fat sliver of a Swordfish steak that you’re not really eating fish at all. But that’s where they’re wrong, because I am eating fish, and it did taste fine, and my hunger was satiated. Would a nicely seasoned, seared piece of fresh Tuna be a finer option? Of course it would, but I was just looking to eat an easy dinner with $14.

This market of ours is causing buyers significant pain, as you know. It’s causing strife and anguish and terrible, terrible bouts of regret. Should you have listened to me and bought that lakefront home in 2013? Obviously. Increasingly, as buyers find little to pick over in this Lake Geneva market of ours, they’re turning to other ideas. To other lakes. Other places. Other states (shudder). Michigan is better they say. Michigan has antique stores! Michigan has more nuclear power plants and more beach syringes!, they plead. Do you know what Michstakegan also has? Inventory at lower prices. No one will admit this, but inventory and price drive decisions, and if water is water and a tree is a tree, then some water and a tree anywhere will do.

Maybe it’s not in Michigan, maybe it’s here. Another lake, perhaps. Farther away where the dollar stretches a bit. Beaver Lake, that’s a nice place. Look how clear the water is! Yes, it’s clear and you just might have two or three feet of it off the end of your brown wooden pier. Maybe Pine Lake, where the water is clear and the shoreline green, where you can sit on your dock (they don’t get piers there, these are ours) and watch nothing go by. If you’d like to sit in the woods by yourself, Pine Lake is fantastic. If you’re hungry and you want to go to dinner but you’re a recluse now and you’ve forgotten to renew your driver’s license you could shoot a deer and eat it. No one will notice.

There are other options. Lots of them. Anywhere you want to go, options. If your standard for a lake house involves just a house and a lake, this can be accomplished anywhere. Want to save some money? Go to Tennessee, there are loads of lakes there and wonderful, plucked banjos to provide the soundtrack of your float. Or drive to the Northwoods, like so many do. It’s nice up there. Just plan to leave by 5 pm so you can roll in around midnight. Rainy on Saturday, oh well! You can go take your picture next to a giant wooden fish.

As I stood on a pier last night with the last few bits of sun peaking out around the Observatory’s iconic dome, I breathed the scene in. Soft waves, a gentle breeze, a boat or two slowly plying past heading to their nighttime piers. In the shallows, a Huron plucked around the rocks looking for the minnows that couldn’t escape his beak. In the distance, a sailor sitting stationary, hoping for a few last gasps of wind to bring him back to the pier. There’s something about this place that the uninitiated cannot fully grasp. Something rare. A blend of action and solitude, of peace and motion. Something unique that other lakes simply cannot attain. You could leave this place in search of a lake that will more generously offer you inventory. They’ll give you nice homes for much less money. They’ll give you some water to swim in, no matter if your bathing suit will slowly turn green from the exposure. You could go to these places. But please don’t you ever mistake their Hamburger Helper for our Porterhouse.

Novak’s Fish Fry Review

On one hand, I should have probably visited France before I turned 40. Maybe it would have been more interesting if I had been 20 years old, backpacking and hitch-hiking my way through Europe, free as a bird without a care or concern or shred of responsibility. Or maybe that would have been a terrible idea, because who would want to sleep in a dirty hostel when Amex has a Fine Hotels Collection? Who knew about this when they were 20? Regardless of the benefit of better lodging, there’s one other desire I discovered on my recent trip that likely would have been lost on 20 year old me: The allure of outdoor dining.

While wandering our way through that foreign land I do believe we only ate three or four meals in-doors. This outdoor style had nothing to do with weather, as we ate outside as frequently in sunny Provence as we did in rainy Paris. On my first full day home, I met up with a client who is also a friend and we decided to eat breakfast at Simple. It was a lovely spring morning, warm and dry. The patio beckoned. But when I asked to be seated on the patio I was told that I couldn’t eat there. That it was closed. That the outdoor server wasn’t in yet. When I suggested that the indoor server could step a few feet out of the door and voila, become the outdoor server, I was met with resistance. We ate inside, much to our chagrin and much to the offense of my newly adopted habit.

Last Friday night it was a bit rainy, a bit cloudy, a bit windy. But Novak’s in Fontana was up for their turn on the Fish Fry Freighter, and so we pulled in and found a seat on their outdoor patio. Their patio has old metal chairs and tables, a lovely old iron fence, and ample umbrellas, so many that had it been raining we may not have even noticed. There is no remarkable view from this patio, no lake waves to watch, just a side of the fire station and a distant view of the gas station. Still, the landscaped boulevards in Fontana are in bloom and the grasses pushed and pressed with the wind, and the scene, in spite of any focal view, was rather delightful.

The fish fry at Novak’s is rather straight forward. It’s fried or broiled cod, served with a side of potato and all of the traditional accoutrements. The cod meal is served as three pieces. If you want two, you’re out of luck. Expecting four small pieces? Hit the door. It’s three and you’re going to like it. When we inquired of our waitress whether or not we could do half and half, we were told no. Perhaps that’s because they can’t properly split three pieces. Maybe they have no tolerance for half pieces of fish, and they interpreted our request literally, with no wiggle room. My wife ordered the baked and I ordered the fried, thereby working around their no substitution rule. We were bored and hungry so we ordered the cheese curds to pregame.

It should be noted that while the patio is quite nice, the interior space lacks any particular panache. It’s just a restaurant space. You won’t remember it. Our waitress was polite and prompt, perhaps owing to the fact that at a bit after 5 pm we were one of only two occupied tables. I’m guessing the restaurant filled up after we left. We drank our water and watched the boulevard grasses dance in the lake breeze.

The curds were out within several minutes. They were smallish, and pale in color. I like my curds bronzed, but these were pale, almost yellow. Never mind the color, they tasted right, even if there was more chew to the cheese than I prefer. The cod was out a few minutes later, a nice little platter of fish and potato. The baked cod was covered in what we thought looked like dill, though it didn’t carry a heavy dill favor. The baked was well seasoned, nicely salted, and overall quite good. The pieces, however, were small. I could have used a slightly larger fish.

My wife ordered fries with her dinner, and we both agreed the fries were memorable. They are basically the same french fry that Gordy’s serves, which are among the best in the area. If you don’t eat french fries because you’re super fit and can’t spare the handful of calories, I weep for you. My potato pancake was singular, and it was just decent. I found it to be too dry for my liking. It was close, but not close enough. Too much time on the griddle, or not enough mayo, sour cream, or whatever they use as a moistening agent.

The fried cod was properly crunchy, nicely salted, and nearly perfect. But there was something amiss. The batter was a bit soggy around the fish, so even though the exterior was crisped, the full bite featured some soggy batter. Still, the fried portion was larger than the baked, and at the end of the dinner my wife and I both agreed that while we’ve had better, we’ve had many that were worse. The tartar sauce was sweet and nicely seasoned, and while the applesauce won points for being served in a larger than typical plastic tub, it was too smooth for me.

I’d definitely add Novak’s to your Friday Fish Fry rotation. The patio might not transport you to Paris, but it’s better than sitting inside. At $14 per dinner it was in line with my pricing expectations, and the waitress was both polite and prompt, which is really all any of us can hope for. The fish was properly cooked, properly seasoned, and quite enjoyable. It wasn’t perfect, mind you, but attention was paid, and I appreciated their effort.

Novak’s 7/10

158 Fontana Boulevard, Fontana

$14 For Baked or Fried Cod

Today

By David Curry david_curry
July 18, 2018
Musings

It’s another nice day here. The sky is calm and the birds are chirping. Some water from the sky would be nice, but that’s an opinion only shared by the farmers, me, and those birds. My Hydrangeas are nearly in bloom. I’m excited to see them again. I planted a few Hydrangeas at my office and they’ve already found the time to bloom and be eaten by the deer that stalk these mean Williams Bay streets under the cover of dark. Come to Nantucket, they say, we have all of the Hydrangeas! Look, some shingles and Hydrangeas and beaten up old shingles. I’ve been looking around here, and we’ve got all of those things. Big deal, Nantucket.

In spite of this delightful sky and these big, white blooms, I can’t help but look forward. It’ll be football season soon, someone just said. 55 days until College Football, written so boldly over a picture of a running back from some school diving into the end zone. I want to resist this. I want to think that football is a silly sport that I don’t even like, and fall is a time that I know will come at some point so why long for it now? Why, under these bright skies and with so much summer still in the tank, do I think about how lovely that first winter fire will be?

It’s July now. My son turned 15 last week. My dad will turn 74 next month. Or maybe it’s 73. Who could know? My uncle turned 60 recently, I think. My cousin got married in May and another cousin announced his engagement in June. I saw a license plate in town the other day, a recognizable plate that I’ve seen in this little town for the entirely of my life. I hadn’t seen the plate for a few years, so when I did notice it I focused on the driver to see if I recognized her. Sure enough, it was the lady who owned that plate when I was a kid, except she wasn’t the woman I remember. She was old and gray, weak in a way. If she’s that old now, so much so that she looked like maybe driving a car wasn’t the best idea, then what does that make me?

Half of the cars driving past my office this morning aren’t even cars. They’re trucks, big ones with trailers toting lawn mowers and weed whips and blowers and gas cans. It’s Wednesday and they’re mowing lawns. They mowed yesterday, too. Last weekend I showed a house in a neighborhood where I used to mow lawns. I looked at one house in particular and remember the owner coming out while I was mowing. He came out to yell. The lawn mower, he insisted, while leaving behind nice striped lines that I was rather proud of, was also pushing the grass down before it cut it. The grass was matted, sort of swept in the direction I was mowing but not entirely cut. As I drove past that house last weekend I stopped and stared at the exact spot that this old man violently raked his leg against the grain of that grass. He was pushing the grass up to show me what I wasn’t doing right. He was right. I had been doing a less than perfect job. But that old man is dead now and his lawn is being mowed by someone else.

My wife said that her days pass slowly. That summer lasts too long. That time doesn’t march nearly as militantly as those fancy-pants neighbors. But I beg to differ. This morning I was scrolling through the photos on my phone, and found myself looking at 2015. What a year that was. My children were little, still children. We had pictures from vacations to the beach, trips to the ski hills, and afternoons spent splashing under this bright Wisconsin sun. I looked much younger in those pictures than only three years should look. But I thought about the pictures from this year that I’ll be looking at in three more. How much younger I’ll look today. How much less gray. My son will have graduated high school by then and my daughter will be begging for her first car. Things will be different then, and then is right around the corner.

That’s why today I’m just going to be. I’m going to work and I’m going to play. I’m going to sand down the patio chairs that my wife decided to buy from the resale shop up the road a bit. I’ve been painting them green, like a Paris Patina, apparently. Later, I’ll swim or maybe I’ll fish. I might see the old lady with the license plate or talk to my dad about what it’s like to get old. I’ll drop my daughter off at sailing school, and I’ll bring my son with me to the gym and afterwards we’ll all stop at the lake for a swim. He benched 135 for the first time last week. There’s nothing I can do to stop this fast progression of time, but I can stop to enjoy the unimportant moments once in a while. The moment isn’t some far away vacation. Some dreamt of goal. Some day far into an uncertain future that we’re foolishly counting on. It’s just today, and it’s another sunny summer day and we should be swimming.

Summery

By David Curry david_curry
June 27, 2018
Lifestyle

My calendar said spring turned to summer last week. The first day of summer, it said, capitalized with an exclamation point. The hardware stores had an ad in the paper, every paper, telling us that it’s summer time and because of this we need things. Grills! Plants! Bee Killer! I was in a hardware store over the weekend when a man walked in with a bee problem. He told the store worker that his bees were out of control. They were in the rocks and around his waterfall. They were a problem and his children wouldn’t be happy if they were stung, even though no one had been stung just yet. I kept quiet for a while but ultimately decided to ask if he was certain these were not honey bees, because honey bees are valuable and shouldn’t be choked by a foaming pesticide. He didn’t know. They’re all bees he said. And they’re all going to die. Welcome to Summer.

A woman drove a convertible down the road and across the intersection where I was stopped. There was something going on around the corner, a race maybe. Some bikes zipped past. Numbers painted onto the participants’ arms. So much determination, so much haste. The woman in the convertible didn’t care, she had on her big hat, and I wondered how it stayed attached to her head without blowing away in the open-top-breeze. Pins, maybe. I figured there was a trick, something women know that I don’t. She turned the corner too tight and her wheel clipped the curb, causing the car to bounce and her hat to flop and her neck to whip back like something happened that she couldn’t control. Later, when she’s home she’ll tell her husband that she just can’t understand what happened to that wheel. By then the scrape on her shiny rim will be smudged dark by summer dirt that washed from the spring fields during the last storm.

No one knows when it’s summer more than boaters. You can see the boats now, sitting on trailers and in slips, full of gas and ready. There’s no time like now to boat, at least now that it’s summer. If you have a boat and you own it during summer, what a thrill. Boats in the winter aren’t nearly as much fun. That’s when the bills come due. Winter service, winter storage, winter protection from the winter: $2650. Last year it was $2250, but the economy is better and the labor is tighter so the price has to go up. Boats are like that, a good measure of inflation and of the economy. Need your boat waxed? It’ll cost you $550 during a recession and $825 during a boom. It’s booming now, and the bill was $900. The extra is the Geneva fee. It would have still been $825 in the Chain, but no $75 has been better spent.

It’s raining again. It’s not a spring rain, it’s a summer rain. I’m sure because the weatherwoman said it would be a passing shower, like how it rains at Disney every afternoon. It always amazes me how much rain we can get in the summer and yet when I want precipitation in January so my kids can ski, it’s as dry as the driest of deserts. It’s dry in the Southwest, and they have purple mountain sunsets there. Come to the Southwest and see our cacti and our purple mountains and our sunsets! There’s nothing like a sunset over a purple mountain with some cacti in the foreground. That’s what they say, but I don’t believe them. Because it’s summer here and our sunsets are better. Once this rain passes I’m sure there will be a better sunset tonight. A summer sunset. The humidity will make the sky dazzle.

The calendar told people it’s summer, and they’re reacting. Boats are boating, sunsets are filling up Instagram. #summervibes, someone writes. Others Like. It’s that time, when summer comes to those who otherwise wouldn’t know. But I know. You know. We know summer has nothing to do with the calendar. Summer arrives when we first feel it on our skin. When the first pier is in, white and sturdy. The first boat pushes through the water from West to East and back again. When that first sunset is no longer visible through the bare branches of winter, but instead hides behind a deep, dark canopy of Oak and Maple. Summer doesn’t start at the end of June unless you’re not paying attention. Summer for me started sometime in May, whether the calendar watchers knew it or not.

Scarred

By David Curry david_curry
June 13, 2018
Musings

It’s still not clear to me whether or not the air conditioning worked. I remember a serviceman arriving in his rusted Suburban, the smell of his cigarettes, the sound of wrenches and hammers coming from the basement. But in spite of those visits, who could know if the air ever, actually worked?

The excuses were many. It’s an old house, my dad would say. My mom, wiping sweaty bangs from her face, would echo the same. But her words were less certain. Like she was reciting a line rehearsed in private. In private, from that room at the end of the hall, that larger lakefront room with so many windows, that’s where they hatched the plan. I’ll tell them the house is old, my dad would say. My mom would nod. They disagreed often, but on this they could agree. No one thought of the children. My dad thought only of the $8 he would save that month from keeping the air conditioning at bay.

I’ve owned plenty of older homes in my life. All of them had air conditioning. I paid to have it installed, because without it there could be no peace. In these older homes, some older than my parents’ home, the same man with the rusted Suburban would take his hammers and wrenches down to the basement. But when he had finished his clamoring there was some obvious sign of his success. Cool, dry, life sustaining air would pump from the registers in these old homes, bringing relief to the residents.

During that sweaty childhood there was an ongoing debate. If the outside, nighttime air temperature was 80 degrees, would it be better to shut the windows and wait for that slow, slight trickle of coolish air to pulse from the scant registers in my room, with the hope that the system would be able to cool the room to at least 79 degrees? Or was it wiser still to leave the window open, with the sounds of the fighting raccoons and the passing nighttime boats, and the slight chance that the air would cool on its own and settle, in the depth of a dark summer night, to 78? This was my arbitrage, a degree or two would make the difference, and the debate raged. Decision making skills wane during an 80 degree summer night under that blanket of intense humidity and a sheet of still, suffocating air.

Today, I’m want to turn on my air conditioning at the slightest hint of warmth. Some choose to leave their windows open during soft spring days. I say no, because I have no choice. On hot summer days when the night cools and the humidity falls, many will open their windows and rejoice in those cool summer nights. Not me. I can’t. I set my air conditioning to 70 in the spring and leave it there until it’s time to switch the cool to heat. I cannot consider another night in a sweaty bed.

It’s been noticed that the thing most of the tortured souls who have been lost adrift at sea crave is ice. Ice cubes. Not water, not food, but ice. The sound of it in their teeth, the sharp sting of cold in their throat. The numbing of their cheeks and tongue. Lost at sea once, forever in search of ice. I, too, was lost at sea, and I, too, crave the comfort of cold. It’s just that my sea was a childhood bedroom, and it was hotter, and more humid, and my chances of survival, less.

This weekend, it’s going to be hot. You should be at the lake.

Above, my Clear Sky Lodge listing in Fontana. Air Conditioning, included.

Lazy Patience

It was good to be a buyer in 2011. And in 2012. 2013, too. We know that now. What a time! We think. If only I could have been a buyer then, say the buyers now. But was it so great back then? Was everything perfect? I remember a buyer from the fall of 2011. He was worried about the 2012 election. Worried about the economy, or the economy as measured by the stock indices. He bought in the fall of 2011, and the lakefront purchase changed his life. But he almost didn’t buy and it almost didn’t change his life. It was good to be a buyer then, but it wasn’t easy.

If you were a buyer then and you didn’t buy, and in the days that have followed from those days to these days, I understand how you must feel. Shame is a powerful thing, but shame with equal parts regret is devastating. I have buyers today that tell me they wish they had bought. They wish they had upgraded. There were so many properties for so few dollars. What an amazing market it was, they say, as if they were non-eligible bystanders during the whole show. I should have bought something. Anything. That’s what a buyer of mine told me in a text last weekend.

Bill Shakespeare once said, “striving to be better, oft we mar what’s well.” It’s no secret that I’ve built myself a small cabin in the middle of nowhere, on the road from Where? , just past Nothing, Unincorporated. I commonly bemoan what it is that I’ve done. I built something too small. I built it a bit too far to this side. I painted that a bit too blue. It was supposed to be gray. The shame is intense. The deck isn’t finished, the patio never will be, and the gravel driveway is nearly impassable several months out of the year. There were some execution issues. It took two years to build a scant few square feet.

But it did get built. And I do get to sleep there. And when I drive down the road and fish the streams, I feel content. I say hello to the cows in the pasture and wish there was something I could do to help them get rid of those flies that pester and bite. I wander the farmer’s market once in a while, and buy something from someone who made it near there. The process was painful, the execution questionable, the outcome reasonably acceptable, if full of concerns. But I’m happy with it. Because it lets me hang my hat when I’m done with a long evening of casting tiny dry flies to wary, wild trout.

In the same way, last Memorial Day I sat lakeside and watched the show. It’s our show, after all. This is our thing. After a dreary winter it’s easy to forget how much passive fun can be had while watching boaters boat. New boats, old boats, new boats made to look old. Shore path walkers, some strolling, aimless in their amusement, others hiking, working, efforting. This place is unique, and it’s ours. On that day, was there any difference between the boater who has a Viking range and the one without? Was there any difference in the way that cool May water felt to the owner who has a small cottage a few doors away from the owner who has the larger home closer to the lake?

The great equalizer in the home search is found when you maintain focus on the true goal. If you want a nice house, just buy one in the city or the suburbs. There are lots of them for sale. Shiny ones with fancy things. But those homes don’t get you any closer to what you want. To indulge in this place. To wake up Saturday morning in a different state with a different state of mind. A different state of being.

The buyers from 2012 who missed out largely did so because they wanted better. They wanted different. Something with a larger living room and another bedroom. A shinier kitchen. One more bathroom. What a tremendous mistake to hold your lifestyle hostage when the demanded ransom is something as trivial as square footage. Or a garage. Today, buyers are doing the same thing. They’re deciding that an extra bedroom is worth another summer in the city. They’re choosing nothing over better, because they really want best. I have buyers tell me they’re being patient. Being patient is easy. It’s finding motivation that’s often far more difficult.

Above, the entry at my Basswood estate listing. Now reduced to $8,950,000

Off Season

By David Curry david_curry
November 10, 2017
Lifestyle

It was January. Maybe February. The snow had piled up and the lake had frozen. It was winter, but not like last winter, it was real winter. The sort we had a couple of years ago. The sort we might have this year. The property came to market on a Tuesday. It might have been a Wednesday. I saw the listing and sent it to a customer. I didn’t send it via an automated feed that all of my “competitors” use. Those feeds are insulting to your intelligence. Or at least insulting to mine. I sent him the property, with a note, “Buy this”. Within a few days, he had done just that. The beautiful vacant piece of Fontana lakefront was his. Ours. Today, a new home is being built. It will be a stunning home, designed with summer weekends in mind, perfect in the little ways. Perfect in the big ways. It’ll be done by next summer, hopefully.

The lot was listed in January. My buyer was in Naples. Or Ireland. Or California. It might have been South America, hunting grouse. The sort that live in the rocky crags. They might not even be grouse, but grouse lookalikes. It didn’t matter where he was. He knew what he wanted to buy here, and when it hit the market, it didn’t matter if it was a Saturday in July or a Tuesday in January. It didn’t matter if he “had the time” to make it up for a look. He had me, and my eyes and my advice, and he knew I knew what he’d want. In this, there is no humble brag. There is just the reality of a resort market during the months that the casual lookers perceive to be the off-season. The reality of Lake Geneva? There is no off-season.

Had this buyer not been paying attention, he would have easily let this opportunity pass him by. That’s the easy thing to do, after all, to assume that there’s always something else. There’s another best thing, coming soon. Not today, tomorrow, maybe. If not tomorrow, perhaps seven Wednesdays from now. That’ll be the day. That lot was purchased perhaps three years ago. From that winter day to this autumn day, there has been nothing else come to market that reflects the same sort of attribute. The ideal location. The ideal configuration. The ideal price. If that buyer had decided that, no, he didn’t want to pursue something because his attention was momentarily elsewhere, none of this would be happening. The carpenters wouldn’t be rushing to finish the roof before the snow. The buyer wouldn’t be thinking about summer at his new lake house. He’d just be temporarily distracted by the distraction of the day.

A cold November morning feels about as as distant from summer as possible. Nothing could be farther away at this point. We haven’t even started winter. We haven’t grown tired of winter. We haven’t longed for spring. We haven’t tasted spring. We haven’t put a pier in, because the piers still aren’t out. Next summer is forever away, and it’s easy to live our lives as though we have plenty of time. Summer will come, but it won’t come soon. This is the easy way to live. This is the way most live. But this isn’t the way to get things done. This isn’t the way to accomplish the goal. How do you accomplish the goal? You pay attention in December just like you would in July. When a property lists in January and I tell you it’s something to buy, you drive up in January. The grouse can wait. Summer’s coming.

Summer’s End

By David Curry david_curry
August 23, 2017
Lifestyle

The streets are quiet now. The excited conversations of summer are now just a murmur, fading like the green in all of these leaves. There was life back then, so much of it that it needed to be discussed. The green of the trees was bright, full, deep and overwhelming. It’s still very much green, but it’s duller than it was. Our conversations are quieter, the trees are duller, the waves are softer. The streets are quiet. This thing is nearly over.

Oh sure, we’re trying to act like that isn’t true. The gas station is full of boats this morning, their empty tanks being filled again. There’s still time, the boaters say. This day will be the best day. There won’t be many more like it, but this day. This will be the best. The beer will be cold and the fish might bight. When the fish ignore then we’ll tube and we’ll toast our skin and we’ll snack and we’ll drink. Today will be the best day of the summer. These are the lies of late August. We know they’re lies, but we tell them anyway. We have no choice.

We know, deep down inside our summer selves, that the only way to enjoy summer is to engage in it without a clock. The only time that summer is truly bliss is during early summer. The sort of summer that has so much left in the tank that we wouldn’t even think of anything else. An 80 degree in late June will always thoroughly beat an 80 degree day in late August. That’s because in June there are more coming, so many more that who could count? There isn’t anything ahead but more summer, better summer, tons and tons of summer.

It’s not like that now. There is football on my television, no matter if I click past the programming quickly or not, it’s still there. I looked at the stack of wood on my porch and thought that the stack should be taller. The wood is dry now, lighter than it was. It’ll be easier to stack higher and deeper, and I should start doing this soon. It won’t be long before I burn that maple. I cut and split the limbs in late winter, which is to say it was early spring, which feels now like it was forever ago, but not really. It was just a few months ago, before the spring really took hold, before the heat of June and the deluge of July and the niceness of August. It’ll be that way again soon. I should start chopping wood.

Yes, there are a few weeks of this thing left, but are there? If you’re lying in bed dying of something, is it great to be thinking that there might be a couple of weeks left? Is that life? Is that really, truly living? Or can you only really live when you aren’t thinking of dying? I always tell my parents that life doesn’t change when you’re on your deathbed. Life changes when you’re sitting in the doctors office swinging your feet back and forth off the end of that elevated bed when the doctor knocks at the door and enters the room. Life changes when the doctor tells you you’re sick. It doesn’t change when you feel sick, when you grow weak, when you’re nearly done. It changes right then, when she tells you what you have and why that’s bad. In the same way, is summer over when it’s October and the Sunday temperature barely touches 60 and we feel a sudden and overwhelming urge to wear our boots and visit the orchard?

I say no, that’s not at all when summer is over. Summer’s over when we start to think about fall, and I’m starting to think about it already. I don’t want to, I really don’t. I wish I didn’t have to rush through this season to discover the next. I already know what fall is like. But that’s exactly what I have to do, because I have no choice. I’m from Wisconsin, proudly, and we can’t linger in any season for too long. I know there are boat rides still to come, swimming and superjetting and sweetcorn. But there’s also wood to chop and jeans to patch and cider donuts to eat. I don’t want to do those things on purpose, it’s just that I can’t help it. The streets are too quiet for me to pretend any longer.

Photograph “Sweet Wheat” by Kristen Westlake.

Of Agents and Inuendos

By David Curry david_curry
August 14, 2017
Business

This is serious. You’ve been having the pain in your knee for quite some time. It bothered you during your junior year, but what could really, truly bother you then? Some tylenol and a creatine laced protein shake is all you needed to make that slight twinge of pain fade into the background. It was the championship game, after all. The pain now is different than the pain then. It’s more permanent. More achy. Less a twang of pain and more a deep constant, like something has taken hold in that joint that cannot and will not give up. You wait nervously in the doctor’s office. The smell of the receptionists microwaved lunch turns your stomach. Your knee is getting worse by the minute.

The doctor is friendly, you found him online. He has a billboard on the highway near the Walmart, “satisfaction guaranteed”. The guarantee is figurative, because there can be no guarantee with this sort of work. The knee doesn’t react the same each time. The doctor knows you know this, but his insurance company remains steadfast in their demands that he remove the writing from the billboard. He will, he says, but not until the contract is up. To change it now would be costly, and the state is behind in their payments for the elderly care he provides, and so things are tight. Your knee offers some financial redemption. You hope he looks as he does on the billboard. Capable, confident, full of guarantees.

He enters the room. He’s confident. His office, he says, is among the best in the entire country. He’s number one in his group. The group over which he reigns is unclear, but he’s number one, that he’s sure of. He’s been doing this for a while, years, in fact. How many is left out. He does this all the time he says as he looks over the file. Nothing to be worried about. His knee is bouncing, nervously. Your knee aches. He asks what the problem is. You tell him it’s your knee. He glances towards your leg. I see, he murmurs while furiously scribbling on his notepad, nodding the whole time as if asking himself questions and answering them quietly. Now let’s have a look at that knee.

His chair wheels over to you and he picks up your leg and rests it on his lap. His fingers prodding your achilles, pushing and waiting for your reaction. He turns your ankle to the left and to the right, no reaction. He pushes your toes away from your heel, up and down, back and forth, all the while watching your face for any sign of discomfort. There is none. Satisfied with his work, he wheels away and looks toward his clipboard. Good news, he says. It appears as though your knee is, as a point of fact, 100% healthy.

This may seem to be an absurd way to contrast a doctor with a Realtor, but it’s all I have for you this morning. This market has me concerned, as buyers and sellers alike flock to agents who don’t know the difference between an ankle and a knee. Agents who see pictures of sunsets and ask if the house is on a shore of the lake that would never, under any circumstance, offer a sunset view. Agents who drive to listings and call for directions. Agents who ask if association frontage is private. Agents who don’t know the difference between a slip and a private pier. Agents who show on Powers Lake on Sunday and Geneva Lake on Monday and condominiums in Whitewater on Wednesday. Incompetent, uneducated agents who find success because the work for a company that has some credibility. This hot market has been a breeding ground for inexperienced agents, and sadly, the market is falling for it.

In that, there is a real estate story. Consumers see a brokerage, and they think the brokerage to be good. Or at least capable. They then approach the brokerage, looking for an agent. The assumption is that the agent, if aligned with a large brokerage, is somehow an expert in their field. I would suggest to you that expert status is not attained by aligning oneself with a large firm. Now, if you’re in search of an attorney and you find one who is a partner at Kirkland and Ellis, you can reasonably assume that this partner is indeed a capable and competent attorney. But that’s because there’s a barrier to entry to such a firm. Only the best of the best gain membership. The barrier to entry to real estate is the ability to robustly fog a mirror, and if the test is completed without much difficulty, the agent is awarded a set of business cards and a gold jacket. You, the consumer, wander into the office the next day looking for a lake house. This is all a terrible, terrible mistake. Thankfully, there is a way to avoid the mistake. Looking for Lake Geneva real estate? Look with me.

Lakefront Inventory

It feels like an epidemic. Each day starts full of hope. Each day passes choked with despair. New inventory should be here by now. But it isn’t. Why isn’t it? This is what the people want to know. The smart Lake Geneva buyers are working with me, and I’m working for them, trying to dig up shreds of inventory so that I might offer it to them on this silver platter. Despite my efforts, the silver platter remains empty, carrying only the dust from a desperate summer.

Buyers are active on the lakefront, this we know. Lots of agents have buyers at the moment. Lots. They’re asking me for inventory. David, what do you have that I might sell? This is sweet of them to ask so nicely, but what they don’t know is that any inventory that I uncover will be inventory that I offer to my buyers first, and to everyone else last. This is why buyers should be working with me, among all of the other reasons, but still, the market persists and summer moves along and there’s no inventory.

But that’s not entirely true. There have been seven new lakefronts brought to market from June 1st through August 1st. Of those seven, I’ve presented three of them under my brokerage. The thing is, five of those seven are listings that were previously on the market. Of the two new ones, I sold my listing (Jerseyhurst, closing next month), and the other listing is an entry level home seeking a buyer (visionary). While I do see several of these new listings selling this year, it’s obvious to admit to you that our inventory is light at best. Anemic at worst. But how does it stack up to a typical Lake Geneva summer?

Last year there were nine new lakefront listings 6/1-8/1. For the sake of this historical reflection I won’t be deciphering which listings were “new” new, and which were regurgitated new. The same two months in 2015 brought 10 new listings to market. 2014 saw 12 new, and 2013 gave us 10. For the sake of averages, the market has produced 9.6 new lakefront listings between June 1st and August 1st. If we’re trying to be dramatic, that means the 2017 inventory production is 25% off the pace.

Still, in spite of the lighter 2017 listing volume, we’re still faring much better than the 2007 market. Those buyers were truly up against it, with just 3 lakefronts listed over those two summer months. And back then, the “cheapest” new listing was $2.2MM. So yes, our inventory is constricted. Yes, that makes it tough on buyers. But don’t for a second think it’s some sort of historical anomaly. It’s just a bit behind the running average, and I’m confident that August and September will bring some new inventory that will satiate the market.

Above, the master bathroom at my pending sale on Jerseyhurst.

Mid-Summer Markets

This would be much easier if we weren’t here. If we were in some other absurd little Midwestern vacation home market, everything would be different. We’d have our season, and it would consist of ice cream and t-shirts and six or eight weeks of hustle. Some bustle. Then we’d have our off season, which would make up the remainder of our year. We’d have in season, off season, and that would be that. Our fingers would be sticky from all that ice cream and our t-shirts would be stained so that you could barely make out the location of that miserable little Midwestern vacation home destination.

But we aren’t there. We are here. We’re in the middle of our season now, but what is this season, exactly? Is it July and August, as some would suggest? Or is it Memorial Day through Labor Day? Is it Memorial Day through Columbus Day? That’s a common thought, and it isn’t a terrible one. But really our market doesn’t turn off, our season doesn’t end, it just changes. We don’t close the doors, we don’t turn off the lights. We just enjoy this place with different goals in mind. The season, it’s upon us.

But this is the generic consideration of “season”. What about the market version? What about this season, this cycle? Where are we now, on this tenth day of July? Agents are scrambling, screaming about activity and offers and counter offers and amendments. They’re excitable, this group. And there are more of them now, more than ever. It’s easy money, so they start and they spout and they tell people things that they have no actual way of knowing. Yes, your house is worth X. I would know, I’ve been selling real estate since 2016.

I would call this current position in our market the Mid-Summer-Pause. Sure, there’s activity. Lots of it. But it’s also taking a bit of a breather. The spring sprint has ended. Inventory is low and refuses to grow. What inventory is present is either under contract, about to be under contract, or somehow fatally flawed and needing price reduction. I have two new listings coming to market this week, one you’ll learn about on Wednesday and the other on Friday, but I haven’t brought two lakefronts to market in one week for what feels like years. Will buyers pay attention to the new offerings? Perhaps.

There are buyers, after all. Many of them. Lakefront buyers, lake access buyers, condo buyers, land buyers. And the sellers who have been in the market for some time now fully understand that the summer is fleeting. Even now, with summer so young, it is escaping us little by little. The days are shorter now. Shorter today and shorter tomorrow. Winter is coming. Sellers know this, and in spite of the measurable buyer traffic there are deals to be made. Sellers, in this mid-summer pause, will be reducing their prices. Why reduce in the fall when you know the market is stronger today than it might be then? Sellers will be considering their position in the market and reacting accordingly. At least the smart ones will.

Today, there are five lakefronts under contract. One is my listing on Jerseyhurst. Others are in the $1.4-2.8MM price range. There are just 18 lakefronts available as of this morning, which is consistent with the inventory for most of 2017. It’s low, and we know it. But there is value in that list, even if it isn’t apparent based on the present list prices. Expect to see some reductions in the coming weeks, even as the market remains hot and buyers snap up new inventory. There’s nothing more frustrating than being a seller who sees the activity in the market and knowing your home isn’t benefitting. These are the sellers that will reduce, and if you’re a buyer, these are the sellers you should be watching.

For now, it’s mid-summer. My arms are tired from superjetting. My nose is sunburned. And all is well.

Geneva Lakefront Market Update

Wow. That’s really all there is to say. Wow. Maybe Wowzers. The lakefront market on Geneva Lake is as heated as it has been since the summer of 2007. I was a player in the market then, but I wasn’t a large player in the lakefront market like I am today, so my view of that prior frenzy wasn’t from the front row. Today, with this front row seat underneath me, I find the market to be breathless. How I pine for the darker days when buyers had a few moments to gather themselves before making a lakefront decision. For those buyers who had lakefront opportunities during 2011-2015 and failed to act, this post should be sung slowly as a dirge.

Today there are 21 lakefront homes available in our MLS. There are an additional four pending sale. At least two others have offers in negotiations. At first blush, you won’t find this all that rare. In fact, our inventory has actually risen over the past three months, as for one period there were just 16 lakefronts available. There are two primary points of interest that have presented in this new market cycle. Yes, it’s no surprise that buyers still want 100′ of frontage and they want it now. Yes, buyers still love Viking ranges and Sub-Zero refrigerators. Yes, Calcutta marble remains in high demand. The things you know are still correct, but there are two new drivers of interest that have never, ever fared particularly well in the history of our market.

Buyers have shown that they love being near downtown Lake Geneva. They don’t just sort of like it, they love it. I sold 700 S Lakeshore earlier this year in large part because of its estate qualities and its proximity to downtown Lake Geneva. The two lakefront homes on Main Street just West of Library Park are both pending sale as of this week (mid $2s), and that’s significant as both of these homes have endured some lengthy market times over recent years. Buyers found motivation to snap up these two homes, and I’m betting large amounts of your money that the interest was driven primarily by the proximity to downtown. In prior years, such proximity would have often been viewed as a negative feature. The noise and commotion, the tourists, the higher taxes. Yet of late, buyers love downtown and so buyers are buying downtown. It’s super interesting to me.

The other curious aspect of this new market cycle is the liquidity at the top end of our lakefront. Homes over $5MM have never sold with particular ease. During the last bull run here, from 2000-2010, just three lakefront homes sold in our MLS for a price that exceeded five million dollars. Since 2010, eleven lakefront homes (and a vacant lot, making it twelve) have sold over that benchmark. Of those eleven, I’ve sold seven of them, including three of four to close over $7MM, but that’s not the point (actually, it’s always the point). This increased liquidity is being viewed by the owners as some new stable trait of our market. Something that has finally manifest, and should stay in place forever. I’d question that theory, and would encourage any owner in this range who might be considering a sale to hurry up and sell. This liquidity is beautiful, but cycles are cycles.

And that brings us the concept of a lakefront market cycle. How long will this cycle last, and where are we in the cycle? Obviously it’s impossible to know this, but we do have the benefit of history to look at as a guide. The last cycle began in the late 1990s and ran up through 2008. The cycle lasted around 10 years, with gradual price increases occurring each year during that cycle, including in the years immediate following the 2000 dot com bust. If we look at our down cycle as occurring from 2009 through 2012, we’ve been building towards a new bull market since 2012. Yes, extreme value existed up through 2015, but for the most part our market was in full recovery mode (increased liquidity and increasing demand) by mid 2012. With that in mind, it’s easy to say we’re about five years into our current bull run.

How much is left in the tank? Well, judging by the market conditions today, I’d say plenty. Does it last two more years? Does it go five more? That’s impossible to guess. Keep an eye on the stock market and on our inventory if you’d like a clue as to where the market is going. If the indices stay high and our inventory stays low, you have the makings for a continued bull run. If markets melt to any extreme level and our inventory swells, that would likely mark the end of these conditions that favor our sellers. For now, look at the market. Watch it. And don’t do as many buyers are doing right now and make a mistake. Let me be your guide. Not only will we have a lot of fun with your house hunt, you also won’t end up buying the wrong house in the wrong location.

Above, morning at my 412 Harvard listing.

Expectations

By now you know I have a problem with cars. I like cars, but I don’t like the process of buying a car. I don’t even like thinking about cars. I’m young enough to see a car I like and think, “I really like that car”. But I’m old enough to not pursue the purchase of such a car. Men tend to track their lives by the cars they drive. I remember when I met my wife I drove a black Cadillac (don’t ask). Then, later, when my girlfriend became my wife, I drove a black Volvo. It was a nice car. Later, my wife almost decapitated our dog by sideswiping a telephone pole in a red Jeep Grand Cherokee. Life is most easily tracked when the memory places you behind the wheel.

The problem with these nice cars is that they’re expensive. Super expensive. And so earlier this spring I found my way to a car dealership and before my timid financial self could win the internal argument, I agreed to purchase a car. I negotiated for this car as best I could. I feigned the walk away. I stood up and paced. And when all of that was over I had raised my price by dollars and the dealer lowered theirs by pennies. I decided I wanted the car and so I had to pay for it. To walk away meant to repeat the process at a later date, and I was weary from so much anxiety. Later, when I think back about the spring of 2017, I’ll remember driving home in the rain with my wife who pretended not to like the new car until the seats started massaging her back.

This experience relates quite closely to the home buying experience. The desire. The negotiation. The decision. The decision, after all is said and done, is what this is really all about. I desired to buy that car of mine for about $1000 less than I paid for it. I could have stood my ground and hoped they called me the next day to accept my price. I could have done that, but I didn’t, because what I wanted to pay and what I had to pay were two different numbers. This is the situation at Lake Geneva today. If you’re a buyer, there is likely the price you want to pay, which is likely the price I want you to pay, and then there’s the price the seller is going to make you pay. You know which price is more important.

This lake is rife with stories of would-be-home-buyers who stood on principle and stood until they were the only man left standing. The buyer who looked at that lakefront in 1998 and said, no. $575k is just too much for that lakefront. Or the buyers who stood with me on properties in 2011 and 2012 and said, no, the price won’t work. These are the buyers who today look at this market and wish they had the conviction needed at the time they needed it. It’s easy to harness buying conviction when it’s too late. I would have paid X! They say. But it’s too late, because someone already paid it. The practices that helped my buying clients purchase lakefront property at significant discounts to the market five years ago are, for the most part, no longer working.

That’s because we know what we’d like to pay, but the seller knows what they’re going to take. That’s why these last few months I’ve stood on many properties with many buyers and discussed the price I’d like them to pay and the price they’re going to have to pay if they actually want the house. Would I want you to pay $1.9MM for the house? Of course. Are we going to try to pay $1.9MM but realize, after a heated and skillful negotiation that we’re going to have to pay $2.1MM? Again, of course. Because in this low inventory environment sellers have the upper hand, and this is an undebatable fact. There are some properties that have accumulated enough market time that they will succumb to our negotiating pressure but these sellers are the outliers today, not the standard bearers.

This summer, approach the market with caution. Certain properties are wildly overpriced. Others are not. Know the difference. Don’t approach the market with reckless, fevered abandon. But when the time comes and you find the house you want, just remember not to get too hung up on a few percentage points. Those few points will be long forgotten when you’re lounging lakeside, blissfully unconcerned with the slightly larger hole in your bank account.

Let’s Play Ball

To be the Dodger’s lead-off hitter is to be the invisible man. That first at-bat is a thankless at bat, no matter the outcome. The vendors are still loading their trays with refreshments, the fans still waiting in the longest of lines at the last highway exit. The television broadcast knows you’re batting, but they don’t care. They pan the crowd, to show the empty seats, to show the mountains in the horizon and the brilliant color the smog turns that early evening air. If you crack a thrilling solo home-run to lead off the game but no one is there to see it, does it still count as a run?

Likewise, when the team of large men in the NBA finals races off to a large first quarter lead but later melts under the pressure of a steady barrage of 30 foot foists, does that shimmering start mean anything at all? To the fans who saw it, I suppose the answer has to be yes. What a move!– the dad will say to his son. WOW! Some old lady will say to someone next to her. That lady has been to every NBA final since 1919, the announcer with the purple suit will say during half time. But your team raced out to that lead and you were in line waiting on the nachos, and you only returned to your seat in time to see the other team drop so many threes from such great distances.

Today at the lake, we are in the first inning. It’s perhaps still the top of the first, but there are no runners on and two outs. The pitcher has been flawless, effortless, really. His slider is sliding and his heater is heating. The third base coach looked towards the dugout and said he doesn’t think he’s ever seen better stuff. The NBA game has started, and your team is up big on the visitors. They’re throwing lobs and dropping threes and the coach crouched down in the huddle and told the players that he’s never seen them play better. And he’s been the coach for along time.

It’s early here, yes, but it’s phenomenal. Summer has started, whether you were ready for it to start or not. Last weekend, a client of mine decided to stay in the city. There were errands to run, things to do, a birthday party that begged attendance. The Lake Geneva forecast called for rain, and so the decision was made. The family would spend the weekend at home, in the city. Except then on Saturday the weather wasn’t foul at all, it was hot and sunny and bright. It was summer. Weekend plans to sit idle were thrown aside and the family woke up Sunday morning not in their Monday house, but in their Sunday house. Who could push away summery things when summer is already here? This is like saying you’re skier and you’ve made a plan to ski in January. When it snows 24 inches in two days in December, shouldn’t you go skiing?

Today it’s summer. Yesterday it was summer. Tomorrow? Summer. Summer does many things to a soul; things delightful and refreshing. But summer can also torment, and summer can be cruel. Summer isn’t going to wait for you to be ready, because if you’re not ready by now there’s a good chance you never will be. Don’t get caught in traffic when the first pitch has already been thrown. The grass is green and the sky is bright and the home team is belting homers left and right.

Lake Geneva Memorial Day Weekend

And away. We. Go. That’s best if read in the Joker’s voice, right before he ignites a bomb that has the power to destroy one thousand Gothams. But alas, we are not igniting a bomb, though we are ready for this slow burning fuse to hurry up and give us a show. It’s Memorial Day Weekend, and with this weekend we commence the first summer of the rest of our lives. What a summer it might be. It could be. It should be, probably. The issue today is that last summer was just so nice. Last Memorial Day weekend was delightful, full summer, instantly. This summer looks to be off to a rockier start, or at least a wetter one. Still, after some driving, it’s time to live it up like it’s the weekend.

I’ve written it before, but it should be mentioned again. This weekend is not a summer weekend. No matter how badly we wish it were, it isn’t. It’s a spring weekend. It’s May, for crying out loud. If the weather waxes summer, terrific. But if it doesn’t, let’s not get all bent out of shape. I can envision the text messages now… “What a crappy weekend”. “Are you building your ark?” Etc and etc. Yes, the weather might let us down this weekend, but that’s okay. This is just a dress rehearsal for summer. It’s the last full pads practice before we take the field. This isn’t the big show, it’s just the dry run. Or wet run, depending.

What does matter this weekend is the intent of the weekend. Yes, we’ll light our grills. Yes, some will go swimming. Yes, I’ll have my Superjet in the water. But this is about remembering those who died in awful places so that we can live here, in this place, where our biggest concern is whether or not it’ll rain on our cookout. What an embarrassing bunch of people we are. My kids can’t swim in the pool this weekend, so everything is ruined! No it isn’t. We’re alive. We’re free. We’re living in this place. We aren’t just existing. We’re living.

And so this weekend here’s what you should do. Pick up my 2017 Summer Homes For City People magazine. It’s out on newsstands now, and it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever done. I don’t think it’s the best, either, but that’s just between us. At least I didn’t put the wrong date on the spine like I did last year. Please grab the magazine and bring it home with you and leave it on the doorstep of your wealthy neighbor who doesn’t understand that weekends are not for the 6000 zip codes. Please do that, I’ll be thankful and my kids will, too. Now that we’ve discussed the things you can do for me, here’s what we can do to show our respects to those who made all of this possible.

There are parades everywhere this weekend, but since you’re reading this on this site we’re going to skip all of the things happening in towns that don’t matter. There are parades on Monday in Lake Geneva, Williams Bay, and Fontana. Men will march. Women, too. Kids, sure. The Lake Geneva parade is downtown at 10 am, the Williams Bay and Fontana parades are in their respective downtowns at 10:30 am. I recognize you cannot attend each parade, but try to attend the one closest to your lake house. If you try, I’ll try. It’s so easy to get caught up in the superficial worries of this weekend. Is the lawn fertilized? Are the annuals planted? Is the mulch done? Why isn’t the irrigation watering in the far west bed?! Who cares. Some famous philosopher once said, “It’s the superfluous things for which men sweat”. Let’s stop sweating and give a salute, and then we can go back to sweating.

Here’s to a most enjoyable Lake Geneva Memorial Day Weekend. And remember, if it rains don’t be sad. It’s not really summer, anyway.

I Know What You Did Last Summer

By David Curry david_curry
August 26, 2016
Lifestyle

I think we know each other well enough that we can cut through all the nuance. It’s time we had an honest discussion about me, about you, and about what it is that we’re doing here. I’m here because I get to be, because I have to be, but because I want to be. I’m here for those reasons, and many more. I’m here because it’s what I know, it’s what I love, and it’s what I prefer. I like this place more than the other places. I’m here because I’ve always been here. But this isn’t about me, so in that, I’ve lied to you. This isn’t the first time I’ve lied to you, I’ve lied before. Like once when I said I was going on vacation for a week but I was really only gone for 48 hours because I’m a slave to this keyboard, to this desk, indeed to this place. I apologize for the lies.

But why should I? Because this isn’t, as I’ve already mentioned, about me, it’s about you. It’s about August 26th and how late this is. It’s about the end of summer, because we all know what I’ve said a trillion times: September is still summer. Ah, but that’s another lie, because it isn’t. September is fall because when kids go back to school and the first fallen leaves get ground into the city sidewalks, that’s fall. It might feel like summer if you let it, but that’s the sensory part of September, not the emotional part. In fact, summer isn’t going to last through September, it isn’t going to appear sometime in October, for some of it or most of it or maybe none of it, because summer is already over. It’s August 26th and it’s not summer anymore. Anything I’ve ever said to the contrary is a lie.

I can tell it isn’t summer because my kids went swimming yesterday and so did my wife, with her ridiculous goggles, and then I played golf and I was sweating because it was still hot. The sun was high, the haze summer-like, and when it was all said and done I thought that it was a nice summer day. But it isn’t summer anymore. The town was busy and the cars were everywhere, but they weren’t everywhere like they were two weeks ago, they were just some of the places that they were before. The lake was busy, but no it wasn’t, not at all. There were some boats, but hardly any. Lots, sure, but few when compared with before. The lake was quiet the town was empty and the sun was high and the water was warm but it was fall and not summer.

The leaves are green, which looks like summer, just like summer. Except now the leaves are dull, they’re dying. They look fine but they’re dying. Like me and like you, we might look fine, but we’re dying. All of us, dying. Just like the leaves and just like the empty stalls in front of the ice cream shops and just like the clothes rack at your local back-to-school-shopping-place, withering and emptying because it’s not at all summer, it’s fall. The dull leaves are dropping, they’re dropping because they’re dying and they’re dying because it’s not the middle of summer, it’s fall. My cone flowers in front of this office window are beautiful, but that’s only if you look quickly. Look more closely and some are already dead, drying and offering up their seeds to the wrens and the other yellow birds that pick and pluck and leave the seed casings on my sidewalk. The squirrels are running across that sidewalk now, cheeks stuffed full to overflowing, because they know it’s fall and winter comes next and if they don’t pack enough nuts into their nests they’ll be like us and our leaves, dying.

So here we are, on this day when I finally admit to you what I know to be true. It’s August and it’s already fall. It feels of summer on my skin, but I’m far past the point in my life where I judge things based solely on how they feel. I imagine a skunk has soft fur. Delightfully soft fur. But I know that I won’t ever pet one, because my brain is smarter than my fingers. It feels like summer and I’m going to sweat today like it’s summer, but my brain knows what my eyes have seen. It’s fall, and it’s too late. If you were planning on doing something meaningful this summer you’ve already blown it. But Labor Day Weekend! Labor Day Weekend is for rookies.

It feels good to admit my lies to you. I no longer feel bound by them, I know longer feel that I need to tell you it’s still summer because we’re already agreed that it isn’t. The kids are in school and the ones that aren’t will soon be. You can swim off a pier this weekend and it’ll feel like summer, but when you dry off and sit on the pier you’ll look around and no longer view summer as something that’s happening around you, you’ll view it as something you were happy to have participated in. Unless you spent the summer in the city or the suburbs, busily tending to a summer of pools and shopping malls, then we all know the biggest lie today is the one you keep telling yourself: You had a great summer. No you didn’t, you blew it, and now it’s too late to fix your mistake.

Rain

By David Curry david_curry
August 19, 2016
Musings

There’s a front to the north and it’s high and it’s deep and it’s dark and it’s nearly here. I can see it from this window, and I saw it from my car window on the way to this window. I saw it from my house. It’s dark and it’s gray and it’s smooth. It starts in the West and it lasts through the East. The North, that’s where it mostly is. There’s no wind yet, but soon there will be. It’ll push and it’ll bend and when it’s here you’ll know it. Cars drive by, but they’re driving faster than yesterday. Faster than they will tomorrow. They’re driving with their lights on, to somewhere, to a garage or an underpass or the faux safety of a roadside ditch. The storm is coming.

It’s dark now and I can hear the rain hitting the top of the metal chimney that carries the winter smoke from my office fireplace. The wind is blowing. And the cars are driving, faster still. It’s a summer storm, and if it’s like the scant few other summer storms we’ve dealt with it’ll be here and then it’ll be gone, and the old men of the world will look at their rain gauge and tell us it rained a half an inch. Maybe more, maybe less. It’s raining now, but barely. I don’t think we’ll get to a half an inch, maybe a quarter, but I haven’t a rain gauge because the woman at the hardware store told me that I’m not yet old enough to buy one. That I could have someone older purchase one for me, but that’s the best I could do.

It’s still darker to the north but it isn’t raining anymore. Those were just a few drops, not really rain. To rain is to pitter and to patter and to last for more than just a bit. We’ve had bits of rain this summer, full on deluges at times, but what we haven’t had is a day off. A day of dark and rain, a day where it seems completely fine to sit in front of a computer screen and not find distraction out each window. We haven’t had those days during this summer of sun, and how I’ve missed them. A reset is what they offer, and a reset is what we haven’t received.

When storms come, they rarely last. They build and they twist and they look like they’re going to deliver a knock out blow, but they hardly ever do. Instead they just come and they shake and they make a mess of the lawn with early fall leaves that have no business falling in August, but fall they do. The wind is dying now. The sky is brightening. The thunder sounds more distant. The cars are still racing with their lights on but I think they might always drive like that. The edge of the storm isn’t smooth anymore, it’s rough and it’s jagged and it looks like it’s lost most of its push. This isn’t a storm at all. This isn’t a rainy day at all, it’s just a day with some rain.

Lake Geneva Market Update

It’s getting late. The greens are no longer bright. The grass is beginning to fade. The corn is drying as it should, first at the bottom and then, slowly, eventually, all the way to the top. The beans will start turning soon, from green to gold. Vast fields of gold. The lake is warm now, as it has been all summer, but it’s really warm now. This is peak summer, and much like peak anything, it can’t last forever. Soon the kids will walk past this office on their way to school, solemnly marching up this hill on their way to learn something. Today they’ll ride their bikes down the hill, down to the beach and to the ice cream shops. Today it’s still summer, but everyone can hear then ticking of the clock and it sounds like nothing but inevitability.

Sellers hear this clock, too, and they’re anxious. The August lull is here. It starts right about now, and it lasts a month, maybe a bit more, sometimes a bit less. It’s the back to school pause. The first two weeks of August are prime vacation weeks, and so the lake is full and the kids are smiling and the boats are gassed. The last two weeks of August are prime school return and school prep weeks, which is to say that they’re terrible but necessary. The market here will pause while this reorientation occurs, but once the kids are settled at their various schools near and far, the parents will look around and realize that September might sound like fall, but it still looks like summer. By the middle of September the market will spark once again, but not until sellers feel the uncomfortable weight of winter on their shoulders and consider reducing their price just one more time.

And this is the issue today, sellers who have been sellers for longer than they’d like are faced with doing something, with doing anything. The price reductions of fall have already begun, but they’ll accelerate over the coming two weeks. That’s because it’s Beverly Hills that sells houses by rolling out red carpets and hiring mermaids to swim in pools, and it’s the Midwest that sells houses by offering those houses at better prices. We’re sensible here. But in the fall reduction cycle there is opportunity for both buyers and sellers. Buyers know the market will slow over the coming months, and they know what I’ve just written: some sellers really do want to sell. But this situation also creates opportunity for new sellers. At this point in the season the aged inventory is just that- aged. It’s picked over and dismissed for one reason or many others. New inventory is always sexy, and fall is prime time for new inventory to come to market and in doing so, quench the thirst of desperate buyers.

The market has been moving this month, with new sales aplenty. I have a deal on my vacant lakefront lot in Loramoor, as a buyer recognized just how nice 110′ of level frontage backed by 1.43 acres of rolling land just is. That deal will close this fall. There’s another fresh deal on the finest listing that I’ve ever been tapped to represent. My wondrous estate on Pebble Point that I listed in July for $9,950,000 is pending sale to an excited new buyer. This sale will be the highest sale since the Pritzker family purchased Casa Del Sueno several years ago. This sale will also show the market that there are buyers over $8MM if, and I mean to write IF, the house and property are befitting the asking price. This should bring new hope to the multitude of owners who are currently $8-12MM deep into the newer builds of the past decade. While Geneva is still primarily a $2-4MM market, the new norm may very well become fewer but higher sales, as the $5-10MM range proves it has buyers.

For now, sellers of aged inventory should be looking at their position in the market and considering reductions. I just reduced my lakefront on Marianne Terrace from $2.475MM to $2.195MM, as a seller recognized the market context of his home. More sellers will follow suit in the coming weeks. New sellers would be keen to list soon, to take advantage of the limited inventory and considerable buyer traffic. And buyers would do well to consider all of the above. Pick off the aged inventory for value, and quickly focus on the exciting new inventory as there will be a handful of properties whose owners wanted to have just one more summer at the lake.

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Blog : Summer

Above, my Clear Sky Lodge listing in Fontana. Air Conditioning, included.

Above, the entry at my Basswood estate listing. Now reduced to $8,950,000

Photograph “Sweet Wheat” by Kristen Westlake.

Above, the master bathroom at my pending sale on Jerseyhurst.

Above, morning at my 412 Harvard listing.