Last Friday I decided to keep my sales activity confined to a specific corner of the lake, in an even tighter corner of Cedar Point Park. I did this not necessarily on purpose, but rather because I have customers who desire the same things that I desire. They are customers that know the pull of this market has little to do with the home itself and everything to do with the location of that iffy home. And so on Friday I closed on two humble properties in Cedar Point Park, both of which were no more than three stones throws from the lake, assuming you have a spotter who can keep an eye on the thrown rock so you can pick it up and heave it again.
The first sale was on Glenview in Cedar Point, that of a distressed property that I listed back in December for a little less than $300k. That property closed on Friday for $225k to a buyer who saw value beyond the rotting shingles and debatable wiring practices and chose, instead, to focus on the fact that this home was, and is, just six homes from the lake. The other sale was further South, around the corner onto Park Ridge. The sale there was for two lots, a decent little house, and a location West of Cedar Point Drive that can rarely be found for the $195k closing price. Both sales were good, and as they were my first two closings of 2013 it feels good to have the skunk removed from my back.
The sales are exciting for the buyers, and a relief for the sellers, but they provide us with a far greater lesson than extends far beyond the personal reasons that these sales occurred. The sales reflect a singular desire– one that should be shared by most every buyer in this market. There are occasions when finishes must trump location, but those times are few and far between, those individual circumstances their own motivators. The remainder of the time the market should, ideally, be fueled by that one, singular, greedy goal: To get as absolutely close to the lake as is humanly possible.
And why wouldn’t we want to do that? Isn’t the lake the reason we’re all here? Without the lake, Williams Bay would be Elkhorn and Lake Geneva might as well be Sharon. Nothing against Elkhorn or Sharon, which I say while meaning to indeed put everything I have against Elkhorn and Sharon. The lake is why I write, it’s why you read, it’s why we work and strive and why we think on days like today of days like those summer days that await us in July. The lake is why the Potawatomi’s didn’t want to go to Kansas, and it’s the reason why we want to be here. Restaurants and shops and curvy roads are nice, but would the scenery be worth remembering if not for the lake?
If the lake is why we’re here, then it’s only natural, and proper, to desire to be as close to it as we can be. If budgets are limited, there are several vacation home options. You can find a nice house somewhere up on a hill near the lake according to the real estate description, which may or may not be in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS AND CONTAIN LOTS OF !!!!!!. Or, we can scrap the idea of finding some perfect structure and look instead for the perfect location. If our budget allows, we can find both the perfect structure and the perfect location, and if our budget swells a bit more, then we can capture the rarest trophy of all- the elusive lakefront home itself. The definition of “close to the lake” is subjective, based on personal experience and preference, but both of the homes that sold for the modest sums of $195k and $225k, respectively, would be considered in that context no matter the narrator.
Inventory of such humble homes in rarefied locations is shrinking, and I don’t mean the sort of inventory that is actively on the market- I mean the inventory that exists both on and off the market. When these small cottages sell for these low numbers, there is one common path in their future, and that path usually intersects with a tear down or a serious remodel. No matter which is chosen, the result is the same. That once small cottage for $200k near the lake is still near the lake, but it is no longer a $200k cottage. Opportunities are limited with each and every one of these sales, leaving the entry level lake access buyer with fewer and fewer options each year. This is somewhat dire, as sooner or later the concept of a $200k cottage a block to the lake will be the subject of the stories we’ll tell our grandchildren as we tuck them into bed. Or, if we don’t like our grandchildren and we passed on one of those rare real estate gems then we’ll tell the story that will feed nightmares, both theirs and ours.