I read something the other day that, at the time, I found a bit amusing. It was something about the high end market at Lake Geneva having a terrific year. The idea that high end real estate at the lake has experienced a bit of a resurgence during 2010 just isn’t true- depending on how you define “high end”. The phrase is vague at best, as high end sales in one town might identify a price range of $500k, while high end sales in others might involve $5MM homes. Personally, I’d define Lake Geneva high end homes as those priced in excess of $4MM, and if that’s the criteria, 2010 hasn’t been a good year for such sales. With only one closed sale exceeding $3.6MM, how can it be said that the high end market has had anything but a marginal 2010?
It’s another rhetorical question, because the obvious answer is that it can’t be. 2010 has been a terrific year for lakefront properties on Geneva, but it hasn’t been particularly kind to those high end homes that exceed $4MM in price. Should “high end” on Geneva be defined as those homes priced from $2.5MM to $3.5MM? I wouldn’t think so, since dozens of homes on the lake exceed $8MM in value, and dozens more exceed $6MM, it wouldn’t be reasonable to think that homes in that middle price range are the high end of the Geneva vacation home market. In fact, it might even be an error to suggest as much. If the only sale over $4MM this year is the sale I helped broker for $5.885MM, let’s see how 2010 stacks up against previous years as it relates solely to the highest of the high end sales on Geneva.
2009 wasn’t a good year for the lakefront market here, but it wasn’t exactly a bad year either. Even so, not a single Geneva lakefront home sold for a price exceeding $4MM. 2008 was a bad year by most accounts, and we registered just one sale north of $4MM, even if it closed for a scant $50k over that ethereal threshold. 2007 fared slightly better, with two recorded sales in the $4MM+ range. Included in that group was a sale for $4.3MM that startled me for its altitude even then, in a pre-recession market. 2006 had two real nice sales as well, with one touching $6MM during this robust year. And 2005 had just a singular sale, this one also just reaching the $4MM floor. So with an average of one sale a year for the past five years, how can it be said that 2010 has been any different than the previous half-decade? It can’t. You’re welcome for clearing that up for everyone. As a side note, the sort of homes that would be valued in excess of $6MM on Geneva would have to possess a delightful combination of copious land (two acres or more), abundant frontage (140′ or more), large square footage (probably in excess of 8000 finished above grade square feet), and high end exterior amenities including guest house, pool, tennis courts, greenhouses, etc.
At the moment, there are six lakefront homes for sale priced in excess of $4MM. A couple of these have no business being in this lofty strata, and a couple others need to be much, much lower in the upper bracket. These are owners who possess fantastic properties, rarefied gems belonging to a collection of the most exclusive homes in the country (yes, there’s an R in there), are right to place high values on their homes. The rub here is that this market, for all its wealth and abundance, isn’t one that can historically support more than one upper bracket sale annually. There are perhaps fifty lakefront homes that I know of that would sell within days of being listed, for prices far exceeding $6MM. Several would exceed $10MM with ease. These unlisted properties aside, the high end lakefront homes haven’t exactly been flying off our proverbial shelves this year, no matter what you may have read elsewhere.