And so it begins. This weekend officially marks the start of the best time of year for budget minded buyers to purchase a vacation home in Lake Geneva. Sure there are deals that present themselves all year long, but in order to be an effective bargain hunter in this market, you have to understand the attitudes of sellers in a vacation home market. Lake Geneva, unlike some lesser vacation destinations in the midwest, doesn't operate at diminished capacity in the winter. This calendar scoffing vibrance is just another attribute that sets Lake Geneva apart as the premier vacation destination in the upper midwest, and anyone visiting Lake Geneva on a sunny, snowy, Saturday in January can attest to that. The fact that the town continues to buzz along doesn't mean that the real estate market behaves the same way. There is traditionally a lull between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the same lull that wold allow me to take extended beach loving vacations that stretched roughly from Holiday to Holiday in my pre-kids life. The lull is caused by the plethora of Holiday events and activities that we all attend, and that same lull combines with the fear of a long winter to create the most valuable asset to any buyer's house hunt; seller apathy.
As a buyer, you're looking for a seller who has all but given up hope that his or her property will sell in the near term. In vacation home markets, many sellers believe (many times wrongly) that the market will be much better "in the spring". That no matter how bad things look, once the lake shakes off its icy blanket and some grass turns green, buyers will return to the market once again clutching fistfulls of hundreds and pre-approval letters. That seller optimism is the enemy of deal seeking buyers everywhere, and unfortunately for those same buyers, seller optimism returns much earlier than the first 60 degree day in March. By the time Super Bowl Sunday rolls around, sellers feel that the worst of the winter is behind them. They've endured the slow Holiday season. They've fought through January and all it's bitterness. And now that football season is over, February doesn't look so long after all. After just a couple more weeks of February, March with its lamb and lion like qualities is just around the corner. Buyers wanting to be in by Memorial Day weekend can't be far behind, and before you know it, poof. Sellers confidence has returned along with a newfound determination to "wait out the market". For a buyer, a determined seller is about as much fun as an unmedicated, closed, 55 minute MRI.
Ah, but there's hope. Before that swell of potentially misplaced optimism comes knocking in early February, there exists the greatest buying opportunity of the year for anyone seeking to improve their life with the purchase of a Lake Geneva vacation home. After Thanksgiving, the little six pound, three ounce, cooing winter will have just arrived. Along with that first shot of winter will come a newfound understanding that once again, winter is going to be indefatigably long. Sellers realize how far away March lies by their calendar, and the hopes of selling their vacation home all but vanish with the first December snowflake. Apathy sets in. Followed sometimes by random sobbing in extreme cases.
Buyers, this is where you come in. Instead of joining the wailing fest, you need to gird yourself up and find some buying resolve. You can find a deal from Thanksgiving Weekend through another Bear-less Super Bowl Sunday that you typically won't be able to find come March, and that might be more true this year than in recent years. While the market has rebounded, I expect it to take a breather over some of the winter months, making for a perfect time for a buyer with a couple bucks and an exceedingly intense desire to spend their summers sun kissed and water splashed. Much of the market is suffering from a lack of quality inventory, and no individual market is suffering as much as I think the lakefront market is. Lakefront inventory has gone complete stagnant, with several of the properties that I had been touting as values selling in the past 60 days. That said, there are still values out there, particularly in the lake access market priced from $250k to $900k, and in the entry level lakefront market priced from $1.295MM to $2MM.
Geneva National and Abbey Hill are primed to give up some great deals this off season, and I can only hope you'll recognize the opportunity. I'm not a buy now, buy everything type of guy, but I am a guy who knows when the timing is right to take advantage of a market. I'm also the guy who's benevolent enough to let you know when I think that time is. After digesting your dried out bird on Thanksgiving, gather your family around the computer screen. Type in www.genevalakefrontrealty.com and click on the search button. Your family will slowly come to realize that you're about to get serious about finding that Lake Geneva vacation home you've always talked about, and this Thanksgiving just might be the best one ever. I hope to see you at The Lake, that much is obvious, but this time I'm going to put a term limit on my invitation. See you at the lake from this weekend through the end of January if you want to find a screaming deal.
