Summer Homes For City People

Something that’s always bothered me about the title of my magazine is that it implies Lake Geneva is simply a summer home destination. My childhood was spent at the end of Upper Loch Vista Drive, and if we were considering the make-up of vacation home owners in the 1980s we could, indeed, declare this market to be a summer home destination and little else. But today, the market tendencies have shifted and vacation home owners keen on reveling in lakeside tranquility find their way to these shores during all seasons. This winter, it’s time we celebrate the virtues of spending this season (or at least some of it), in Lake Geneva.

I was pleased to once again play the starring role in the most dynamic real estate events of the past year. From the $36,000,000 record shattering sale of Glanworth Gardens to being recognized as the #1 real estate agent in the State of Wisconsin for 2021, this past year left little doubt as to who leads this market. Between representing the finest lakefront homes in our market and uncovering off-market value for discerning buyers, I couldn’t be happier to make a living by delivering outstanding results for my clients.

The story of 2022 was that of inventory. In spite of serious economic headwinds, rising interest rates,  and a general shift in real estate narratives throughout all markets, Lake Geneva, driven by a near total absence of onmarket inventory, pressed higher still. This winter issue will take a deeper dive into the statistics that shows how far our market has come and where it might go next. You could casually review these numbers, but the nuance that accompanies seemingly simple data is something I pride myself in providing to my clients. The market remains disjointed, heavily nuanced, and filled with market mistakes that will not reveal themselves until the market pauses.

I hope you enjoy the first winter issue of Summer Homes For City People

If you find yourself curious about the state of the market or motivated to sell or buy your own piece of this incredible lake, please consider me at your service. No matter the season, there are deals to be made and I’m here to help you make them.

David C. Curry

Geneva Lakefront Realty, LLC

323 Broad St Suite 101, Lake Geneva, WI 53147 262.245.9000 | dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com

Winter is good for a lot of things. Without winter, that red headed kid who snowboards would only be known as the red headed kid who skateboards. Without winter, flora and fauna would just grow and grow and grow, all year long. That’s why they have 20' long pythons in south Florida now that will someday eat little Florida kids. It’s true. Without winter, no one would ever leave the North, which would be unfair for the South, which would pose a geographic inequality that people would decry. Perhaps more importantly than those things is this thing: without winter, there would be no time to tinker with boats.

If you’re going to tell me that summer is time for boat tinkering, you would expose your stunning naïveté. When boats need repair or replacing or refurbishing in summer, it is less a tinker and more a frantic race that is furiously maddening. This summer, if you must be proven wrong, please sit at a boat launch. No need to sit there all day, just a few minutes, perhaps 15, and those minutes will do. Within that time you’ll discover that there is nothing tinkerish about a boat that will not start in July. On a sunny Saturday, with the sun lifting higher and the launch line drifting longer, there is no such thing as tinkering with a boat that will not start. There is loud swearing and profuse sweating and silent drives home while your kids weep in the backseat and your wife wonders why she married you, but there is not tinkering.

In the winter, there is no rush. There is no line, no warm sun, no kids on the pier with their life vests on. In the absence of these things, there is room for tinkering. Why do you suppose the Chicago boat show is held in January instead of a warmer weekend in July? Because July is a month for action, when no one has time to tinker or dream or to delay. In January, we have the time.

On the mantle in my family room, are two pieces of teak. This wood might not be teak, but it looks like teak, which is to say it looks like wood. And since I

put teak oil all over it, if it was not teak before, it is certainly teak now. That piece of teaked wood is the platform part of my swim platform from my boat. It was in sad shape when I bought the boat last spring, and over the summer I neglected it as much as did the previous owner. In December, I committed to do something about that situation, and I removed roughly seven thousand screws and bolts from my swim platform. The platform was then in pieces, several of them. I took the wood pieces home. I poured the screws and bolts into a large bag, and left the metal braces and rail at my office. Then I washed the dirty swim platform in TSP, dried it for days, then sanded it for many more. Soon after, I went to WestMarine and purchased some teak oil, and then I doused that platform in that oil. I did it again and again, and then I sanded it some more and ladled oil over it again.

The teak platform has been transformed from a dull gray to a smooth shiny brown and now it glows from the top of that mantle. I might have been yelled at for sanding it down on the island in my kitchen, but this is the way tinkering is. It can inconvenience others, it can steal previously vacant spaces from garages and stain marble counters, but this isn’t really about others. It’s about a boat.

When you go to WestMarine, or Overton’s, it’s best to look like you know why you’re there and what you’re after. I do not look like this. I look confused, like I was left behind during a third grade field trip next door, and I wandered in looking for an adult who might call my mom. I walk the aisles, anyway, intent on finding something that my boat needs. I usually don’t know what it is it needs. I also regularly fail to bring in the faulty or ugly part that I’m looking to replace, instead resorting to a long winded explanation as to what the part looks like and what I think it is that it does, and then I hold my hands out to show the size of the part like I’m describing the catch that got away. I’m usually wrong. Do you have any idea how much a handful of shiny boat screws cost? Neither did I, but it was more than we both thought.

At my office now there is a desk covered in bits and pieces from my boat. I am a masterful remover of parts. I can unscrew just about anything. I am no good at screwing those parts back on in the right places. What am I, an engineer? But that’s a project for February, not for January, so I won’t jump ahead unnecessarily. I’ll tinker this month. I’ll drive to Westmarine to see what they have on sale, and

then I’ll drive home with that circular part and try my hardest to force it into its new square home. I can do all of this because it is winter. And in winter, I can tinker and no one will tell me I can’t.

Originally written January 16, 2012. I don’t have that boat anymore, and if I told you I missed it then I’d probably be lying. But I did enjoy the tinkering.

LESTER CRISMAN

Photo by Shanna Wolf

Photo by Josh Z Photography

Photo by Shanna Wolf

Photo by Shanna Wolf

Sounding Winter

Ican see the cold of this winter through the window in my house. All of the windows face this cold, but one window in the living room is the window I’ve chosen to look out of more than the others. This is a very fine window. It’s white and it’s wide, facing the cold and the snow and the charcoal pencil drawn tree line in the distance. I looked out this window a few days ago, at the dull of the sky and the honed white ground, and I decided I should go outside.

I knew it was cold out by the way the birds chattered about on the feeder. They weren’t lazily pecking at the suet like they would in the summer months, rather they flew up quickly and pecked quickly and then flew back, quickly. Where they flew to I cannot be certain. I guessed that it would be just as cold where they flew to as it is at the feeder that they nervously and hurriedly pecked at. They like the sunflower seeds more than the other seeds, so much so that the whole field of sunflowers I had planted and left to whither on their stalks have been pecked clean of their seeds. The birds did this, ruthlessly and efficiently,  and they’re cold no matter where they fly. They can’t escape it. It’s too late now to try to fly south.

The snow was crunchy under my boots, which wasn’t a surprise. It’s often crunchy. When walking outside in the winter, it’s the crunch that we’ve come to expect, and so I, too, expected to step and crunch, crunch and step. I crunched over to the pile of wood. What a magnificent pile of wood it is, oak and walnut and wild cherry. I had expected that I would chop so much wood on that day; I would take up my axe and swing it until I could swing it

no more. I would reduce that messy pile of wood to a neatly stack. At first, I swung with vigor, my hands and face cold, my back sore, the birds watching from the brush, my boots shifting with each swing, crushing the once clean, white snow.

I carried on for some time, but really for no time at all. It was cold. Through that window I could see the warmth of the inside, the glow of the fire reflecting and dancing and teasing me. I steadied my ax, aimed and swung, the blade wedging through some pieces with ease, while other pieces were more belligerent and refused to yield, no matter how hard I swung, or how true my aim. I was colder, still.

I paused to listen, to hear the sounds of winter, to look towards that warm window and then away from it, to the sky and to the brush and the brown scrabbled tree line where the birds hid from my view. It was silent. My breath puffed into the air like I was smoking the finest cigar on the warmest island beach. There was no direction to the air that day, no rustling of leaves for they’ve all fallen and been hidden under so much new snow. The trees were still, painted that way, and birds that sing so loudly and happily in the summer made no sound, none at all. I looked back to the house, to that window where the television played and the fire crackled. Where my kids argued and my wife read. I stood still enough and long enough to listen to the sounds of a Wisconsin winter. What did it sound like? It sounded like nothing, just as I hoped it would.

Originally written January 13th, 2016. When winter is right, it doesn’t make a sound, not even a little bit.

A WORK OF ART? DECIDING WHO INHERITS IT.

Our runabouts aren’t just boats—they’re 26', 430 horsepower heirlooms. So while choosing to enjoy your summers from the mahogany, chrome, and hunter green cockpit might be a no-brainer, let’s just say, we hope you only have one heir.

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The In Between

I’m sitting here again. Like Groundhog Day, without the square. Just me and this computer, this desk. This street. A few snow flurries outside, just a dusting I’m guessing. It’s just a guess, because I haven’t heard. If there was a storm brewing, I’d have heard. You’d have heard. Everyone would have heard. It’s impossible to escape the coming storm, or at least it’s impossible to escape the knowledge of it. It’s coming, all right. But not today, because these are just flurries. It’s a morning like that. Not too much to discuss, really.

That’s because it’s early December in a resort town. It isn’t really winter, yet. It might feel like winter for a while, but this isn’t really winter. This is just the beginning. The rain from the weekend ruined the ski hill for a while; at least until they can cover up all of that ice with some smaller pellets of ice. The ice rink in Lake Geneva isn’t opened yet, big surprise. I haven’t driven past the Ice Castles to see what all of that rain did to them. I’m guessing they’re in a state of ruin, but no one is going to admit that. Not now. Not before the season begins.

My wife’s car battery died again. The car isn’t old enough to succumb to that fate. The other car battery died a few weeks ago, after I asked my son

to move the car from the top of the driveway to the bottom of it. He left the key on and the battery drained. I replaced the battery with a new one, but the idle isn’t right and the car tends to stall, which is why I have to have one foot on the gas and another on the brake when approaching an intersection. It takes some getting used to, but it’s not so hard. I vaguely remember my brother making fun of my mom for driving with one foot for the gas and the other for the brake, so perhaps all we’re doing now is what she’s always done. It can’t be that hard.

I don’t have so much to do at this point in the year. I can’t tell if it’s really late fall or early winter, because there aren’t any snowstorms barreling our way and the leaves are almost all sucked up by the guys who work for the town. I think I’ll go check on those Ice Castles, and maybe take a swing past my stream to see if the trout are running. That’ll give me something to do until it’s acceptable for me to go somewhere and eat lunch. What else can I do? The season hasn’t even started and it’s barely even snowing.

Originally written December 3rd, 2018. Winter doesn’t begin with consistency, it begins with fits and starts.

Winter Worrier

There’s a thing about my dad that you wouldn’t otherwise know. He’s a worrier. A profoundly intense worrier. I can still hear the summer morning footsteps of my father as he’d march up those stairs toward my bedroom, and I can still feel the fear as I waited for my door to be flung open with my marching orders for the day: It’s sunny now, but it’s going to rain this afternoon. It was always going to rain and there were always lawns to be mowed before that happened. My dad would worry about the rain in the face of abundant summer sunshine. He starts something and then when it’s hardly started at all he’s worried about the ending. He leaves for vacation thinking about the drive home. He naps on a Tuesday because he’s worried about having to stay up until 8:30 pm four days later. He starts things and then he stops them. He’s worried, all right.

But none of these worries are quite as pronounced in July as they are in October. He will enjoy certain things, for certain periods of time. He’ll enjoy a swim now and then, though this is less than it once was and less than it should be. He’ll enjoy a boat ride, every great once in a while, which is also less than it once was and less than it should be. But mostly, he’ll enjoy August just fine as long as the sweetcorn harvest is prolific and the sun shines in the afternoons while he naps on his porch. It’s the week before Labor Day that things change. September, the month we all know to be one the finest months ever included in a calendar; this is not a month for him. His nervous anticipation builds to a crushing weight, and while the rest of us are frolicking in the midst of a late summer glow, my dad is worried.

September fades to October, and the colors dim before they force out one last dying display. We like it when this happens. But my dad doesn’t.  This display is a head fake for the uninitiated, and he

knows it. He’s in this for the long haul, and he’s been here before. It’ll be winter soon. He can smell it in the air and feel it on his old thin skin. October is nothing but warm, colorful winter.  While others think of a trip to the lake or a trip to the cabin, he thinks only of that pier and those boats and why hasn’t the pier guy come yet? It’s October 10th, it’s 70 degrees, but winter is coming soon. There’s nothing else to worry about. Nothing else to think about. Winter. Soon. Repeat. Gaze at the fall colors all you want, youngsters.

When October ends, things get serious. Real serious. The boats, the pier, the buoys and the ramp. The things that he worried about in July and thought about in August, and stressed over in September and nearly died over in October, some of them are still there. Still in view. Still in the water. That water that somehow hasn’t turned to ice yet. But it will, soon.  Water always turns to ice here, and he knows it. He can sense it. You know what happens when you don’t get your pier out in time? The ice comes and takes your pier away to the depths. He saw it happen once. Never again. Not on his watch. Winter is coming and he needs to get ready.

But he can control the boats, and so they’re already out. Tucked away in their dusty barns where they spend most of their days. The pier, that’s still there. Still bothering his view and interrupting his winter thoughts with a stubborn summery holdover. But the one thing that really keeps him up at night, tossing in his November bed, is my jetski. Yamaha’s Superjet, to be precise. It’s his white whale. The thorn in his side. His eternal nemesis. And I know this. Which is why I humor my petulant side and leave it in the water as long as humanly possible. Long after he thinks it should have been out. Long after everyone else thinks it should have been out. Long after the water has chilled to a level that humans should never experience against their

skin. That’s why I wait, and that’s why this week I was left with no choice. I pulled the superjet.

I don’t pull it like you pull yours. I don’t call the company and have then deliver it to a heated storage unit. I wait until it’s November and my dad has nearly lost his mind, and then I put on my swim shorts and I strap on the life vest and I coax that cold little engine to life. Then I drive it, near the piers and close to shore, inside the summertime buoys that have no control over my November path. And to the launch. The ride is cold. The ride is wet. To fall is to find death, because this isn’t some sit

down waverunner with seating for four: this is a water jet, built for those of us who were kids in the 1980s.  My feet lose feeling, allowing me to only notice the cuts left by the mussels and the rocks once I return to the heated indoors. The ride is difficult, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  It’s the last piece of summer, and I hang onto it as long as anyone ever has. Later that day, my father’s worrying subsides, but only until the forecast calls for snow.

CARRIE

Originally written November 7th, 2018. I do things to intentionally irritate my dad. This is one them.

Tradition

It takes a while for a tradition to become a tradition. An act, repeated once or twice on an annual or bi-annual basis, does not constitute a tradition. In the same way, if you go out to eat at a particular restaurant every Sunday morning, this is also less a tradition and more a habit. If you visit that restaurant every year on your birthday, then the visit becomes a tradition, but only after several years. Younger, newer families struggle to break from their established family traditions, those bestowed over years and years by the parents of the new parents. New families think of the things that they’d like to become their traditions, and they do them over and over again until some stick, and others fall off. Traditions take work, time, and commitment. That’s why my family purchases our Christmas Tree over the weekend that follows Thanksgiving.

The problem with the timing of this tradition is that it’s based, at least somewhat, on emotion. On feelings. Which is why I told my daughter on Friday morning that we would not be cutting down our tree that day. Who could think about cutting a tree down under that blistering sun? Only a fool would cut down a winter tree on such a warm day. My daughter was distraught by the news, even as we spent some of that morning skiing the melting slush at Alpine Valley. Saturday was colder, but still warm. Sunday was chilly in the morning, and knowing I was running out of time to continue this tradition, we loaded up the Gator and drove down the road to pick, cut, and haul the tree that would become our 2017 Christmas Tree.

After sawing the tree down, I lazily slung too-short cuttings of twine over the tree and under the roof of our UTV, and we drove back down the road home. My daughter beamed. I trimmed the trunk, crammed it into the heavy iron base, and in spite of four pairs of watchful eyes, the final adjustments to plumb and level left us with a tilting fir. The tote of 2016 lights was pulled from the corner of the basement, and the light checking process began. First strand. Works! At least a few of them did.

The first half didn’t, the second half did. The next strand, nothing. And the third and fourth, nothing. A few more half strands, a few more duds. When the lights were all checked there were three sections in the working pile and ten in the garbage pile. The lights that I bought last year, carefully unwound and stored in my lidded tote, had failed us.

Walmart could save us from this darkness, but when I stood in the light aisle, jostling for position and staring at the bounty of different lighting options, I felt uneasy. I know not to buy the colorful lights. I know not to buy flashing lights (the strobe effect is dizzying). There were LED and green wires and white wires, and larger bulbs and smaller bulbs. Bulbs shaped like teardrops and others shaped like gum balls. Some smooth and others rough like a cheese grater.  I’ve erred before while buying lights, falling victim to the white wire strand when I clearly wanted the green wire. I surveyed the wall of lights. My daughter stood back, silent, knowing this was a decision for a father. For a grown man. Her hesitancy only made me concentrate harder. A headache appeared out of nowhere as the pressure of this moment intensified.

My wife had mentioned some lights she liked in the RH catalog. But this was Walmart, and so I’d have to match the fancy style with whatever lights were available in Delavan on that day. I settled on some LED lights that promised 25,000 hours of lighting. The bulbs were shaped, the glass etched, they were fancy. Expensive, when compared to the other lights on those shelves. I felt like I was doing the right thing, right by my daughter, right by my wife, right by the planet, on account of the LED. My tendency to chintz is genetic, and I overcame it.

I’m a big fan of the big reveal, which meant I wouldn’t turn on one section of lights before the entire tree was lit. The six boxes were enough, if a bit light, as I should have bought seven. Maybe eight. But the tree was lit and the ladder was needed to get close enough to the top of the 15' tree. Now all we needed was an extension cord.

After scouring the Christmas totes, we had none, but we did have those left over strands of lights from last year, so we used that twinkly section to connect the outlet to our new, beautiful LED lights. There was no hurrah, no particular fanfare. No Griswold moment of delayed satisfaction. No one in my family was rooting for me. Because when I plugged in those lights something awful happened. The LED bulbs turned on. Their eery, cold light pushed through the pine needles, barely. The late afternoon sun was fading by then, but the now lit tree somehow made the room darker. The lights weren’t white, not really. They looked white on the box. They looked white when we put them up. But now electrified, they were blue. I checked the remnant boxes that were scattered on the floor.

Cool White. I bought Cool White LEDs, which are cleverly named because no one in their right mind would buy blue Christmas lights.

The greatest trick the devil ever played was not making people believe he doesn’t exist. No, his greatest trick was when he labeled blue lights Cool White. Tonight, there’s no need to ask me what I’ll be doing. I’ll be taking down Christmas lights and replacing them with ultra cheap, warm, glowing, green wired Christmas lights. And next year, I’ll throw those new lights into the garbage, because that’s our tradition.

Originally written 11/27/2017. Some things should just be left as they were. Like white Christmas lights.

LESTER CRISMAN

February

Ientered February with a heavy heart. Things were happening that were beyond my control. These things were beyond your control. They weren’t even things, really. It was just one thing, one quiet thing, marching slowly but obviously, out of control. It was January and it turned to February, and soon it’ll turn to March. Marching through March, like the meme or the poster or like nothing at all. April comes next. Rainy April, with showers and those bright following flowers, May. Soon they’ll all be here and the piers will be in and the sun will be on my face, on yours. It’ll be summer and we’ll laugh and splash and things will be different. They won’t be better.

That’s because it’s winter in Wisconsin, and it’s winter that I’m worried about missing. January turned into February and I couldn’t do a single thing about it. I stacked my oak high and I turned my thermostat a smidge higher, to 68 sometimes when I’m feeling a chill. The Facebook is full of summertime wishes, of warm tropical beaches. Did you know a palm tree saw its shadow and now there will be six more weeks of paradise? How preposterous. I don’t even know what the woodchuck, or the hedgehog or the badger saw. A shadow? I saw mine, does that count? Do I get to decide this thing called winter and whether or not it leaks quickly or slowly towards spring? If it were my choice I’d vote winter. In my old age I’m not wishing for summer, I’m relishing this thing called winter.

And why wouldn’t I? My house is warm and my car prepared. My jackets have liners, cotton or down. A bald eagle just flew over my office on his way to the lake where the arctic birds flock. Dinner, it’s calling. And so is my house and the firewood and the fireplace and a college basketball game, the outcome of which I couldn’t care less. It’s dark now, but it’s lighter than it once was. Soon I’ll be driving home squinting through the sunshine, and soon I’ll have to tend to my lawn and edge the beds where my summer flowers now lie deceivingly still. They’ll be alive soon, sprouting and shooting and thriving. How I wish they’d lie still just a bit longer.

Rush through winter if you must. Hurry up for the summer sun if you cannot find your wintery peace. As for me, I delight in these days. In the chill on my toes and the fire in my hearth. I soak in the low dim sun, wishing for a few more weeks of it. The snow piles, finally, and I welcome it. Pile higher, I beg of the snow. There will be time enough for summer. Time for the sun and time for the water. Time to fish and time to lounge under a shady tree while the waves lap. But for now, it’s time to be still. Time to enjoy the scene. Time to realize there’s nothing wrong with the absence of color. To appreciate the snow and the crisp and the calm. It’s winter still, and I’m glad.

Originally written February 7th, 2018. Ten years ago I wouldn’t have written this. Perhaps it’s because time is passing more quickly now, but I find myself enjoying the seasons more and more. Winter included.

Warm

On Friday, January 17th, those who measure and then record weather marked that the daytime high in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, was 19 degrees. Those counterparts who measure the temperature in Marco Island, Florida, scratched down a 64. Not a single living being would ever argue that 64 is not warmer than 19. The south Florida sun was shining, and that day as I fished and played under it I felt its warmth and appreciated what it did for my sun-deprived winter existence. I also didn’t feel all that warm.

And so it went, a few days under the warm-ish sun, a few more days under some clouds that filtered that sun and dialed down its warmth to where it was barely tepid. My children didn’t mind. They splashed in the cold ocean as if it were a hot tub, and they swam in the pool as though it were just a great big bath, soap replaced with a cocktail of chemicals that make the water clean and blue. I

congratulated myself for raising tough Wisconsin children who didn’t shy away from cold water. They played while I huddled under the sun and hid away from the wind, and at times I re-purposed a beach towel into the thinnest of blankets. I was cold, not warm.

In the elevator on the day before I was to return home, an old woman remarked that she heard that I was heading home soon, and that this was unfortunate for me. I had to return to the cold, she said with a slow, sad shake of her head. She wished it wouldn’t be so cold back home, back up North, back where people must be insane to live and work and play in spite of the season and not because of it. I told her, in a way that proves that I am bad at elevator banter, that it’s cold back home in Lake Geneva, and it’s cold down here in Marco Island, and I’d rather have the Lake Geneva cold over this cold. This was tantamount to sacrilege, as

CARRIE KOSTER

I dared question the benefit of a 60 degree day over a 20 degree one. She didn’t say much after that, and later my wife reaffirmed her eternal distaste for my unsolicited commentary.

When the plane landed at O’Hare, I knew it was cold outside. The wind tore through us as we made the short walk from terminal to waiting car. We raced as if being exposed to a toxic fallout. Inside the car it was not much warmer, though the rope lighting that wrapped around the ceiling of the car switched from one warm color to another, pastels of all varieties, all warm looking. The ride in that car from the airport to where our car was stashed for the week was cold, but it was colder when we jumped from that livery and into our frozen car. When our car sprang to life I muttered that I was surprised, though no one in the car could hear me over the chattering of their own teeth. It was dreadfully cold.

Last night, at home in my den that I built at least one foot too shallow, I stoked a fire. I long ago ran out of oak, so what burns now is a mix of whatever downed deciduous tree I can find on my property. The half rotted wood burns like gasoline once it’s dry, so while the flame doesn’t last long like an oak flame would, it’s still bright and crackly and warm. The fire threw heat into the room, the sun faded outside leaving the white ground looking pale blue, a blue that reminded me of the LED lighting in the driver’s car, even though it looked nothing like it at all. The scenery outside was unmistakably cold, but anyone who questions the quality of a winter sunset hasn’t been paying attention. The sun faded, the snow covered ground reflected its muted tones of orange and pink, and after a week in Florida, I was finally warm.

Originally written January 24th, 2014. I don’t go to Florida anymore. It’s too cold there in the winter.

Sales Price Per Front Foot

Sales Price Per Front Foot vs. Total Front Feet

Lake Geneva’s favorite metric is also one of my least favorite: The Price Per Front Foot. I generally disapprove of the importance that the market places on this defining metric, but I’d never pretend that it doesn’t matter. This revered metric has increased over the past five years from mid $20K to now just over $60K for both average and median. I intentionally left vacant land sales out of this detail, though it would be expected that a significant proportion of our single family sales have sold at land value as the market has a voracious appetite for new construction and sees most aged structures as tear down candidates.

Something that’s not well understood is that the price per foot of frontage decreases as frontage increases. You can think of this as diminishing returns to frontage size, or price compression as you move to the larger properties on the lakefront. The idea is simple: If a high quality lakefront home on 50’ of frontage can now sell for $5M, that doesn’t mean an average home on a 200’ lot gets to sell for $20M. Do not make the mistake of assuming the price per front foot holds up as frontage increases.

Sales Price

SALES PRICE (EXCLUDING GLANWORTH GARDENS)

The remarkable consistency of entry level lakefront pricing was on display for fifteen years, from circa 2003 through 2018, during which a buyer could have almost always expected to find a lakefront home priced between $900k and $1.25M. To support that point, consider I sold a Geneva lakefront home on Maytag in 2001 for $907k, and I sold a similar lakefront home on Lakeview in 2017 for $925k. The minimum price of entry to lakefront held steady at around $1M for the first 3 years of the sample period (see highlighted section in chart above), increased to ~$1.4M in 2020, just under $2M in 2021 ($1.9M) and blew through $2M ($2.375M) in 2022. Entry level lakefront today is likely operating in the $2,500,000 to $3,500,000 range, and I can’t see that range shifting lower ever again. The absence of existing inventory (not listed, but that potential inventory as it exists on the lakefront), and the incredibly consistent supply of entry level buyers will continually support this range as our new floor.

2021 and 2022 saw more ‘outlier’ sales as conventionally defined in these box plots, and these outliers are skewed more to the upside. Aside from the $9.95M print in 2016, the highest outlier pre 2021 was the $11.25M print in 2018. 2021 saw outliers of 9.95M and 12.75M and 2022 $16.5M and $36M. The market has incredible strength at the upper end, a notable shift from even six years ago when a $10M sale was seen as an anomaly. Today, buyers have confidence that there is future liquidity in this range and sales should continue with frequency. The unique nature of the Lake Geneva market’s upper bracket was made obvious in early 2022 when I represented the buyer and seller in the $36M sale of Glanworth Gardens. Legacy estates on Geneva have never proven their open market valuations, and I would expect this sale to provide a benchmark against which all other legacy estates, and their respective values, are measured. No other single family market in the midwest has this variety of strength in these upper valuation ranges.

Data Pulled from MLS and known sales. Single family lakefront sales with private (not shared) frontage only. Vacant land sales excluded. Information deemed reliable but in no way guaranteed.

(Excluding Glanworth Gardens 2022)

Winter’s End

It's over. That's it. There's nothing left. We made it. No more winter, not here, anyway. Sure, up North there's still winter, but there's winter there in the spring and there's winter there in the fall. Winter is what they do. Winter and bugs. But that's not how it is here, no sir. Here, winter is done and spring is next. I'm happy to have arrived here, in spring. For a while, it didn’t feel like I’d make it to this warmer place.

Ah, but you say it's still winter. You say it's three degrees outside today. You say the wind blew at 50 miles per hour yesterday and last night, and trucks flipped on highways and houses shook and trees broke. You're right about those things, they did happen, and they are happening, but what does that have to do with spring?

The forecast, you tell me, and you point to your phone, to the icons and the numbers. It'll be cold all week, you insist. Snowy, too! Yes, but how much longer can that cold last, now that it's spring? If it's spring, I'll give you your cold temperatures, but there's no staying power, not now. Days, sure. Weeks, maybe. But months? Years? There's hardly anything to worry about here in this late winter that's really my spring. You should see things like I do.

The ice! You insist, albeit in vain. Yes, I know there's ice. Lots of it. My driveway is impassable; my yard a slick, thick sheet of frozen snow and frozen rain; the lake, deep and dark and thick with ice. I get it. I do. That doesn't really have anything to do with spring, and you're right. That's why I know they're not long for this place, at this time. How much ice can last through spring, which it now is? With so much spring around us, who can even see the ice?

Still you think I jest. Still you think I'm wrong. Still you sit in your house with the furnace burning and your hands warmed by your coffee and you shudder to think of so much more winter. You're forgiven for being wrong, but you're still wrong. In the same way that summer is over once you start thinking about fall, once you start wishing for denim and boots and apples and leaves, it is also the case for winter. Once I'm done with the snow and the ice, which I have now decided I am, there can be no more winter with my mind set forward to spring. Get ready for it, because it's coming and it's coming soon, though I admit my definition of soon may be different from yours.

Originally written February 25th, 2019. Winter isn’t over when spring starts, it’s over when we start wishing for spring to start.

SCOTTIE PETERSON

Sales Price Per Square Foot

Average and median price per square foot held in the $650-800 range for the four years of 20172020. In 2021 both the average and median gapped above the psychologically important level of $1,000 per square foot and increased to around $1,250 in 2022. This data is skewed by the properties that sell as clear tear downs, and those properties that are highly polished but light on square footage. The price per square foot measurement is historically unimportant in our market, but it helps to know these metrics as we seek to understand appropriate valuations.

Sales Price Per Square Foot of Land Mass

Sales Price Per Square Foot of Land Mass vs. Total Acreage

Just as with the price per front foot and the compression that exists as frontage increases, there is a similar relationship to price per acre. You can have a high quality house on a entry level sized lakefront lot and it has floor to its market value which has increased over this period. But for very large parcels of land the absolute magnitude of the value means there is a smaller population of potential buyers and thus price compression at this upper end.

Data Pulled from MLS and known sales. Single family lakefront sales with private (not shared) frontage only. Vacant land sales excluded. Information deemed reliable but in no way guaranteed.

Designed by Joyce Zuelke, CKD

Photo by Josh Z Photography

Forward looking

If there’s one lesson to learn from 2022 it’s that inventory, or the pronounced absence of it, overrides all obvious market headwinds. If interest rates are up, equity returns are down, crypto is in free-fall, and covid era geographic displacements have slowed, then it should make good sense to see a high flying vacation home market in decline. And if not in decline, then certainly on pause. The issue is with a slow drip of inventory and a steady supply of buyers, a market cannot find itself in decline. Let’s pretend we began 2022, with those high equity indices and those rock bottom interest rates, with 150 active lakefront buyers across all valuation segments. Now let’s assume that after the second quarter, wherein we saw interest rates double and equity valuations decline by 20%, we lost 30% of those buyers. That means we now only have 105 buyers seeking to purchase inventory in a market that would only see a dozen or so transactions all year. If you were wondering why Lake Geneva has held up so well through this cycle, it’s all about the inventory.

Looking forward, what would we need to see prices suffer any meaningful decline? For the sake of the conversation, let’s assume 10% of the current valuations are pure fluff, and that for a decline to be measurable and moderately painful it would need to exceed 15%. What would force prices to drop by such a percentage? The answer is inventory. And not only inventory, but a return to more historical inventory totals. It’s hard to imagine today, but Lake Geneva would typically offer between 25 and 40 on market lakefront properties at any given point in time. For the majority of 2021 and 2022, we had fewer than 10 open market listings, and for many periods, including during this winter season, we had just one lakefront available property. If we need inventory to rise for prices to decrease, can you imagine just how much unsold inventory we would need to add to see that happen?

If a seller was concerned about the future softening of the market, they would have sold when interest rates doubled and equities dropped. What would the new catalyst be to send inventory back to historical levels? For one, a continued and painful decline in equity markets. SPY $400 doesn’t leave anyone fearful, in the same way that SPY $300 might. Along those lines, interest rates have had little impact on our markets (see the chart for cash transactions in our recent transaction history), but interest rates that continue to climb into the 8% range might very well shake a few sellers loose (if they have any adjustable debt on their balance sheet). Beyond that, I believe it would take a catastrophic event during 2023 to push inventory to the levels that it would create a meaningful decline in valuations. Absent that catastrophe, I expect 2023 to look quite similar to 2022, with lighter volume and stiff valuations. The nuance in the market means that sellers still need to price their properties with proper respects paid to market trends and comparable data. Even with our limited inventory during 2022, there were sellers who were forced to adjust their overshot target valuations in order to attract buyers. For buyers, it means valuations will be difficult for the coming year, but that doesn’t mean that value will be impossible to discover. Buyers should be seeking blue chip properties, and should seek proper counsel to understand which properties are worthy of their premiums and with ones are not. That’s why I’m here, to quiet the noise of this market and help you make sense of it all.

STEPH MUSUR DESIGNS

Cash Deals

% Off Market Deals

Off market transactions have been gaining incredible momentum in our market, and for good reason. If a seller can sell at his or her terms, without subjecting the property to the open market, why wouldn’t they? The argument against this practice is that the open market very well might provide a higher price for that seller, and this is, of course, potentially true. But this isn’t a zero sum game, as a property exposed to the open market has no choice but to suffer valuation destruction if the property sits on the open market. Look to luxury real estate headlines the world around and you’ll see examples of open market valuation misses and their ultimate sales prices. Elevated market time does not come without a penalty, and that penalty is nearly always a diminishment in value. For the five year period just ended, we saw off market deals of from 0% in 2017-2018 to making up more than 57% of the total market volume in 2022. As the market slowly returns to a more normal pattern I would expect off-market deals to become less common than they were in the year just ended, but to me, off market deals will always be a valuable tool in working with sellers to achieve their desired results.

Data Pulled from MLS and known sales. Single family lakefront sales with private (not shared) frontage only. Vacant land sales excluded. Information deemed reliable but in no way guaranteed.

peter millar | johnnie-o | southern tide | tommy bahama | 34 heritage | stone rose

Pier Guy

My wife tells me I should worry less. She tells me that it doesn’t matter what the forecast says. But next Thursday is a high of 26 and a low of 11, I remind her. She says that isn’t important. That “things will take care of themselves, because that’s always what happens.” What sort of thing is that to say? It’s cold today and it’s going to be colder next Thursday and there are still 11% of my piers left in that nearly frozen water. This morning the new guy slipped on an icy plank and smashed his hip against a rusted bolt. His waders tore and the bolt cut into his leg and now he’s worried about tetanus and so am I. I have no choice but to worry, because I need this new guy to work tomorrow and then again on Sunday because next Thursday it’s going to be too late. Don’t worry so much, she chides. That’s easy for her to say, because she’s not a pier guy.

MICHELLE STROM

Quarterly Lakefront Sales vs. Quarterly Average

QUARTERLY LAKEFRONT SALES vs QUARTERLY AVERAGE

Seasonality is dead, or so I like to tell my clients. This chart shows the smoothing of activity for the most recent five year period when compared with that activity from two decades ago. Historically, Q3 saw peak quarterly activity as deals inked during summer are closed, while Q1 reflected the winter slowdown caused by the typical drop in vacation home usage. While this seasonal pattern still exists, it is far less pronounced than it was when I started my career in 1996. Seasonality, while still apparent, is all but dead. Sellers can now choose to list based on the market conditions rather than list based on the season. This is why you won’t see me on a golf course in Florida during the winter. Also, you won’t likely see me on a golf course in the summer, but that’s just because I don’t really like golf.

Data Pulled from MLS and known sales. Single family lakefront sales with private (not shared) frontage only. Vacant land sales excluded. Information deemed reliable but in no way guaranteed.

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Pastry

There’s this thing about the dark of winter that makes me want to do a certain thing that I know to be detrimental to both my health and my rapidly deteriorating appearance. On cold mornings when the sun is low and the skies are frosty I wish for nothing more than an espresso and a light, flaky, buttery, pastry. I don’t want for bacon and eggs, or toast and jam, or a skillet with meat and potatoes and cheese; I’m not a glutton like that. Just a simple espresso and pastry, maybe two espressos and two pastries. Certainly not more than two espressos and three pastries. You can keep your bacon and eggs and potatoes and leave me to my espresso and pastry. This is my only morning wish in the winter. At the heart of my issue seems to be that I have the same wish in the summer.

Geneva Lakefront Realty

Springfield Road

Situated on 13 acres of rolling farmland just minutes from downtown Lake Geneva, this modern farmhouse will delight anyone seeking a calming country escape. The classic covered front porch welcomes you home where heated wood floors and nostalgic light fixtures add rich warmth throughout. The newly renovated kitchen features an island with deep sink, double oven, breakfast bar and sliding doors

to the private fenced yard with patio and fire pit. A stylish primary suite is on the main floor, with two more large bedrooms, a den and full bath upstairs. The family room with bar and fireplace opens to an outdoor patio. You'll love the fenced pasture with versatile pole barn for horses, goats and chickens or a workshop and toy storage. All of this just minutes from downtown Lake Geneva. Jessica@genevalakefrontrealty.com

Demands

Summer asks too much of me. It doesn’t let me be. It tells me that five o’clock is the time to start something. To go into the water or out into the field, to splash or to mow, to walk or to hike, to drive. Somewhere. Anywhere. But it’s only eight o’clock in the afternoon and the sun is shining, how could you be still? People say these things and I can’t say I don’t agree with them. Summer makes me move and do until I’m tired and weary but the sun is still shining and so I must. Who could rest with such demands? Winter lets me be. It leaves me to my fire and my den with the curtains drawn and the tennis match from two Saturdays ago where two of my favorite players played in an arena in some European city that I’ve never been. Summer would never allow such a disgusting waste of time. Winter leaves me alone, to do as I please when I please, and I couldn’t do without it.

Calculations per MLS and known sales 1/1/10 through 12/29/22. Lake Geneva lakefront single family, vacant land, South Shore Club sales only. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Minimum $10,000,000 in top agent Lake Geneva Lakefront sales

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Testimonials

My mother passed away in spring of 2022 and as her trustee, I was tasked with selling her home. David came highly recommended to me and lived up to his reputation. We were able to sell the house for considerably more than I had anticipated in less than a week, all while I was 400 miles away! I have never had a real estate transaction go so smoothly and I would recommend him to anyone wanting to buy or sell a home!

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David, We both feel that you are one of the most impressive individuals we have worked with — no qualifications. Professionally you were brilliant — your advice spot on — and personally you are fun, charming and seem to truly care that your clients are happy with the outcomes. This last point says it all for me and was always at the center of everything I ever attempted. Thank you for making a difficult decision easy, and a painful process painless.

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CARRIE KOSTNER

“I prefer Winter and Fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape—the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.”

Andrew Wyeth