One of my listings for sale is 302 Villas On The Harbor, a 1 bed 1 bath condo in Lake Martin’s Stillwaters Community.  The Villas On The Harbor sits right next door to Harbor Pointe Marina, and Harbor Pointe Condos.

I got a challenging email the other day from Ron Botterbusch, Broker of RB Commercial Properties in Montgomery.  He said:

“I read your Lake Martin Voice from time to time and enjoy your insights and
“take” on things.  I sometimes browse your listings and today I viewed the
above and was curious about your statement “at a price that makes sense”.
$304.95 per square foot for a 1/1 condo??? Wow, even with a boat slip, that
price seems sky high. If you sell it for anywhere near that amount there
is reason to be optimistic…good luck!”

<<Here is the video tour>>

Here was my response:

Hey Ron- thanks for the email and the kind words.  You may have read elsewhere on my blog that I almost never pay attention to per square foot pricing on the Lake Martin.  Too much of the value of a property is in the lot.  Big exception – condos.

Even then, I am careful to compare condo to condo, because a lot of them have different amenities.  As to the condo pricing in this case – you’re right, at PSF level, it looks a bit high.  When pricing things, I advise sellers to place their price based on SOLD properties, not what is for sale, or what they are hoping to get.

Another 1/1 unit in there recently sold for about 170k.  This particular unit is being sold with a deep water boat slip.  (I say deep water because it had plenty of water left at the height (or valley??) of the drought.)  Anyway Harbor Pointe is selling boat slips (some of which do NOT have year round water) for around $40k. So that’s why I think that price makes sense.  Plus at Villas on the Harbor, you can rent out the unit and make a little money to dampen the total ownership expense.

Again, taken at a PSF perspective, I agree, it may seem high.  But where else on Lake Martin are you going to get a waterfront property for the low 200s?

Hey – do you mind if I use this email as an “ask the broker” post like this one I did a couple of weeks ago?  I can use your name or you can remain anonymous.  I think your question is a great one and could spark a lot of discussion.

What do you say?

Ron: “Feel free to use my name and thanks for the reply.  I’ll be famous!”

Thank you, Ron, for the great question.  I must admit, it made me triple check my numbers!

What do you think, reader? Am I crazy? Despite everything, I think there is value here.  Reply and comment below to let add your voice to the topic.

If I drive directly to my office from home, I never glimpse Lake Martin. So sometimes (read Mondays) when I am headed to the office, and need some inspiration or a reminder about what I am really doing, I drive to Kowaliga Bridge, take in the view, and turn around refreshed.  Today it was really helpful, especially after hearing so much bad news lately about the real estate industry.

If you talk to families that have owned or rented Lake Martin homes for a long time, you will never hear them say, “boy we enjoyed the lake house, except for the late 1970s’ oil crisis” or “golly, the failure of the savings and loan banks in 1987 really screwed up my weekends at Lake Martin.”  Nope.

“Church in the Pines” More pics from Lake Martin Voice

Instead I hear comments like “that lake house has been the only place I can really relax” or “my favorite pictures of our kids were the ones we took on the dock…”  Somehow, during WWII, Korean War, Bay of Pigs, Vietnam War, oil quotas, 19% rates, S&L Crisis, Tech Bubble, Y2K Crisis, 9/11, Iraq …. somehow people still like their lake homes.

I am not suggesting that buying a home on Lake Martin will make you a happy person. There’s only one way to that kind of peace. And I am not trying to belittle today’s market woes or equate the Y2K panic to the Bay of Pigs. I am only saying that, well, I don’t really know what I am trying to say.

“Hello, Yellow”                                From Lake Martin Voice

Maybe all I am saying is that here is one thing I KNOW: the skies are stunningly blue today. The wind was whipping down south from Big Kowaliga, whitecapping its way to break on the shores of Sinclairs-By-The-Sea. The heron that was fishing over in the slough by Kowaliga’s Used Boat place was too elusive to photograph. No one was around to see me standing like a tourist on the shore, looking around for a bird whose pecan sized brain was too much for mine. Nothing in the realtor playbook for that one.

To respond to some readers’ comments, I thought I would publish a few more statistics from the Lake Martin MLS* waterfront home sales for August 2008.

Before I get into it, let me first caution all readers not to draw broad conclusions about the Lake Martin real estate market from the following two graphs.  I still maintain that looking too deeply into monthly sales statistics may be misleading, since we have such a very small market in terms of number of sales.  It just doesn’t make for a very good sampling pool when there are only 20 sales. So again I stress, this is for illustrative purposes only.  Keep in mind that you are only looking at 20 sales, only in the month of August.

The chart below makes a great case study as to why I am loathe to use trend analysis on monthly sales statistics. I am trying to answer the question, what did waterfront homes sell for relative to list price in August on Lake Martin? As you can see, sale number 18 does not have a sold price listed (no blue bar).  So if I were to include that in the average, it would totally mess up the average calculation.  I am sure that the home wasn’t give away for free.  For some reason, the seller chose not to list the sales price in the MLS.  It was a home that listed for around $300,000 – so I imagine it sold for around that amount.  But I don’t want to guess, so I left it out of the average calculation.  It’s a rolling average, so e.g. only the first 10 sales are averaged in #10, then on #11, 11 are averaged, etc.  On the last one, #20, I only average 19 since #18 was zero.

Nevertheless, here we go.  The blue bar is each sale’s % of Original List Price divided into sales price.  Original List Price is the list price used when a home was first entered on the Lake Martin MLS.  So if a home was put on the MLS on January 1 for $450,000 – then the list price was reduced on March 1 to $400,000 – then sold on August 15 for $385,000 – the calculation is $385,000 / $450,000.

Here is another chart, attempting to describe the average Days On Market for each waterfront home sold through the Lake Martin MLS in August.  My old statistics professor (RIP) would have a fit looking at this.  The standard deviation is too huge to be useful.  It goes from zero on the low side to a high of 456.  The rolling average ends up at 159.

Days on Market is defined as Date Sold minus Begin Date.  So if a property was sold on August 15, and it was entered on the MLS on July 1, that would equal 46 Days On Market.  Our average, at the end of August, was 159 Days On Market.  Is that close to our average for 2008?  My gut tells me yes, but I have not confirmed that.  So don’t take it as gospel.

I may decide to incorporate these types of charts in the future, but as you can see they get tedious when you have to comb through them to weed out sales which do not publish a sales price or some such other datum.

Hey Buyers – I’m talking to you. Yeah you.  If you have even thought about buying Lake Martin real estate in the last 4 years or 4 minutes, I am talking to you.  Would you like to know the top 5 properties out there in your category (lot, home, condo) that are the best value? Why not email me at the address at the top of this page.  Warren Buffet is buying, so you can say you did it because of him.  You will look smart.

“John – Where is your friend Ward?” From Lake Martin Voice

Related posts:

More posts on Lake Martin MLS Statistics

(*)Disclaimers: All of the above info was taken from the Lake Martin Area Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service. Accuracy is not guaranteed but deemed reliable. The above does not include sales by FSBOs or developers that sell privately and not through the MLS. But, I do think that the above represents a very large majority of all sales on Lake Martin.

Lake Martin MLS* waterfront home sales did not match the sun and fun for August 2008.

July 2008 waterfront home sales turned in a winner, beating 2007’s mark and giving us hope of the start of a rally.

Unfortunately, August did not repeat, turning in a lukewarm 20 sales, about the same amount for August 2007.

Once again, the old supply and demand thing continues to nag Lake Martin just like the rest of the country.  It was heartening to see the first reduction (from 527 to 518) in active listings since November of 2007. The overall active waterfront listings did dip, perhaps (hopefully) beginning its annual cold weather slide:

Another interesting thing to note is the amount of waterfront lots that are for sale right now on Lake Martin.  I must admit I was surprised, and triple checked this number.  Would you belieive that in August there were 152 lots for sale, and only 2 sold?  Check this table:

This confirms the c-store talk among real estate agents.  Given these numbers, and scanning the MLS, I think that any buyer looking at Lake Martin as a pure investment play needs to consider a lot. Especially if you don’t want a lot of upkeep.  Lots are low maintenance.  If this applies to you, let me know, I have a new lot listing that you might like.

I will wait another week or so to post results for 3Q08. I try to give it several weeks after the calendar end date to post results, as a lot of agents lag behind a bit in entering their results into the Lake Martin MLS.

Are you thinking about selling, and would like to know how I would use the above information to sell your property, despite all of the doom and gloom? Contact me.  It can be done!  Let me share some success stories with you.

Related posts:

More posts on Lake Martin MLS Statistics

(*)Disclaimers: All of the above info was taken from the Lake Martin Area Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service. Accuracy is not guaranteed but deemed reliable. The above does not include sales by FSBOs or developers that sell privately and not through the MLS. But, I do think that the above represents a very large majority of all sales on Lake Martin.

If you’re wanting to find out more about The Preserve at Stoney Ridge on Lake Martin, please see the below video I shot to show the amenities, just click the play arrow below:

I was shocked at how big the view is from the Pool / Cabana area. Check the video, about a minute in to it. You can actually see Lake Martin from there.

Also you may be interested in the video home tour of one of my homes for sale, 791 Old Still Road, that is in the Preserve at Stoney Ridge. It is a unique and beautiful Lake Martin home. If you haven’t watched this video yet, #1. – you are in the minority and #2. – you will be surprised by one of its features, see if you can guess which:

I was over in the Pleasure Point area the other day, going by two homes for sale that I have listed over there. One is on Claytons Lane and the other in on Captains Road.

If you are ever riding around in that section of Blue Creek, off of Tallapoosa County Road 34, you might find it interesting that there is an old cemetery off of, you guessed it, Old Cemetery Road.

I snapped these pics:

Here are some closeups:

And one last one:

If you do happen by there, BE CAREFUL.  Proceed at your own risk.