Lake Martin Voice Realty
Alan Jackson’s Lake Stage Highlights Aquapalooza 2009 on Lake Martin
Yep, you heard it right. The organizers of Aquapalooza 2009 are building a stage on the edge of Lake Martin for Alan Jackson.
And the only way to see the concert is on the water, by boat.
It’s an all day event on Saturday, July 25, with music starting at 11:30 AM and Jackson headlining at 6:00 PM. Since safety is an issue with an event this size, the concert will be over before dark.
According to The Wetumpka Herald, the stage will be built at the water’s edge, over on the western side Kowaliga Bridge near Sinclair’s Restaurant. There will be a swimming area and dance platform directly in front of the stage.
Click here for a Google map of the Aquapalooza 2009 Lake Martin location.
If you want an upclose view of Jackson, get there early (boats can begin “rafting up” on Friday at 2:00 PM Central). And please, have at least one sober driver and one sober first mate per boat. The driver will need to be alert to maneuver, and the mate will need to be the extra set of eyes and help fend off other bumping boats.
There will be mooring buoys with lines in Kowaliga Bay. Attendants on Sea-Doo® watercrafts will direct traffic and helping with boat mooring, and a shuttle service will help you to and from your boat.
Questions about this concert? Here’s a link to the offical Aquapalooza 2009 website FAQs.
Have fun and be safe.
Lake Martin Waterfront Sales Sputter In April
After several consecutive months of meeting or beating prior year’s sales, waterfront homes sold on Lake Martin dropped in April 2009 to 9 total, 7 fewer than were sold in April 2008.
When I wrote about the number of Lake Martin homes sold in the first quarter of 2009 in this post, I commented that there were many homes with the status of pending, meaning that they were under contract to sell. I thought that if all those closed, we would easily beat April of 2008. But apparently many of those are still under contract. Maybe this means that May 2009 will trounce May 2008, because at this writing there are 28 pending and in May 2008 there were only 14 homes that closed. Granted, I am sure that some may be homes under construction, or condos with long due diligence phases. I do think that Lake Martin (like almost all other markets) is experiencing longer times between contract agreement and closing. Lenders (more specifically their underwriters) are requiring more and more red tape and documents during the process, so it is taking longer to close.
Here is the chart showing monthly waterfront sales on Lake Martin. You can see the drop in April 2009:
Once you add them up cumulatively, you can see that 2009 is already behind 2008.
We will have to wait and see if Lake Martin has a surge of sales in May to make up for the stall in April. Please keep in mind, these statistics are for the entire Lake Martin MLS, all realtors, all brokerages. Here is a look at the numbers only:
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Obviously a big part of the equation is the amount of waterfront homes and condos for sale, aka Active Listings. Take a look at this graph of the total waterfront listings in the Lake Martin MLS, starting in 2007:
You can see that in December 2007 and January 2008, the listings bottomed out at about 341, and then rose from there. It looks like we also found a bottom in December 2008 and January 2009, but at 421, which was a 23% increase from prior year. Will we continue to see more homes come on the market in 2009? Personally I do not think we will see as many homes come on the market in 2009 because as I stated in this post covering first quarter 2009 sales, there are virtually no new spec homes being built right now. Sure, there are a few here and there, but I don’t think they will be a big effect. Look at the huge leap from January to May 2008. We didn’t see that this year, but we ended up in the same place. My biggest question with supply is if we will have fewer new spec homes on the market, will they be replaced by Lake Martin foreclosures, short sales, and lender REO?
Looking Deeper
Since the late spring is such a crucial time in the Lake Martin real estate market, let’s take a deeper look at the numbers and answer some general questions like:
1. Of all the homes for sale right now on Lake Martin, how many are homes, how many are condos, and what is the price breakdown?
2. What is the price breakdown of homes and condos that have sold in 2009 so far?
3. What about Lake Martin waterfront lots for sale?
1. Lake Martin Homes and Condos For Sale Right Now
If you check the Lake Martin MLS, there are 851 residences for sale right now. 559 of those are waterfront. 557 are on Lake Martin. Of that 557, 158 are listed as condos or town homes. 7 are mobile homes. So that leaves 392 single family homes that are on the water. I think that is overstated, as I have seen many condos that are incorrectly designated as homes, but for now I will work with these.
Of the 392, only 23 are on leased lots.
The price breakdown of the 392 homes for sale on Lake Martin is:
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2.Sold Homes and Condos
Here is how that same chart looks if we apply it to the 31 homes that have sold through April 30, 2009:
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3. Lake Martin Waterfront Lots Breakdown
At this writing, if you run a search in the Lake Martin MLS, and you select “Waterfront” = Y, you find that there are 162 lots for sale. If you look more closely, you find that four of those are on Yates Lake, seven on Lake Tallassee, one on Lake Jordan, and seven are on private lakes or “other.” If we are focusing only on Lake Martin, that leaves 143 lots for sale on Lake Martin. Here is the price breakdown:
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In short, we have an big oversupply of lots for sale. To put it into perspective, look at it beside the sales and inventory statistics, as of April 2009:
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You read that right, yes, only 3 lots have sold through the MLS on the entire lake so far this year. 2008 was the same story. It is interesting to note that in May 2008 7 sold, the equivalent of 20 months of inventory, which is approaching a balanced market condition. It tells me that the market has the potential, in spurts, to act normal. So what’s holding it back? Price, I think. Sellers, especially lot sellers, need to take a long hard look at price because they have 3 times the relative amount of competition than do home or condo sellers.
APPLICATION
If you made it this far, you have to be wondering, what does this all mean to me?
Buyers- If you are interested in buying property on Lake Martin right now, the biggest problem you will have will be sorting through all of the noise. Yes, there are good deals out there, and yes there are still some overpriced dogs. When your perfect spot comes available, will you be ready? Call me, I can help you find your dream home or lot!
Sellers: Do not despair, you CAN still sell in this environment, but it requires extraordinary effort from you and your agent. Call me, I can help you address these 3 crucial aspects of selling: 1.) pricing, 2.) staging, and 3.) marketing.
Related Posts:
Lake Martin Sales – 2008 Year In Review
Lake Martin Sales – 2007 Year In Review
Or for every post I have done on the subject:
Lake Martin Market Statistics Category
(*)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 2009 Waterfront Sales Match 2008 In First Quarter
“Have Lake Martin sales picked up yet?”
I get this questions a lot. Waterfront sales on Lake Martin are cyclical anyway, and after a tough Oct – Dec 2008 everyone is anxious to see if 2009 will be the year the market takes back off.
So far, it looks like January – March 2009 (1Q09) is in lockstep with waterfront sales in 1Q08. There were 20 sold in 1Q08 and 22 sold in 1Q09:
I guess I could make a sensational headline like:
“2009 Sales Are Up 10% Over 2008” but when that 10% = 2 sales, well, it seems like (statistically) a close call.
I think the real story lies in the active listings and new listings columns. In March 2008 we added 110 listings for sale around Lake Martin, and had a total of 418. In 2009, there was a little more total for sale, at 474, but in March 09 only added 53 to that total.
So what?
To me that is a sign of hope that sellers are pulling back a bit, and only selling when they are serious. I also think it is obvious that there is a lack of new spec homes on the market. Waterfront spec homes were still hitting the Lake Martin real estate market back in 08 because the pipeline can sometimes be about 8 months. In other words, new spec homes popping up as new listings in January 2008 were likely started around April 2007. But by April 2008, everyone had figured out that we were in an extreme buyers market, and quit starting spec homes.
The only spec homes now on the market are holdovers from 2007 and 2008, and in some rare cases, 2006.
Foreclosures? Short sales?
Yes, Lake Martin is starting to see more foreclosures and short sales.
It’s hard to come up with an easy list of Lake Martin foreclosures or short sales because there is no field in the Lake Martin MLS to designate as foreclosure or short sale. In contrast, you can easily search for waterfront homes or lots by choosing “Y” in a Lake Martin MLS search here. For foreclosures and short sales, you pretty much have to deduce it by the seller (a bank or some other financial sounding company) and also the trusty Lake Martin grapevine.
What will the Lake Martin real estate market do in 2009?
No one can know for sure at this point, of course, but here are a couple of indicators that I watch:
1.) 2009 monthly sales beating 2008 – by this I mean in number of homes sold. We have already seen in 2008 that average prices fell. So according to what we know about real estate cycles then we should expect to see individual months in 2009 beating their 2008 counterpart BEFORE we see prices rebound. But, current year MUST start beating prior years. It happened in the last part of 2008, and 1Q09 beat 2008 timidly, which is why the smart money eyes will be on the crucial period of 2Q09 (April – June 2009).
2.) Cities / States that were Bubble Sources – I am not a real big believer in strong trickle down connections between markets, at least in a 1 to 1 relationship. But it is interesting to watch with the economy as a whole. I watch Florida, California, and Atlanta.
Related Posts:
Lake Martin Market Statistics Category
(*)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.
