Fishhawk Lake Summer 2009

It has been proven to me that over the last  four-five years of the downward trend in real estate, that buying vacation homes hasn’t seemed to wane vs. first time homes or primary home purchases.

In the last year alone, there were 11 lakefront or off the lake homes sold and one lot; all except one I listed and/or sold myself, including one For Sale By Owner, as I represented the buyers.  Three of these buyers paid CASH. Several of these were lakefront properties.   The average sales price was $203,000 for a home.  One buyer paid $280,000 in cash because he wanted a “rowing cabin”!  To explain, he’s a local farmer whose knees had gone bad, but felt that rowing on a lake was still a good form of exercise for him!  The largest purchase in the last year was $322,000, the smallest $30,000.  For a small, out-of-the-way community like ours, that’s pretty phenomenal!  We only have about 178 homes here on our 50AC manmade lake and a little over 300 lots all told.  That means 6% of the homes in this area sold last year ALONE!!!

One of the many picturesque homes at Fishhawk Lake

Basically, what I’m saying is that even in a down economy, people who were smart about their money still have money and see the value in purchasing real estate right now.  We’ve had very few short sales and foreclosures here. We’ve seen a slightly lower values, but not huge. Our community has stayed viable in the eyes of the real estate investor. So, ultimately, as a real estate investment, this area is a smart community to look at for opportunities. Several owners also start out buying smaller and then buy a larger property, potentially starting off-the-lake with a smaller A-frame, or cabin and waiting for the investment opportunity to arise to buy a bigger home, their “dream home” or a waterfront property and sell their smaller one–it happens all of the time here.  We purchased a log cabin as an investment just short of 2 years ago and just sold it to a cash buyer which will bring us one step closer to buying that lakefront home we have our eyes on!

Lawrence Yun, Chief economist of the National Association of Realtors mentioned in an article in  the February 2010 issue of Realtor magazine, “For the first half of this year home sales will improve by more than 20 percent over the same period of 2009.”  With great prices, a low interest rate, potential for a home buyer tax credit, it could be spurning on more sales this year.  Mind you, I’m not complaining, because I had a terrific year of sales last year, so I’m on a roll!!

Gayle Rich-Boxman Vernonia Realty

(503)755-2905

Specializing in vacation, retirement or 2nd homes at Fishhawk Lake www.lakehomesatfishhawk.com

Canoeing on Fishhawk Lake