Door County is a beautiful and popular vacation spot for Wisconsinites. But the recession’s ugly impact hit all areas, no matter how lovely the setting. Between 2004 and 2009, the number of waterfront homes sold in Door County dropped from 99 a year to 41.
The median sales price in this upscale getaway started at $331,700, peaked in 2006 at $487,500, then fell back to $362,500 by 2009. Condominiums didn’t fare much better.
The plight of the primary home market has generated considerable scrutiny; the state’s recreational market – vacation and second homes – has hardly prompted a word. Values and sales dropped there, too, with waterfront homes in popular lake-rich locales like Oneida County now priced 15 percent below their original asking price.
But area Realtors say the recovery is finally underway in Wisconsin’s recreational region, albeit at a slower pace. One possible reason for the sluggishness, says Mike Ruzicka, president of the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors, is that second homes weren’t eligible for either of the market-stimulating federal homebuyer tax credits.
“We had a slight pickup this [past] fall, but before that, it was absolutely devastated,” says John Guarisco, who serves on the Board of Realtors in northeastern Wisconsin’s Marinette County. Guarisco also owns a real estate company – where his staff has been cut in half due to stagnant sales – and he works as an appraiser, where the dearth of comparable sales makes valuing homes harder. But things were looking better this spring in this more moderately priced vacationland, he says.
Yet while home sales and prices dropped in Marinette County, the price of vacant land remained relatively stable. One reason, Guarisco says, is the land’s versatility. Owners can hunt, hike and harvest timber on vacant property. Then, too, when stocks and bonds look like shaky investments, there’s something comforting about owning a piece of land.
Foreclosures have been less of an issue Up North. In Minocqua, Adam Redman, president of the Northwoods Association of Realtors, has seen some, but they have been mostly off of the water. In Florence County, Gloria Najera, a broker and partner at Wild Rivers Realty and Associates, can count the number of foreclosures in her area on her hands, she says. One reason may be that many Wisconsin cottages are passed down within families and no longer carry a mortgage.
A step or two behind the national recovery, Wisconsin’s recreational market seems to be rebounding. Bob Starr is president of the Door County Board of Realtors and a broker in Sturgeon Bay. His office’s first-quarter sales equaled those from the first quarter of 2009, a sign, he says, that the market has bottomed out.
“The recreational market is probably one of the last things to recover in a recession,” says Chuck Peeters, president of the Realtors Association of Northeast Wisconsin. Still, Realtors are excited.
“We feel that we’ve seen an improvement in 2010,” says Mike Mulleady, who manages Coldwell Banker’s Minocqua office in Oneida County. “There seems to be a little more consumer confidence.”
Some worry about other trends that could disrupt the fragile recovery, endangering the Wisconsin tradition of the modest family-owned cottage Up North. “Taxes are becoming high enough to where [some families] don’t want to pay them anymore, so they want to sell,” says Mulleady. And with $3-per-gallon gasoline looking inevitable, Guarisco fears some folks may decide against a retreat Up North.
But others may see an enticing buyer’s market. Given the large inventories, low interest rates and reduced prices, a vacation home is now much more affordable. And the family memories and relaxing moments might be priceless.
