The Big Bear lakefront real estate market has seen sales more than double this year as the 33rd sale of this year recently closed escrow.
119 Lagunita Lane is a remodeled 3 bed, 2 bath, 1320 square foot multi-unit home on a relatively small 3311 square foot lot. This home originally listed for 1.2M in 2007, eventually dropping it's list price gradually over time to $585,000 before finally selling for $570,000 at $431 per square foot. This home spent a whopping 924 days on market followed by a 100 day escrow period before finally closing sale.
This lakefront property was tastefully remodeled into two units - a 2 bedroom, 1 bath upstairs and a 1 bedroom, 1 bath downstairs. Part of the difficulty in getting this lakefront home sold was the unconventional duplex layout.
Otherwise, the location on the lake was quite nice for being in the sub-1M price range. The home was oriented towards the geographic center of the lake with expansive views. The shoreline was gently sloped and moving one's dock to deeper water in dryer years would be no problem in this locale. Parking was tight with just a few spaces out front. And although located close to neighbors, looking towards the lake, you did not feel crowded.
This home is a good example of what may have been what we in the business call "chasing the market down". If at the original time of listing the seller had chosen a list price of 10 - 20% less, they would likely had sold the home years sooner and at 10-20% more than they eventually received. Unfortunately, for many sellers, this circumstance was quite commonplace during the market downturn. Many sellers held on to hope that they would get more than market value for their house only to eventually reduce their price later. Only when they decided to drop their price later, they once again failed to lower the price enough. When this cycle repeats itself, you end up "chasing the market down" until either the home price is lowered sufficiently or the market values stop declining. In this case, it is a combination of both these conditions leaning towards the latter as being the main reason for the eventual sale.
This Big Bear lakefront home is another example of a waterfront property that was listed for several years that finally closed. Besides the fact that the Big Bear lakefront real estate market has seen an increase of over 100% in the number of sales, and besides there being a surprisingly low 22 currently listed lakefront homes for sale, we are also seeing lakefronts that have sat on the market for years finally selling. These three factors really support the growing feeling that perhaps we have turned a corner in the Big Bear lakefront real estate market!