Peninsula lakefront home saleThe last distressed Big Bear lakefront on the market closed escrow last week. 817 Peninsula was a short sale that is a 3 bed, 2.5 bath, 1954 square foot lakefront home built in 2004 amongst the rock gardens of Boulder Bay. Listing originally as a standard sale at 1.49 million five years ago, this property's list price eventually reduced to $795,000 before selling for $775,000.

The sale price of $397 per square foot is above the 2012 average of $366/sf and median of $388/sf.

This home had high end finishes with a desirable open floor plan. Wood floors, granite counters, stainless appliances and premium fixtures were just some of this home's features. One particularly unusual feature of this home is an elevator which comes up from the garage to the house through the livingroom floor.

Big Bear lake view from PeninsulaPenninsula Lane is not paved and maintained, which was a drawback to this property. But the setting of this home amongst the boulders and the views of Boulder Bay offset the road issue in some people's opinion.

Currently, there are only 24 Big Bear lakefront homes for sale. I can't remember the last time there were so few lakefronts for sale at this time of year. There have been 25 waterfront sales so far this year and there are currently 4 waterfront properties in escrow as well. Being that there were only 16 sales TOTAL on the lake last year, we are seeing a record jump in lakefront activity from last year.

It will be interesting to see if we can double last year's sales before the end of 2012. Either way, this certainly has been an encouraging year for the Big Bear lakefront real estate market.