Eric Kodner CRS, Madeline Island Realty, LaPointe, WI 54850 - Lake Superior

While Your Recreational Property is Off the Market this Winter, Buyers are Purchasing Someone Else's Home or Cottage

Quite a few Madeline Island vacation homeowners decide to take their home, condo unit, cabin or cottage off the market during winter months. Many owners of second homes (as well as some real estate agents) believe the idea that you can sell a vacation home during winter is pure fiction, something like believing in the tooth fairy or using your Ouija board to predict the future. As a result, these folks tend to pull their property off the market sometime around Halloween or Thanksgiving and then they wait for the flowers to bloom in springtime before they even think about relisting that property for sale.

The problem is, when you pull your property off the market, it gradually becomes invisible to prospective buyers. And in order to get your place sold, it has to be seen and it must be available for showings.

For example, this winter has turned out to be an outstanding year for winter sales on Madeline Island. In the last two weeks, we've made two pending sales on Madeline Island, one of a fine interior home on over an acre and the other a waterfront estate. Those sellers made a smart move by staying on the market during winter.

[Click on the photo above to view our TourFactory virtual tours of these properties listed by Madeline Island Realty.]

Some agents worry about long market times, thinking that their client's property will benefit from a winter break from exposure to the market. But most MLS systems allow a viewer of an MLS data sheet to view a listing "history" which will show a curious agent how long the property has actually been on the market, regardless of breaks in listing activity.

There's something to be said for continuity. By staying on the market, you avoid seeing your listing disappear from the Web and from an agent's IDX portal. When you take a hiatus from being on the market, you're starting all over again in spring.

Furthermore, many would-be sellers stay on the sidelines too long. They wait until late May or June, sometimes later, to relist their property. And it takes time for your listing to build a presence on search engines. You don't just snap your fingers and expect to find your property on page one for a Google search of your town or county.

Before you let a friend, family member, neighbor or even a real estate agent tell you that winter sales are impossible, ask an agent who sells homes and properties twelve months a year for advice. You might be surprised to learn that others are accomplishing the impossible and they're reaping the rewards in the process.

Sale Pending - 351 Old Fort Road, LaPointe, WI 54850 - Listed by Madeline Island Realty

Our historic Coole Park estate home listing on Madeline Island is now pending. We listed this elegant Lake Superior estate property (351 Old Fort Road, LaPointe, Wisconsin 54850) at the end of summer last year and now we have an accepted offer after five months on the market.

We're proud to be the first Madeline Island real estate brokerage to have achieved the successful marketing and sale of a property of this calibre. Home sales on Madeline Island are uncommon in the middle of winter. And this is our second home sale on Madeline Island since the beginning of February.

[351 Old Fort Road, on Madeline Island - Priced at $1,799,900 and listed for sale by Madeline Island Realty]

This superb property was a joy to photograph and to market. I tell clients that having a great subject to capture in photos is a thrill, whether your photographic subjects are fashion models or luxury homes. And I'd liken this property to any subject or model you'd find on the pages of magazines like Vogue or Town & Country.

Call Broker Eric Kodner, Madeline Island Realty, at 612.670.2539. Let us make your Madeline Island or Bayfield home look its best on the Web and get it SOLD.

Yes, Madeline Island Homes DO Sell in Winter

It doesn't happen all that often, but properly priced (and well-marketed) listings on Madeline Island do sell during the winter months. When an offer comes in on one of our home listings, it's cause for celebration. And while any time of year is a great time to make a sale, a serious offer is even more welcome in the month of January.

The prospective buyer tells us she found this listing on our Madeline Island Realty website. She and her husband also viewed this home quite a few times on our YouTube channel and they tell me they scouted the home's exterior using Street View in Google Maps.

I was at the WRA Winter Convention when this offer came in. Wisconsin Realtors Association conventions have always been pretty lucky for me. I received an offer on a Minneapolis home last autumn while I was at the Kalahari Resort for WRA Convention and the year before, I negotiated an offer for a $450,000 waterfront home on Madeline Island while I was attending the WRA Annual Convention.

I frequently tell sellers that it may be a mistake to pull their Madeline Island property off the market during winter months. Even though winter sales are infrequent, there's no reason why a correctly priced home can't be sold during winter.

Wisconsin CRS Chapter Luncheon last Friday at WRA Winter Convention

We had an amazing group of people at our Wisconsin CRS Chapter luncheon last week at Lake of the Torches Convention Center in Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin!

There were nearly forty attendees at the Friday January 27th luncheon during the Wisconsin Realtors Association Winter Convention. Our Wisconsin Chapter President, Cindy Ulsrud, was unable to attend, so I wound up taking her place at the luncheon.

For me, the most enjoyable part of the hour was the opportunity to present a half-hour "mini-course" on real estate photography. This included some of the same material which I delivered during a RealBird webinar on January 20th and which I earlier presented last March at the CRS Region 6 & 7 Meeting in Chicago.

Attendees were given an introduction to using wide-angle photography as a tool for achieving superior results in home marketing. Two dozen of those at the luncheon left me their business cards and I'll be emailing them a couple of eBooks on real estate photography as a thank-you gift on behalf of the Wisconsin CRS Chapter. We appreciate our members attending these annual events and we try to show that appreciation by bringing added value to them.

Below are some of the websites and materials I shared with the guests at our Wisconsin CRS Chapter luncheon:

Stan Barron eBook "How to Photograph Houses"

Larry Lohrman eBook "Guide to Using Photography in Real Estate Marketing"

Ken Rockwell - Photography, Cameras and Taking Better Pictures

Eric Kodner Post on ActiveRain - Using Fisheye Lenses in Real Estate Photography

Buyers Are Using Google Street Views to Preview Madeline Island Homes

Many prospective buyers may not realize that they can get a street view of Madeline Island homes for sale (or many property listings across the United States) simply by using Google Maps with Street View.

You'll need to create a Gmail account, of course. And you can set up Google Maps once you've done that. Not all properties will have street views available. But it makes sense to search Google Street View before you drive three or four hours to look at properties in a vacation destination area like ours.

Here's what I found when I did a Street View search for one of our listings at 2865 North Shore Road, LaPointe WI:

The street view photo wasn't taken in HD and it certainly isn't all that sharp or detailed, but it gives the viewer a very good idea of the street view of this home. And it gave prospective buyers (who had already viewed a virtual tour of the home's interior) enough information to satisfy their curiosity about what the lot and yard looked like, which led to their submitting an offer.

Google Maps and Google Earth also offer satellite and aerial views of some properties. From a consumer standpoint, I find these street views more valuable as a marketing tool.

A street view of your home for sale probably won't sell the property on its own, but it's another piece of the puzzle that may lead to finding your buyer.