Luxury Lake Boom

Listings nationally for lake homes and lots have soared by $7.3 billion since May, according to Lake Homes Realty, a lake-focused real estate brokerage based in Hoover, Alabama. Its analysis of the 31 states, including Georgia, through August shows that fall listings totaled $43.89 billion, up from $36.55 billion in the summer.

Georgia is the seventh largest lake market, in its analysis, with $2.17 billion in total inventory—4,500 listings—for the fall, up from $1.94 billion in the summer. The last time Georgia’s inventory topped $2 billion was in fall 2020, at $2.23 billion, and summer 2019 with $2.62 billion in inventory and 7,947 listings.

With reducing inventory, the peak of “hyper-accelerated pricing,” due to factors such as the pandemic and the ability to work from anywhere, stopped in the summer, says glenn s. phillips, the company’s CEO and chief economic analyst.

Two Georgia lakes with the largest markets are Lake Lanier with $573 million in listings and $409 million in listings at Lake Oconee. Markets vary from season to season as inventory shrinks and prices rise, but for the fall, Lake Oconee had the largest number of million-dollar listings, with 117, followed by 108 at Lake Lanier, according to the firm’s analysis.

Phillips says now is the best opportunity for sellers to get maximum return on the financial investment in a lake home, as he expects prices to fall in 2023. But that’s not to worry, as demand should buffer the market. “Even if we go into a major recession, the lake home market is going to be pretty resilient,” he says.