Lake Homes Realty, which claims to be the largest lake real estate brokerage firm in the country, recently released its annual “Hot Lakes” list for 2023. Lake Sinclair moved up one spot from last year to No. 3, and Lake Oconee is new to the top 10 with a No. 8 placement.
Northeast Georgia’s Lake Hartwell retained its No. 1 position from last year, while Lake Lanier fell from second overall to No. 7 on the new list. The Hoover, Ala.-based realty company said national rankings were based on analysis of pageviews after 50-million-plus visits to its website (lakehomes.com) as of Dec. 20, last year.
In addition to Georgia’s lakes, South Carolina had three entries on the list (including sharing Lake Hartwell), Alabama placed two lakes, and Texas and Oklahoma had one lake apiece in the Top 10.
Lake Homes Realty CEO and Chief Financial Analyst Glenn Phillips suggested several factors combine to make Lakes Sinclair and Oconee so popular among those searching online for lakeside properties.
First, Phillips said, both are big enough to have sufficient listings. In this case, Lake Sinclair covers approximately 15,300 acres with more than 400 miles of shoreline and at the end of 2022 showed 265 listings for homes and lots, which attracted 662,228 page views to the Lake Homes website.
In comparison, Lake Oconee covers about 19,000 acres with 374 miles of shoreline and attracted 590,384 page views with 497 listings for individual properties at year’s end.
“It’s a simple math equation. If you get to the northern part of the country, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, they have thousands of tiny lakes, but none of them have enough business, or enough property to become a hot (national) market, even though they could be hot compared to similarly sized lakes,” Phillips explained. “But as far as where people are looking online, just to become a hot lake you need to have enough geography with enough property on it and those lakes (Sinclair and Oconee) fit that.”
The second major factor in Lake Country’s popularity, he added, is being within easy reach of Atlanta and even Charlotte or Birmingham. Where there’s a population nearby with relatively easy travel distances to the lakes, that’s a likely combination for creating hot lakefront property markets, Phillips pointed out.
He said the physical proximity of Lakes Oconee and Sinclair also benefits one another since potential buyers can visit both in just one weekend of property viewing.
“Unlike most of the larger lakes in the Southeast and the Southwest, with Sinclair and Oconee you’ve got two big lakes to look at, so put together, buyers have even more properties to consider. And in this case, Oconee and Sinclair offer the sort of two different lifestyles. So, a lot of people want to look at one and look at the other and then figure out which one suits them best,” Phillips said. “And they can do that with one trip after looking up everything online, which is what we’re looking at as part of our data.”
A fourth significant factor, Phillips suggested, is hyper-elevated real estate markets in certain parts of the country that send newly flush buyers to search Georgia in their lakefront property hunts.
“Not just here, but all big lakes are getting interested from California people, who, when they sell a small, two-bedroom house that wasn’t particularly stunning for $1.5 million or more, the dollar can go a lot farther in the Southeast and they can suddenly buy a very nice lake home,” Phillips explained. “Lake Sinclair and Lake Oconee are two of these lakes that fit the bill. They both have really great properties and compared to where they come from, out-of-state buyers feel like they’re getting a great deal.”
It creates a rare market where distant buyers may be happy with what they’re paying, while sellers are equally thrilled at receiving what they might feel is a top dollar in their local market. Phillips cautioned, though, that doesn’t mean the local market is free to take advantage of unrealistic expectations or overpricing of properties.
“Thanks to online shopping, buyers are more informed now than at any other time in human history,” he said. “Even if they have the means, and many lake home buyers do – regardless of where they’re from – if they’re eager they don’t necessarily mind paying a little extra, but they rarely want to or are willing to pay foolish prices, particularly in uncertain economic times.”
So long as lakefront inventory remains available, Phillips said he expects the current market condition to continue with prices remaining strong and buyers plentiful. He said inventory likely will be driven by a transition of older people, largely baby boomers, who are steadily letting go of houses as they become too much for them to maintain and also can provide resources to comfortably live out their years should permanent healthcare be required.
Still, as much as he’d like to see more lake properties go to market, Phillips suggested current lakefront homeowners should think carefully before deciding to try and take advantage of the current hot markets at Lakes Sinclair and Oconee.
“My advice to those people is, if you love your lake home and you are not in need of money and you really know you’re going to use it for five, six, seven years or more, don’t worry about it. Enjoy your lake home, enjoy life,” he said. “If, however, you think you’re probably going to keep it no more than five years, you may want to consider things from an investment perspective.
“We’re not going to have a crash, but we’ve really passed the peak market and that’s going to hold for a while, and I don’t know that it’s going to go back up again. So, if you’re wanting your maximum return on investment and you were planning to sell, particularly in the next three or four years, we’re in a window to do that now.”