Opening the lakefront treasure chest

WOLFEBORO — With the Town Docks, a 155-year-old gift shop, and an ice cream scoop shack that draws generations of children and grownups, Wolfeboro combines small-town charm with another sought-after pleasure: miles of lakefront.

That rings loud and clear in its real estate prices, which are dizzying for water views, water access or waterfront – price tags that jackknifed higher during COVID.

Currently, two five-bedroom waterfront homes in Wolfeboro are listed at $10 million. An eight-bedroom waterfront estate on Springfield Point is available for $19.5 million. From 2015 to 2020, the median price for residential waterfront rose from $895,000 to $1.3 million, according to the Northern New England Real Estate Network.

Wolfeboro’s most coveted gems are perched between pines, with private beaches on Lake Winnipesaukee.  At the end of private driveways, and roads that turn impassable in snowstorms, they offer privacy and postcard views and, occasionally, the call of a loon.

For ultra-well-heeled buyers, it’s a simple equation: lifestyle plus location - in a town renowned to be America’s oldest summer resort.   

“The demand is over the top, not because it’s a Beverly Hills, but because it’s a very desirable place to live without all that,” said local real estate Adam Dow of Dow Realty Group, who has lived or summered in Wolfeboro for 48 years, and heads Dow Realty Group.

Wolfeboro, Meredith, Moultonborough, Center Harbor, Laconia, Alton and Gilford contain a bounty of dream homes on Winnipesaukee and a myriad of smaller lakes – all with waterfront increasingly in demand and a narrowing or vanishing supply.

Since 2015, the cost of single-family waterfront homes in those towns has risen in price by 82%, according to data from the New Hampshire Association of Realtors, a consequence of demand exceeding supply, and plenty of buyers flush with money.

In the past month there were only 13 waterfront houses available anywhere on Lake Winnipesaukee. The least expensive, a 764-square-foot cottage in Moultonborough, was tagged at $845,000. The next least expensive was a 1,476-square-foot Alton house listed for $1.695 million. Five homes were priced at $10 million or higher, according to NNEREN.

“In the COVID market, values have gone through the roof,” said Kristin White, who sells properties in greater Meredith and Moultonborough for Dow Realty Group.

The price jump for waterfront homes in Center Harbor is staggering: the mid-point price for the two properties sold in 2015 was $219,000. In 2021, only three have been sold so far – with a median price of $2.185 million.

In Gilford, the median price of residential waterfront more than doubled in the last two years, rising from $827,500 in 2019 to $2.635 million in 2021, with about 50 properties sold each year.

It’s a glistening treasure or a fantasy, depending on where you sit.

Lou and Catherine LaMarca, who moved from Hampton Falls, are glad they bought their-four bedroom waterfront home in Alton Bay in 2018 before COVID hiked prices. In Alton, the median waterfront price rose from $550,000 in 2019 to $995,000 in 2021.

Lou owns a Rochester business that makes coated fabrics for health care. The couple had been looking and renting on Lake Winnipesaukee for five years before they found a seasonal camp that could be remodeled into a year-round home.

“I love nature. I love boating. I love having eagles around here. I just saw a little black bear cub,” LaMarca said. “We have loons and deer” – plus a lakefront house for entertaining, and for children and grandchildren to enjoy.  

It was hard to get any house on the water, especially on Winnipesaukee. “Properties get handed down, kept by families as opposed to getting sold,” said Lou. "There’s almost no developable land left and lots of restrictions. That’s part of the reason prices are going up, there’s limited supply and more demand. On our street,”  before COVID hit, “there were only two full-time year-round people here. Now, there’s over 10. It’s definitely a trend.”

After COVID, prices that had stalled or were slowly climbing stepped into high gear, propelled partly by work-from-home jobs, pandemic shutdowns, clamp downs on air vacation travel - plus a redoubled quest for open space, privacy from one’s neighbors and an improvement in quality of life.

Since COVID, luxury waterfront in prime locations has sold for as much as $1 million over asking price, Dow said, the result of tooth-and-nail bidding between buyers who come with cash. “Since 2019 we’ve seen explosive growth,” he said. At some point there likely will be a correction, real estate sellers predict. But quality waterfront is relatively resilient, buoyed by how many are waiting to buy.

“Now it’s a draw for lifestyle year-round,” said Dow. “Before, only the unicorn workforce got to work from home.”

High-end buyers and people who have been financially successful, coming from cities and suburbs throughout the Northeast, have cashed out profits in stock portfolios. Some have sold startups, long-running businesses, or valuable real estate elsewhere. For some, waterfront here is a lifestyle decision, an investment alternative with less exposure to inflation and stock market swings. For some, waterfront – a limited commodity that increases in value – is a place to park cash in uncertain times.

“You’re not spending money on Winnipesaukee, you’re moving money to Lake Winnipesaukee. For the next 10 years, you can waterski on your investment,” said Dow.

In the greater Lakes Region, the widespread demand for properties on Winnipesaukee has funneled buyers to smaller, less well-known lakes that boast views plus peace and quiet.

“In Wolfeboro, you might have one or two sales each year” on Winnipesaukee, said Dow. Now smaller lakes, including 12 in neighboring Wakefield, have become more desirable.

Roughly 45 to 1 hour from Portsmouth, it’s “a micro-economy for vacation property in New Hampshire,” said Dow. In 2019, there were two sales over $1 million on 1,800-acre Great East Lake, located in Wakefield, NH and Acton, Maine. Since then, nine have sold, the highest at $2.2. million for a 4,500-square-foot home on a three-quarter acre lot.

Alpha-buyers are foregoing home inspections and offering cash, including for properties they have seen only online. Some only care about expensive problems that cost more than $10,000 to correct, according to real estate agents. Others put it plainly, "'There’s nothing that will come up on a home inspection that will make us not want to buy it,'" said Dow.

Some include provisions to go $75,000 higher than any other bid, said White of Dow Realty Group.

As many as 30 potential buyers will come to an open house, prepared to make an offer in person or online.  There are a first-timers. Many are veterans of bidding wars. Fixer-upper camps and move-in retreats are being snatched swiftly, sometimes in spite of obvious structural flaws that would have nixed deals pre-COVID, or netted a lower price from sellers. 

Now, especially for waterfront, and for lakefront in nearby communities, “the big numbers are going to grow,” said Dow.

Since January 2021 there have been roughly 300 sales in Belknap and Carroll counties of riverfront or lakefront, according to the New Hampshire Association of Realtors. In 2018, 394 waterfront properties changed hands in these two counties, with half the properties selling for more than $523,750, and half for less. The median number of days on the market was 40.  This year, that median sale price hovered at $850,000, according NHAR.  The median number of days on the market was 10.  

In 2020, Lake Winnipesaukee alone accounted for over $16 billion in assessed property values and contributed $216.5 million in local property taxes, according to a study for the Lake Winnepisaukee Association by the Policy Research Shop at Dartmouth College.  

Frank Roche, president of Roche Realty Group, a Lakes Region broker for 45 years, thinks that’s a conservative estimate. It may not consider the values of non-waterfront homes that share Winnipesaukee access through homeowners’ associations – and there are plenty around the lake. For instance, Gunstock Acres in Gilford has over 600 families spread over three peaks and a small community beach on Winnipesaukee in Gilford.

“They have water access and Gunstock Mountain Resort nearby, but Winnipesaukee is the real draw,” said Roche.

According to Zillow’s Home Value database cited in the Lake Winnipesaukee Association report, the average home value in Winnipesaukee lakeside communities is $92,502 higher than in neighboring towns without water frontage.

White at Dow Realty Group, who serves many buyers in Meredith and Moultonborough, said, “In the COVID market, values have gone through the roof “– up 30% since before the pandemic, with most waterfront prices between $1 to $3.5 million. Since COVID, White said, the buyer pool expand dramatically, with people “a lot younger than they used to be.” Pre-retirees are buying sooner than before. “The infrastructure is there for them to work from anywhere,” she said.

“Anything that has anything to do with proximity to lakes and Gunstock, those (prices) tend to grow quicker,” said White. “It continues to be a perfect storm of very high buyer demand and very low inventory” in locations that have been rebranded year-round resorts, instead of summer destinations.

Most of the lakefront sales are still for second homes, she said. But they’re now occupied for more of the year - for skiing, pond hockey, ice fishing, and places to watch winter sunsets, ice floes or dog sledding.

“Last year, if you were driving around, you’d see a lot more lights still on because people were still here,” White said. These buyers “are not a burden for the infrastructure. But they’re adding a lot to the tax base.”

Instead of using local public schools, many full-time and part-time transplants are enrolling their children in area private schools, she said.