2015's Luxury Market Review

Last year I did a little summary of the Luxury Market in The Highlands and it seemed well received. Time flies, so it is time to review last year's market.

The Highlands is a technicolour  tourist area! Big, small and everything inbetween. Our 600 lakes provide everything from the quiet, private retreat to big boating. And the area is growing! Minden and Haliburton, the two main towns, have both seen growth this past year but the best part is that even though the area is growing, we will never get too big. This keeps our market stable during tough times, and growing the rest of the time. People who discover the Highlands never want to leave!
 In my previous blog I noted that the Luxury Market, although still young to the area, has been growing in leaps and bounds. Between 2013 and 2014 the market grew 38% in number of sales from 5 sales in the whole tourist area that were over $1,000,000 to 8 sales. In 2015 we had 11 sales over $1,000,000.
The lakes that these sales occurred were all over the map! A small, private lake with pure privacy, mid-size lakes such as Mountain and Kushog, chain lakes such as Twelve Mile, Soyers, and Kashagawagimog, and of course the two larger lakes - Kennisis and Redstone. The smallest waterfront was 95 feet, ranging up to 1,273 feet (excluding the private lake which really skews the numbers). Again, the number of sales in a whole year is small, but looking at the big picture of area and market growth - the luxury market is continuing to climb as more luxury cottages are built. The increase from 8 sales to 11 sales in one year is a 28% increase.
At the beginning of February I am travelling to Mississauga to upgrade my training on latest marketing trends and learning from industry leaders in the Luxury Marketing industry. I am so excited...keeping on top and up to date so that I can offer the best possible service for my clients. I will let everyone know how the training went....stay tuned!

Lake Water Quality

I was rifling through some old files yesterday and came across a couple of newspaper articles from 1993 about clear lakes in Ontario. Definitely not a recent account, but interesting all the same. I have always maintained that Haliburton Highlands has amazing, clean, clear lakes. We are located above the Trent Severn Waterway system so we aren't as subject to invasive species and pollutants, and we have lots of natural rock - one of nature's built-in filter systems
. The article supported my theory.
Written by Peter Janas, B.Sc.F., the article references results of a study that Mr. Janas completed. The article explains what is meant by "clear" and how it correlates to lake depth, amount of algae, etc. I won't go into detail of his study, as I am not a researcher and do not want to get any of the accounts incorrect, but what I did like was the number of Haliburton Highlands lakes that were on his "Clearest Lakes" in Cottage Country.
What lakes were they? Hall's Lake, Big Hawk Lake, Boshkung Lake, Mountain, and Twelve Mile Lakes (all along Highway 35's corridor), Billings Lake and Allen Lake (on the Eastern side of the County), Kennisis and Haliburton Lakes (north of Haliburton Village), and Miskwabi Lake, about 15 minutes East of Haliburton Village.
One point that Peter Janas makes is that "clear" often correlates to depth - and each of these lakes are deep lakes that provide excellent lake trout fishing, but we are so blessed in the Highlands with 600 lakes of every size and depth - something for everyone. What a great place to live and play!!!