January 2025 Sales Update

To say it lightly, January real estate sales in Ashland and Bayfield counties were not brisk. January’s not typically a hot month for real estate, and January 2025 bore that out as well.

Across the two counties, fifteen single family homes sold last month, ten of those from the Chequamegon Bay area. 

Half of those sold in Ashland. 

Ashland stretches pretty far, so it’s good to distinguish between houses on the city grid and those outside the grid. Houses in the grided portion of Ashland remain the most affordable homes in the area. The two that sold last month sold for $160,000 and $190,000, which is loosely around where homes in Ashland have been selling. Most notable, though, is that each of these sold below asking price; and that was a trend for the market overall. A home on Kane Rd. also sold below asking, $35,000 or 7.6% below. The other two homes that sold in Ashland, however, sold at or above asking. 2004 Maple Ln, a large home on 7 acres of a beautiful stretch of Ashland, sold for $485,000—the highest sale in Ashland last month. 

Of the other municipalities, Washburn saw the most sales. And some of the greatest discrepancies between asking and sales price. On the high end, 32875 Burlager Rd, a gorgeous home sitting on approximately 28 acres, sold for $740,000; on the low end, a fixer-upper on W Pine St sold for $48,000. 930 Superior Ave, a cabin on a half acre parcel with Lake Superior frontage, sold for $295,000, $104,900 below the initial asking price. Percentage wise, the Pine St. property and Superior Ave cabin sold for 30% and 26% below initial asking price, by far the two highest discrepancies in the area last month. 

In Bayfield, 20 N Broad St sold. Finally. It’s a four unit place that operates as a short term rental. It was on the market for 489 days. 

Landwise, a few lots sold in Bayfield and Hebster, one on Madeline Island. Land prices per acre ranged from $2,148 an acre (a 40 acre parcel on Campbell Rd in Herbster) to $133,333 an acre (a .9 acre lot with lake views on Chequamegon Rd. in Bayfield). 

Commercially, the tattoo shop (and its adjoining structures) across from Patsy’s in Washburn sold for $240,000, $50,000 less than they were initially asking. Another in a growing list of commercial properties on Bayfield St. that have recently changed ownership or are currently for sale. 

A lot of factors at play, but It’ll be interesting to see where sales prices end up relative to asking price as we move into 2025. So far, single family homes have sold for, on average, 10.4% below asking price.

LIMITED SERVICE LISTINGS

If you’ve ever tried to sell real estate without a real estate agent, For Sale by Owner (or FSBO), you may discovered how difficult it can be to advertise your property. Sure, you can toss an ad up on Facebook, pin some flyers to the IGA bulletin board, tell your friends and family to spread the word, but it’s not easy to get a FSBO listing on the sites (Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, etc.) that tend to garner the bulk of buyer attention. 

So how do real estate agents do it?

Well, real estate agents have access to what’s called the Multiple Listing Service, or more colloquially, the MLS. Through the MLS, real estate agents can list properties and feed those listings—through various data exchanges, most commonly referred to as IDX or Internet Data Exchanges—to both the prominent internet real estate sites but also other brokerages’ sites (as long as they have an IDX feed set up). Thus, agents are able, through a simple click of a button, to share a listing with hundreds if not thousands of potential buyers. 

Now, individuals selling their property themselves can still list through Zillow and such, but those sites don’t make it easy. And realtors just click a button. 

Now, you’ll never get access to the MLS without working with a realtor, but there is an option for limiting the realtor’s role in the transaction while still benefiting from the distribution value of the MLS. They’re called Limited Service Listings. 

These listings differ from traditional listings in that they’re commonly flat-fee transactions and the listing agent’s role in the transaction is limited, hence the name. Most basically, the agent could list the property on the MLS (and all that’s legally required of an agent prior to listing a property) and that’s it. The rest—showings, negotiation, closing the transaction, etc—are the responsibility of the property owner. The scope of the services provided is negotiable. 

There are obviously disadvantage to these types of agreements, but not many that wouldn’t exist in a traditional For Sale by Owner transaction. 

If a Limited Service Listing is something that sounds amenable to you, just know it’s an option. It’s not something, though, that all brokerages offer. 

LIMITED SERVICE LISTINGS

BAYFIELD COUNTY'S PUBLIC LAND

Bayfield County's practically one big forest. And Bayfield County alone owns approximately 178,000 acres of land. Add in public lands from municipalities, the state and federal governments, and public land in Bayfied County accounts for approximately 50% of the county's 966,000 total acres. That's a lot of land. And it's yours to roam.