Lake Lanier’s home prices fall with water level

As the water level falls at Lake Lanier, so are home prices.

The lake is about 17 feet below full, leaving many docks with little or no water.

Not a pretty picture, especially in the midst of a housing slump.

“They’re just not selling if they have low water,” appraiser Mary Thompson said Tuesday. “People are kind of waiting and watching.”

A house that two years ago would have been priced at $1.2 million might be 25 percent to 30 percent less today, in large part because of the drought, Realtor Teresa Smith said.

The drought accounts for much of the markdown because “people have the impression there’s no water in Lake Lanier,” she said.

Meager sales mean an elevated number of lakeside homes — about 400 — are on the market. That’s brought out the bargain hunters.

“Most people believe they can now make offers on homes that are 50 or 60 cents on the dollar, and that’s just not true,” Smith said. There are only so many lake homes, she said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the lake because it’s a reservoir, will allow a maximum of 10,615 boat slips and just 150 remain, Realtor Pete Edwards said.

“The drought is making it more difficult to sell homes, but it’s the smaller of the two problems we’re living with” — the other being the depressed housing market, Edwards said.

He said droughts are infrequent if you go back to 1956, the first year Lake Lanier was full.

Still, “for people who don’t understand Lake Lanier, they tend to hesitate quite a bit,” Edwards said.

But waiting until spring, when docks might be in water again, could be costly.

“Full pool means full price,” Smith said.