February 2025 Sales Update

In Ashland, only six single family homes closed last month. 1015 Chapple Ave. sold in two days, and this is a crazy outlier, for even including that sale in average data, the average days on market for the six homes sold was 115 days. That’s nearly four months! The Sellers of Chapple were aggressive with its price, asking only $149,000 for a solid old home with a well-maintained interior. It was the only home of the bunch that sold at or above asking; the other five all sold below the Seller’s initial asking price. Ashland's most expensive sale of the month was 50566 Beaser Ave, a spacious modern home sitting on 5.3 acres just south of the city. 

In Washburn, 848 W Bayfield St. was the only single family home that sold last month. This home was last on the market in 2021 when it sold for $114,900. Since then, the owners completed extensive renovations of both the interior and exterior to the point that now, nearly four years later, it sold for $241,000. And quickly. 

In Bayfield, there was only one single family home sale as well: 621 Rittenhouse Ave. This home’s been on and off the market since January of 2024. The Seller initially sought $549,000 then, and after a series of price changes, agreed to sell for $415,000, which is still up quite a bit from what it last sold for in 2017: $267,500. 

Over in Port Wing, a couple of huge acreages sold. 101 acres with a manufactured home sold for $279,000; on Lois Ln—what a great street name!—a 165 acre parcel with a small, 576 sq ft home, sold for what’s maybe the strangest price I’ve ever seen: $291,001, which was exactly what they were asking. 

On the island, 2508 Spirit Ln, a modest home sitting on 20.25 acres, sold in one week for $301,000. If there’s one place around here where real estate’s not showing signs of slowing, it’s Madeline Island. 

Landwise, two disparate parcels in Ashland sold. a .26 acre lot on Toll Rd. sold for $11,900; and a 116 acre parcel on Pearce Rd sold for $155,000. Both sold below asking; both sold for cash. And that’s all for land sales. 

That’s all for February.

Ryan Hogan, Birdhouse Realty, Bayfield, Wisconsin

February 2025

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