Land for sale including farms, ranches, timberland, mountain, lake & country homes.
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Land Resources / News / Michigan
550 acres: Going, going ... Lake Doster residents find themselves in the thick of a huge land auction
Source: Kalamazoo Gazette, by Gabrielle Russon
About 550 acres of untouched land near Plainwell's Lake Doster will be auctioned to the highest bidders later this month as a family of longtime property owners sells off its holdings.
August 19, 2007 The land, which is divided for sale into 63 tracts, surrounds the Lake Doster Golf Course in southern Allegan County and includes 3 acres in Barry County. Between now and the auction, set for Saturday, the property will be at the heart of discussions among people in the Lake Doster area who are anxious to see what will happen and who will become the area's major landowners. ``We would hate to have the lake get crowded,' said Lori Reed, a Lake Doster resident for 15 years who has a family full of water-lovers. Her family owns three boats, and its members spend their evenings water-skiing or tubing on the private lake, sometimes grilling hamburgers on their pontoon boat for dinner. A special-education teacher at Plainwell Community Schools, Reed lives in one of about 400 homes in the Lake Doster community. She worries that boat traffic may increase if more people are given lake access. Others have to be worried about their property values. The highest currently listed price for a home on Lake Doster is $419,000, according to the Kalamazoo County Association of Realtors' Multiple Listing Service. The lowest active listing on the lake is $234,000. The median price of homes for sale on the lake (meaning half are higher and half are lower) is $325,000. The highest priced home currently on the market in the entire Lake Doster area is the $419,000 listing. The lowest is $189,000. The median price is $275,000. What the auction will mean, Gun Plain Township Supervisor Shelly Edgerton said, ``depends on who comes in. We just don't know the outcome.' ``I think people are somewhat concerned because it's a large amount of property,' she said. Family cashing out Shaun Willis, whose grandfather -- an onion-farmer-turned-developer named Jack Kelly -- brought the land in to his family, said, ``The potential buyers are going to be developers who want to buy some of the larger tracts.' Proceeds will go to Kelly's six children, which includes the Willis' mother. Willis said Kelly's six heirs are each at least 60 years old and want to claim their inheritance now instead of waiting several years for the land to sell on the market. Willis and his brother, Michael, both attorneys at the Willis & Willis law firm in Kalamazoo, are overseeing the Aug. 25 auction. Some of the lots -- the largest of which is almost 140 acres -- could be developed, perhaps into condominiums, Shaun Willis said, but the majority are less than one acre in size and are residentially zoned. There are also about 24 acres along M-89 zoned for commercial use. ``There may be tracts out there that are worth a quarter of a million dollars. Some are a lot smaller and may be only a fraction of that,' said R.D. Schrader, the auction manager for Indiana-based Schrader Real Estate and Auction Co., which will run the Aug. 25 auction. In the Lake Doster community, many are anxious. Probably inevitable ``It's always been there to be developed... no question about it,' said Lake Doster resident Karen Gentile about the land near her home. ``There's some (people excited, a little trepidation as well, not knowing what's going to happen,' Giffels said. ``For the most part, people are very, very engaged.' One of them is Mike Wright, who has lived on Lake Doster for 13 years. The auction has come up in conversations with his fishing buddies, and he said he plans to attend a planned neighborhood informational meeting to learn more. ``I think there's a lot of unanswered questions,' Wright said. One that concerns him is who the bidders might be. It could be the Lake Doster Homeowners Association, a group that manages the lake. The association's president, Paul Sullivan, said he's been talking with members and getting feedback about bidding on some of the open properties. Sullivan said the association is trying to decide whether to bid on some of the property. Wright said he didn't expect that level of involvement from the association. ``It surprised me they felt we should get into the real-estate part of it,' he said. Other Lake Doster residents, such as Debi Howe, are considering bidding themselves and purchasing lots adjacent to their existing homes. That's one way to prevent more boats from sprouting onto the quaint artificial lake, she said. ``We'd just hold onto it and preserve the land,' Howe said. The auction is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at the Lake Doster Golf Club House, at 116 Country Club Blvd., Plainwell. Read the complete article from Kalamazoo Gazette » |
