Union Pier Lakefront Property Commands High Prices

The red-hot market for southwest Michigan luxury homes isn’t slowing down.

As lakefront properties in New Buffalo are getting slim, demand is moving northeast to Union Pier. A lavish contemporary house on Lake Michigan hit the market Friday asking nearly $9 million in Union Pier, which would set a record for the city if it sells at that price. On the same day, a nearby lakefront home closed for $5.1 million, well over its $4.6 million asking price and the highest sale price in Union Pier this year.

The activity underscores the success of the high-end second home market in Harbor Country, and elsewhere on Chicagoland waterfronts, where tight inventory is driving home prices up. In New Buffalo, two homes worth $7 million, and another at $9 million, went under contract in a matter of days this fall.

Peggy Sayre, the listing agent for 15800 Lakeshore Road, the Union Pier home that sold for $5.1 million, said she set an ambitious price because of those recent New Buffalo sales. Sayre, part of the Dawn McKenna Group at Coldwell Banker Realty, listed the property alongside Mara Walsh.

“They were selling like hotcakes,” she said of the New Buffalo homes. “I’m like, ‘All those people are going to come to ours next.’ We went a little more aggressively with the price point and it really worked.”

Sayre and Walsh got four offers over asking, and were able to close the deal quickly, going under contract five days after it hit the market on Oct. 31. The sale of the 3,000-square-foot home comes out to about $1,659 per square foot.

The property features a four-bedroom, three bathroom main house and a two-bedroom, one-bath coach house. The main Cape Cod-style house was built in 1992. The house has six beds and four bathrooms. It has 150 feet of private beach frontage.

The flurry of activity for luxury property in Harbor Country is unique for the usually sleepy month of November, Sayre said.

“In all of the price points that I have listings on, I’m getting multiple offers even on properties that have been sitting awhile,” she said.

The home was recently renovated, which was a selling point for the buyers, said the buyer’s agent Rob Gow of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Chicago. “It was just a really beautiful renovation of a home,” he said.

The house was owned by a trust under the name Joshua Hanna, and it was last purchased in 2018 for $2.3 million.

Just down the road, the house at 15930 Lake Avenue in Union Pier is taking another shot at selling in the new buzzy market. The home was listed between June and October 2024 asking $7 million before being taken off the market. It went back on the market Friday asking $9 million.

The 4,510-square-foot Lake Avenue home has a circular design with floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows that look over Lake Michigan. The house has five beds and seven bathrooms, along with a detached guest house.

@properties Christie’s International Real Estate’s Liz Roch is the listing agent. Roch, who also listed the three homes in New Buffalo that went under contract recently, did not respond to a request for comment.

The home sits on nearly an acre and has 132 feet of private lake frontage, along with an in-ground pool and a tennis court.

The current owner bought the house in 2019 for $2.2 million. It’s owned under an LLC that obscures the owner’s identity.