Getting the chance to sell a lake home in northern Minnesota was once a cause for celebration among real estate agents.

"Now, it's like, 'Oh, no, another lake shore listing,' " said Kay Bowman, a real estate agent with Century 21 Land of Lakes in Grand Rapids.

A few years ago, prices for lake homes were climbing at double-digit rates as buyers seemed convinced that all cabins in the land of 10,000 lakes soon would be gone. Sellers at the time also could count on demand from buyers who tapped equity from primary residences in the Twin Cities or elsewhere to finance a purchase up north.

But nowadays, selling a lake home is no day at the beach. Vacation home prices have fallen, buyers are waiting for bargains, and bank foreclosures — once unheard of on certain lakes — dot the shorelines, providing low-price competition for other sellers.

One of every 10 vacation homes purchased nationally in 2009 was in foreclosure, the highest such rate in five years, according to the National Association of Realtors. Real estate agents say there's a similar trend in Minnesota, although they point out that foreclosures aren't the only reason for slow sales at the lake.

"It's consumer confidence — sales are down for almost all big nonessential purchases," said Mike Peller, president of the Duluth Area Association of Realtors.

"We are down approximately 40 percent in values since 2007," said Marc Kuhnley, an agent in the Brainerd Lakes area with Edina Realty. "Of course, that 40 percent isn't off a true value — it's off of a false value that was driven by the market."

This reporter and the quoted Realtor seem to get it: there was a housing bubble.

... Five years ago, people buying lake homes had plenty of equity in their first home to draw on, Swierczek pointed out. Plus, buyers were more confident about their own financial health, as well as that of the housing market.

That's all changed.

... A report this spring from Minneapolis-based HousingLink suggests bank foreclosures were making appearances lakeside. Several counties in cabin country were among those with the biggest jump in bank foreclosures between the first quarters of 2009 and 2010.

For example, Lake County — the picturesque home to Two Harbors, Split Rock Lighthouse and miles of pristine Lake Superior shoreline — saw a 650 percent jump in bank foreclosures in the first quarter, according to HousingLink.

The rate of increase is much more dramatic than the actual numbers, since the county's foreclosure count jumped from just 2 to 15. Still, county officials say vacation homes now are among the mix of bank foreclosures in an area that had just two properties repossessed by banks during all of 2000.

Year-to-date in 2010, Lake County has conducted 30 foreclosure sales.

... In the Brainerd Lakes area, banks are involved in about two of every five sales of waterfront property, whether by way of foreclosure or a short sale, estimated Marc Kuhnley, the Edina Realty agent. The listings have helped push prices downward — particularly at the spendy end of the market.

A lake home in the Brainerd Lakes area originally listed for nearly $1.7 million sold after two years on the market for $999,000, Kuhnley said. Another home originally listed for nearly $1.8 million is now down to about $1.3 million after three years on the market.

"Currently, there are 80 lake properties over $1 million dollars on the market up here," Kuhnley said. Homes in that price bracket are selling at a rate of about six per year, he added, so it could take a long time to burn through the supply.

It will take a long time locally to absorb the jumbo loan properties. It will take forever to sell them in communities where none of the local wage earners can afford them.

"We are seeing a lot more bank-owned properties in the Brainerd Lakes area market, which is predominately lakeshore homes that are second residences," said Terry Pederson, an agent with Re/Max Lakes Area Realty in Crosslake. "If you're a buyer, it couldn't be a better time."

That's bullshit. Prices will come down much more in these markets. This housing market has to go from being the repository of free money of mortgage equity withdrawal to buyers who must now make two payments. That probably a 90% reduction in the potential buyer pool.

... "People aren't coming up here to buy," she said. "So, you have this great volume of homes that we didn't used to see. If you could list something on the lakeshore, you used to say, 'Oh, great, I have a lakeshore listing.' "

... Nearby sellers get the point.

"It is very slow," said Thomas Bloomquist, an Itasca County resident who is trying to sell a four-bedroom home with 200 feet of shoreline along a small lake in rural Grand Rapids. This year marks the third consecutive spring that Bloomquist's home has been on the market, with a current list price of $279,000.

Bloomquist works as a foreclosure prevention counselor with a nonprofit group in Duluth, so he knows that federal efforts to prevent foreclosures are focused only on primary residences.

A foreclosure prevention counselor who is underwater and listing a second home at a WTF listing price? That is funny.

It's understandable, he added, since a second home or cabin is "not a real need; it's a want."

... "With the collateral damage from employment losses and so many households down to one wage earner," he said, "that luxury of having the second home just isn't there."

Christopher Snowbeck can be reached at 651-228-5479.