Two things I get asked constantly by lake homeowners. What's it worth, and what are you going to do to sell it. Neither answer is what most people expect.
Price per square foot does not work on the water
I understand why people reach for it. It's clean and everyone online uses it. It also falls apart the second the property touches water.
Take a 1,900 square foot rambler from the nineties sitting on 120 feet of west-facing frontage with a hard sand bottom. Then take a 4,000 square foot new build on 60 feet at the back of a channel. Run price per square foot on both and you get a number that tells you nothing true about either one.
What actually sets the number:
- Frontage, and the quality of it. Not just how many feet. Depth at the dock, bottom type, whether you can get a real boat in and out.
- Which side of the lake you're on. Western exposure and an evening sun off the water is a different product than morning light and an afternoon wind in your face. It is one of the biggest value gaps on any lake and it never shows up in a square footage calculation.
- What you've actually done to the house. Are the floors and the layout current, or is it still 1990s inside? Buyers paying lake prices are not excited about lake prices plus a gut remodel.
- Layout against the view. A home where the main living space faces the wrong direction gives up real money, regardless of size.
- When you list. Spring and fall are different markets with different buyers, and the right window depends on the specific property.
Comps are a starting point on a lake. They are not the answer. I'd rather walk a property and tell you what I think than email you a number off an algorithm.
What changed
I'll be straight about something. Earlier in my time selling on these lakes, I thought it was all marketing. Video, design, production. Build the best looking piece of content on the lake and win.
That worked, and it worked well, during the COVID years. Everybody was online, money was cheap, and the monthly payment on a move barely registered for a lot of buyers. In that environment you had to be creatively noisy to get seen, and noise got rewarded.
That is not this market. Rates changed the math and buyers got calculated about it. They're slower, they're comparing more, and they are looking for real value instead of momentum. Noise doesn't clear that bar. A great video on an average product just gets an average product seen by more people who pass on it.
So the work moved upstream
I spend more time now on the product than I ever did on the marketing.
That means walking the house with my team before anything gets listed and being honest about what's holding it back. Staging. Lining up carpet and paint. Sometimes a light remodel where the return is obvious. Shoreline cleanup or repair, which buyers notice faster than anything inside. The photos are still the single biggest lever, but photos only show you what's there. Fix what's there first.
We still market it hard
Video, print blitz and mailers to the lake, Google ads, blog and search content that puts the property in front of people actively researching that lake. All of it runs.
But here's the part nobody advertises: selling a lake home is largely about having a rolodex of people who already want to be on the water. Buyers who've told me for years what they're waiting for. That list took a long time to build and it does more work than any campaign I run.
If you own on the water and you're wondering where you actually stand, call me. Even if you're two or three years out. I'd rather answer a question early than sell you something today.
651.263.9480. Anytime.
Tim Ornell | Waterfront Advisors, Real Broker Luxury Division (NASDAQ: REAX) | 651.263.9480 | timornell.com | Lakeshore specialists across the Twin Cities.
