Land and Lake
Places that stay in the family
We help buyers and sellers with all sorts of properties. But our passion is helping people buy and sell generational properties: the lake place, the acreage, the long term family move that fits the way you want to live.
For sellers, that means coming alongside you to find the right buyer to carry on what you built. For buyers, it means finding a place you’ll still love in thirty years, not one you regret in three.
Two things to assess, not one
When you buy a home in town, you assess the home. When you buy on acreage or on the water, you’re assessing two things: the home and the land or lake it sits on. Septic and well, soils, shoreline, lake bottom, access, water quality, zoning. Each one can make or break how you’ll actually live there, and what it’s worth when it’s time to sell.
We help you look at both.
Layers of research, so you don’t have to guess
Getting this right takes layers: finding the right people, asking the right questions and doing the research before you sign. We talk to neighbors, lake owners and local experts, and we dig into the details that don’t show up in a listing. The goal is simple: you go in with a real understanding of everything that goes into making this a place you won’t regret, and we take as much of the risk off the table as we can.
Ground level data
Our advice comes from ground level research, not guesswork. We’ve studied years of land and lake sales across the Twin Cities area, evaluating properties by acreage, lake, feet of lakeshore and dozens of other details. A few things the numbers taught us:
The lake bottom matters. Across 2,373 lakeshore sales within 40 miles of Minneapolis over three years, a sand bottom added about 10% to price, while a soft, weedy or reedy bottom cost about 7.5%, with house size, frontage, lake and location held equal.
So does what’s between you and the water. A road between the home and the lake cost about 9% on average.
Bigger and deeper lakes pay. All else equal, doubling a lake’s size added about 7% to price and doubling its maximum depth added about 9%.
More shoreline isn’t always worth what you’d think. Doubling frontage added only about 3% once the house was held equal, and the longest frontage lots took the longest to sell.
On acreage, the first few acres are worth the most. Across 3,916 sales of homes on 2 to 10 acres over two years, the median price rose only about $125,000 from the 2 to 3 acre range to the 7 to 10 acre range, even though the land nearly quadrupled.
The septic can cost you. On acreage, a noncompliant septic system cut sale prices by about 8%.
These are the kinds of details we help you weigh before you buy, and the kinds of things we help sellers get right before they list.
Start with our guides
Want to go deeper before we talk? Our free guides walk you through what to look for, what to ask and what to watch out for.
Buying land or a lake home? Download our free buyer guide, Buying Acreage in Minnesota: 25 Questions for Finding Land That Fits Your Life.
Selling land or a lake home? Download our free Acreage Seller Guide.
Or if you’d rather just talk it through: