Just Listed! Beautiful four bedroom Lake Winnebago Home! If you are not familiar with this lake, Lake Winnebago is Wisconsin’s largest inland lake with over 137,000 acres of water! This property features 98′ of frontage and big water views as far as the eye can see. Priced to sell quickly at $549,500 - electric boat lift and dock included in the sale!

Offered by your friends at LakePlace.com! Give us a call or send us an email to set up a showing!

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and we wish you all a very happy & healthy new year!

P.S. If you did not get that lake home that was on your list - it is not too late!

Hayward Wisconsin’s premiere lake! We just listed this beautiful Round Lake Home in Hayward WI. Priced at $849,000 - this beautiful, 3000 sqft lake home features 100 ft of exceptional frontage on Round Lake.

Click through to view more pictures and description. If you would like to setup an appointment to view this property, please feel free to give us a call or send us an email using the contact form in the listing.

As always, happy lake home hunting! 

Check out this 2660 sq.ft. custom Hayward lake home for sale. Priced at $334,900 - the Beaver Lake property features 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, 181 feet of shoreline with good swimming beach, and a gourmet kitchen with cherry cabinets and a Viking stove!

If you have any questions or you would like to setup a showing - please give us a call or shoot us an email! As always, happy lake home hunting!

Just Listed!  

We just listed this great log home in Wisconsin on Moquah Lake. It is not very often that you will have an opportunity to get into a true log home at $179,000. This property features 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and a full basement. Check it out!

As always, happy lake home hunting!

I am as much of a tech nut as I am a real estate nut (my background is in tech).  Here is a funny post discussing upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows XP.

If you spend as much time on your computer as I do, you will understand and get a laugh.  I run XP on my work laptop (my main machine) and have Vista on my home pc. My home pc - with all of the bells and whistles - should be 10x faster than my laptop - but it is much, much slower…because of the terribly bloated Vista operating system.

If you buy a new machine online, most manufactures are now allowing you to “upgrade” to XP and skip the Vista nightmare altogether - if you are thinking about a new pc or laptop - I highly recommend going with XP.

I am seriously considering Ubuntu, a free, linux based operating system for the home pc - but I am kind of nervous about it because the wife and kids could have a little difficulty make the change…but I am pretty sure I will be going linux or mac from here on out.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Here is a great opportunity in Oneida County Wisconsin. 250 feet of Wisconsin lakefront property priced at $189,900. Check out the listing if you are looking for a great building site on a great lake - Lake Julia - a 238 acre lake near Rhinelander, WI.

Just listed this great Northern Wisconsin vacation home at $232,500! Property features 100 feet of shoreline, great appliances, in-floor heat, fireplace, lofted ceilings and a great price point! An excellent get-away in Northern Wis!

Please contact us for a showing - and as always, happy lake home hunting!

Last year, through the Pine Needle Lawn, I started talking with Jake Witham of Voyageur Flooring about turning the lake into a rink every winter. Jake sent over some great pictures and just let me know that his rink is up and running for the season.

Making a rink on the lake has always been a lot of fun for me (and gave me an excuse to buy an ATV with a plow). Unfortunately, when the cabin is a couple hours away, you do not have the time to take care of it as much as you would like to. I would often get ready to lace up the skates only to find that a snowmobiler decided to rip across the middle of the rink on a warm week day, leaving frozen tracks for the family to trip over.

Jake is lucky enough to be on the water year round - so his ice stays nice and smooth. Below are some pictures of his winter masterpiece. (These pics are from last year, you should probably check out the Voyageur Flooring Blog - he might give us some pics of this years rink.)

Rural Lakeshore Market Bucks Trends

There is an interesting article (registration required) at DL-Online (Detroit Lakes Tribune & Becker County Record) with statistics on the Detroit Lakes property market.

Lakeshore lots

Buildable lakeshore lots are as popular as ever. In the Detroit Lakes-Audubon-Lake Park area, there are 437 such parcels on the market this year, up from 360 last year. Days on the market averages 311 this year, down from 406 last year.

Fifty-one were sold last year compared to 36 this year.

Lakeshore residential

Lakeshore residential property remains as hot as ever.

In the Detroit Lakes-Audubon-Lake Park zone, there are 392 houses for sale, up from 382 last year. Days on the market now average 179, down from 219 days last year. There were 111 such homes sold last year and 103 sold this year. Average sale price increased 6 percent, to $328,435 from $307,523.

In Frazee, the average lakeshore residential home price rose 23 percent, from $178,000 last year to $220,000 this year. But that is based on the sales of just a few houses — two sold last year and one sold this year.

There are 20 such homes on the market now, up from 13 last year. Average days on the market is 177 this year, down from 195 days. The homes are going for near list — 98 percent this year compared to 97 percent of list last year.

Interesting stuff.  The lakefront property market in rural Minnesota & Wisconsin continues to outperform the national real estate market, but I am somewhat concerned about the credit crunch.

If you have been waiting on the sidelines, you may find yourself laying down a larger down payment that you had anticipated. Maybe you have been planning for a 5-10% down payment - but waiting to see if prices would come down. The fact of the matter is that prices are still going up and at the same time, creditors are requiring larger down payments (even if you have great credit).

Rates are still at record lows - now is the time, in my opinion (for what its worth), to get into the lake property market. And if you are looking at it as a straight, long-term investment - you may want to consider a river property.