We just re-launched the LakePlace.com For Sale By Owner section! Some people may ask why we would do such a thing - after all, we are a full-service real estate brokerage. The answer is simple. Our goal has always been to create the BEST resource for lake property buyers - we feel we cannot truly accomplish this goal if we do not make FSBO advertisements available on LakePlace.com.

We get 5-10 emails every day from people who are going to give it a shot on their own - while we have tried to explain that selling a property, especially a non-primary property, is a difficult endeveour, it is obvious that many, many people would still like to give it a shot…and now they can.

All FSBO ads include up to 12 pictures and an unlimited description. The ad runs for 6 months for $250 (about the cost of running 2 tiny Sunday ads in a metro newspaper). If the property does not sell after 6 months, the seller will have a few of options available. First, they can just cancel their ad and that’s it. Second, they can renew their ad for an additional 6 months. Third, they can list with our full-service brokerage. Once a seller decides to list with us, we will put our full 25 point marketing plan (which includes several MLS boards) to work on their behalf. Once we sell their property, we will refund the original $250 FSBO advertisement cost.

We think it is a pretty good deal for those that would like to take a shot at selling their property on their own.

If you are a buyer - now is a terrific time to be shopping for lake properties in the Midwest. The NAR reports that vacation home sales were down 30% in 2007, and while LakePlace.com is having a record year, we are getting reports from the field that 2008 is not looking pretty - which means you will be running into some very motivated sellers.

If you are a seller - you may want to do some deep research on the companies you are thinking about listing with. The vast majority of lake property buyers come out of the major metro areas - and with 80%+ starting their search online - it is very important to see what type of internet presence each brokerage has. If you would like to find out why LakePlace.com has listed more than 100 properties in a few short months - feel free to ask us about our 25 point marketing plan -=)

Happy lake home and land hunting!

2008 Whole House Remodel! Great Bemidji lake home for sale on Hennepin Lake. Property is 5.69 acres, 276 feet of lakeshore with 3 beds and 2.5 baths (including double head shower and jacuzzi tub!) - all brand new! Huge deck off the house sits just 30 feet from the waters edge - check this one out!

As always, happy lake property and land hunting!

Two new Crane Lake Lots (Pickeral WI) listed at $215k!  These lots each feature 100 feet of sand/gravel shoreline and are heavily wooded with nice elevation to the water. Checkout LakePlace.com for all Crane Lake properties available - and then give us a call with any questions.

As always, happy lake home & land hunting!

Wow - one of my favorite lakes! My family and I spent a week on Pokegama Lake last summer - and we had a blast. If your a person who likes to have some fun - Pokegama is a great place to do it! Bars, restaurants, golf courses, public islands, great fishing, spontaneous partys on the sand bar - and lots of water. We fell in love with this lake!

Back to the property at hand. This is an absolutely georgeous Pokegama lake home in Grand Rapids, MN. Knotty Pine interior, guest cottage, sauna, the works - all just a few feet from the waters edge. View all Pokegama lake property on LakePlace.com and we think you will agree - this lake home is a great find!

So if you are a broker or attorney in Michigan (anywhere in Michigan) and you come across this post - please give me a call or shoot me an email…Thanks!

Dave G.

When we launched our land website - LandBin.com - we were able to build in some functions not yet available on LakePlace.com. The daily feed on Land Bin is a list of all new minnesota land and wisconsin land listings put on the market in the past 24 hours. You can visit the homepage every day to see the new listings - or you can subscribe to the daily feed via rss or email. If you are not yet familiar with rss feeds - you may want to check out this article on wikipedia…and I highly recommend playing around with rss feeds for awhile to get comfortable (try playing with Google’s feed reader - it’s simple and powerful) - they can change the way you receive information. We will be introducing this function on LakePlace.com as well - but we still have some other issues we need to tighten up before we get to work on that.

As it stands, LandBin.com is kind of the read-headed step child. 99.95% of our time is dedicated to LakePlace.com - with 0.05% allocated to LandBin.com. Our job is to help our clients buy and sell real estate. LandBin.com is still too new to get any real props from the big search engines - so it gets about 1/10th of the traffic of LakePlace.com. It works well enough (although it does need some attention) to be a valuable tool…if you can find it. Some engines (Y!) rank it highly for terms like MN land for sale & WI land for sale - and it is even on the 2nd page for the generic land for sale phrase - so we think it is just a matter of time before LandBin.com traffic catches up, and maybe even surpasses LakePlace.com traffic…when we see that happening, we will go to a 50/50 time allocation.

Anyway, Im just ranting…I will try to post something more interesting soon. Happy lake home and land hunting!

For the first time, we actually added an additional “click” to our UI…meaning, you are now 3 clicks away from viewing all availalbe lake properties - where our old UI would show you the listings in 2 clicks…so why would we do this?

Well, we think we needed to add our quick search to the default lake property search pages. Now, from that page, you can search by map region OR city, county, lake, or MLS number…without the need to go to a standalone quick search page. We also felt this new user interface design makes the most sense for us moving forward. We have these new functions available on the Minnesota lake property, Wisconsin lake property, Michigan lake property and North Dakota lake property for sale pages. This is very similar to the user interface we created for our land website - LandBin.com

We would love to hear your feedback. Is the extra click a bad idea?…or do you love the new maps? Feel free to leave a comment here or by using the contact us form on LakePlace.com. Thanks very much!

For the past few weeks we have been unable to send emails to comcast.net customers. They have blocked LakePlace.com due to the high volume of emails we (lakeplace.com visitors filling out contact forms) send everyday…and they assume we are spammers.

We have followed their instructions to get back on the “whitelist” several times - but nothing has worked. Several LakePlace.com members, who depend on comcast email to do business (agents and vacation rental owners) have been ignored. As one LakePlace.com member put it: “Who are you [comcast] to decide who I communicate with - I do not pay you a monthly fee to make that decision for me.”

We do not use comcast for business, but I do get a $200+ bill from them every month at home (comcast cable, premium channels, comcast digital phone service) - and I will be looking into alternatives - I highly recommend you do the same.

tags: comcast