Updated: March 17, 2023

Key Lessons All Homeowners Can Learn from Selling a Lakefront Property

No matter if you own a lakefront home or not, all homeowners can learn valuable lessons from proven marketing methods used to sell lakefront properties. The key approach is for non-lakefront homeowners to substitute “lake” as a key feature with their own unique feature or features. In other words, you need to emphasize your home’s attractive strengths to prospective buyers who most desire what you have to offer!

Are you concerned about how to sell your lakefront property? Although there’s exceptional interest in lakefront properties, selling a waterfront lake home presents unique challenges that must be properly addressed to sell you’re your home quickly and effectively.

Whether you prefer to sell your lakefront property yourself or through a real estate agent, you’ll need to incorporate marketing approaches not used for typical residential listings. If lacking attractive selling points, for example, lakefront properties can take a long time to sell even after being well marketed. Understanding key factors pertinent to lakefront properties will determine the ease or difficulty of selling yours.

We gathered marketing tips specifically for selling lakefront property that will help ensure that your property sells quickly at an optimal price. If you’ve been struggling to sell your lakefront property, then the following tips will surely come in handy.

6 Tips to Market & Sell a Lakefront Property Effectively

  1. Make the Most of Your Lake View
  2. Upgrade Both Your Curb Appeal and Shoreline Appeal
  3. Enhance Access to the Lake with Privacy Features
  4. Exemplify Lake Lifestyle Convincingly
  5. Consult a Lakefront Real Estate Specialist
  6. Propose an Appealing & Realistic Offer

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1. Make the Most of Your Lake View 

If you really want your lakefront home to stand out, you need to ensure a clear view of the lake. Whether you are inside or outside of the home, there should always be an optimized view of the lake.

View of calm lake at sunset

Be sure to clear as many obstructions that are blocking the lake view as possible. These include cutting down trees and unruly bushes, clearing messy piles, cleaning dusty windows and replacing worn screens. Unobstructed lake views can be a priceless selling point, as it can emotionally entice potential buyers.

Trees obstructing view of lake

If the layout, windows and placement of your home were custom designed for lake views and access, be sure to emphasize this competitive strength through photos, video, staging, literature, plus drone images and video, as not all lakefront homes may have optimal layouts or designs.

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2. Upgrade Both Your Curb Appeal and Shoreline Appeal

Improved curb appeal is a well-known way to increase your home’s value, whether it is near a lake or not. However, keep in mind when prepping a lakefront home for sale, prospective buyers will be primarily focused on the lake side of the home.

Thus, you should upgrade not only the front of the house but also sides of the house facing the lake. This includes keeping the lawn, decks, stairs, gardens, shoreline, and outdoor living areas in pristine condition.

Large lakefront home with pier and jet skis

For better marketing, be sure to take captivating photographs from the lake to showcase a home’s “shoreline appeal”. This will encourage more buyers to visit the property in person. If possible, you should consider offering a boat tour so that prospective buyers can experience your shoreline appeal in person, while learning about the culture of the lake firsthand.

As the next section expounds, streamlining access to the lake can also enhance the shoreline appeal of your home.

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3. Enhance Access to the Lake with Privacy Features

Have you recently assessed how convenient it is to access the lake from your home? Another reason why your lakefront property may not be selling is due to inadequate lake access. If reaching your lakefront is unpleasant, inconvenient, or unnecessarily difficult, it is imperative to shore up a beautified and convenient access way.

Aside from enhancing lake access, you need to make the pathway visually appealing, including at night. Additionally, keep the dock, shoreline, and stairs in good condition. Moreover, you also need to focus on landscaping to increase privacy, as most lakefront homeowners spend a significant amount of their time outside, near the lake.

Adding a sensory garden along the path is an easy way to make a lasting impression on visitors, especially with wind chimes, gravel, rock sculptures and low-maintenance plants.

Woman doing yoga on lake pier

When planning landscaping be sure to research current restrictions on what is allowed and what is prohibited, especially pertaining to the water (e.g. removing aquatic weeds) and the shoreline (e.g. preventing erosion).

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4. Exemplify Lake Lifestyle Convincingly 

It’s important to keep in mind that serious prospective buyers of lake homes have already been dreaming about lakefront living for some time. So if you can persuasively demonstrate the lakefront lifestyle in person, you will be facilitating a dream come true for them.

Lake Lanier realtor Fant Camak, a prominent lakefront property broker with offices in Spartanburg, South Carolina, recommends:

“Stage the outdoors of the home, especially near the lake area, in a sophisticated manner so that it looks more welcoming. If necessary, you can decorate the layout with patio furniture, place a BBQ grill on the deck, put out fishing equipment, or showcase kayaks on the lake. The more you decorate, the more it reflects a buyer’s dream lake home.”  

Lakefront ADU with kayaks

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5. Consult a Lakefront Real Estate Specialist

In addition to following the previous tips, you should consult a real estate professional who has lakefront experience. A lakefront specialist can propose both long-term and short-term projects that will help you sell your home expediently and for an optimal price.

Other key factors to keep in mind is that lakefront specialists will have access to a reliable network of lakefront professionals (e.g. landscapers; home improvement contractors; waterfront specialists; etc.), as well as current knowledge on lakefront buyer preferences, and local laws, regulations and building codes pertaining to lakefront properties.

Moreover, a lakefront specialist is best equipped to ensure a maximum ROI (Return on Investment) on the selling of your lakefront property. Proven lakefront marketing strategies can lure more qualified prospective buyers that will lead to your lake home being sold within the shortest possible time.

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6. Propose an Appealing & Realistic Offer

Besides an ineffective marketing strategy, you could also be struggling to sell your lakefront home if the listing price is set too high. Ultimately, the asking price is the biggest factor in determining how quickly or slowly a property may sell. Rest assured your house will remain on the market for a long time if it is overpriced. In fact, overpricing a home can create a persistent stigma, which can deter future interest from qualified buyers.

On the other hand, be sure not to panic and set an unnecessarily low price. Instead, identify a pricing sweet spot based on a competitive market study, including nearby comparable properties.

By knowing both the unique strengths of your home and the relative weaknesses of nearby comparables, you can more confidently list with an aggressive asking price, especially if you have time to wait. Key to this approach, however, is making sure that your marketing reaches potential buyers who will most value your home’s unique features.

Large, secluded lots with breathtaking views and beautiful shorelines are example traits where buyers will often pay a premium to prevent missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

 

3 Real-life Examples of Successful Lakefront Property Marketing

There are many examples of successful lakefront property marketing. You can take inspiration from the following three examples to sell your lakefront property:

 

Coldwell Banker Real Estate: Charity Partnership for Social Impact 

Running Facebook ads that mention a partnership with a reputable charity can be an effective way of gaining attention and fostering trust. Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC advertises on Facebook using real estate to showcase its affiliation with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

The “CB Supports St. Jude” charitable promotion enables participating agents to make a donation for every completed home sale or purchase, while spreading awareness of this worthy cause. The advertisements are effective at drawing in socially conscious customers by showcasing an example of the firm’s philanthropic commitments.

 

Selling Hudson: Showcasing Floor Plans

While many real estate marketers upload ample numbers of photos for a home’s listing, Selling Hudson decided to add schematics and detailed floor plans. The result is that buyers can gain a deeper understanding of the house’s layout, which is effective at grabbing their attention.

Looking at floor plans or blueprints can help buyers with specific requirements identify properties that are an excellent fit for their needs. By enabling this type of confirmation upfront, prospective buyers will be less likely to consider other listings. Hence, in this case, Selling Hudson, a subgroup of Keller Williams Realty, was able to stand out from the competition of comparable listings.

 

Levinson Real Estate: Marketing with Useful Content

In addition to traditional listings and advertising, Levinson Real Estate goes beyond these two fronts by offering useful infographics on social media. These infographics help homebuyers understand various topics, such as when to buy or rent a property.

A critical feature that these infographics include is a “call-to-action” within social media posts, which entice prospects to request additional information or contact the firm directly. This is a highly effective way to generate qualified sales leads as the opt-in action signals that the prospect is likely in-market for real estate services.

 

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