Montague · Selling Waterfront
Selling a Waterfront Home in Montague
The listing has to answer what the water actually does, because the buyer who pays most is the one who already knows to ask.
Declare the Water, or the Buyer Picks for You
Most people searching Montague are picturing White Lake, and White Lake is a third of what the town holds. The White River carries its own frontage, and a Montague address reaches west to Lake Michigan itself out along Old Channel Trail.
When a listing does not declare which of the three it is, a buyer lines it up against whatever else wears the town name and arrives at an average built from properties a local would never put side by side.
Their agent then brings that average into the negotiation, and you spend the sale arguing against a comparison you allowed to happen. Declaring the water, and saying what it does, is how you decide the comparison instead of inheriting it.
Three Waters, Three Buyers, Three Sets of Questions
They are not variations on one purchase. They are three purchases.
On White Lake the questions are about depth, the dock and what a boat can reach through the channel. On the river they are about the current, the bank and how the frontage behaves through a season. Out toward Lake Michigan they are about the dune, the walk to the beach and what the road is like when the weather turns.
A listing written to answer the wrong set of questions does not read as a bad property. It reads as a property whose agent did not know which one they were selling, and buyers draw conclusions from that.
In their words
In their words
Tamera was the best ever! Give that woman a raise!
I had a very specific idea of what we wanted. An unspoiled piece of lakefront land on a wooded lot. I quickly learned that finding such a property is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Tamara diligently stayed on the search for our dream property and was always on the lookout for us... When that perfect property finally came up, Tamara knew it was the one. She called us from her car urging us to come up and see it immediately.
What I Read on the Property
I go and stand on it, because the listing has to be built out of facts rather than adjectives.
I check usable frontage against the recorded number, the bottom where somebody would swim, depth at the dock and whether a dock is permitted, and access in every season along with who maintains it. Then I build the comparison set from the same water, and say why those are the honest comparisons even when they are further away.
Then The Lakeshore Demand Method puts it in front of a paid and targeted audience before it reaches the MLS, aimed at the buyer who wants your water specifically.
More than $4 million in closed sales over my last twelve months, up from under a million the year before. I was born here and have lived here my whole life, which is how I know which of the three markets your home is actually in.
What the Weeks Look Like
You get a written report every week, whether the news is good or not, with showings, feedback and what I want to adjust.
You can cancel at any time if the work is not what you wanted.
More on the three waters is on the Montague area page, the wider approach is at selling a waterfront home, and the number is at what your Montague home is worth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does declaring the water matter when the photographs show it?
Photographs show water without saying what the water does. A buyer cannot tell from an image whether a boat gets out, how deep it runs at the dock, or whether that is the lake, the river or the big lake behind the trees. The words carry the part that decides the price.
My home is out along Old Channel Trail. Who is the buyer?
Usually somebody who wants Lake Michigan itself rather than the inland lake, which is a different person with different questions: the dune, the walk to the beach, and what the road does in winter. Marketed as a White Lake property it competes against homes offering something it was never trying to be.
Can the price rest on White Lake sales if I am on the river?
Only with the reasoning stated, and usually it is the wrong footing. River frontage is its own market with its own buyer. Priced against lake sales it looks like a discount version of a lake house, which is a worse position than being the best example of what it actually is.
Montague
What selling waterfront looks like in Montague
Three waters in one town: White Lake and the channel, the White River, and Lake Michigan out along Old Channel Trail.
Most people searching Montague are picturing White Lake, and White Lake is a third of it. The White River flows into it and carries its own frontage, and a Montague address reaches west to Lake Michigan itself out along Old Channel Trail.
Those are three products with three sets of questions and three different buyers, so the first useful question here is never how much. It is which of the three you are actually after.
The method
How I do it in Montague
Selling Waterfront: keep exploring
Ready to make your move with Tamara Hekkema?