New this week$1,895,000Lake Mendota4218 Bluff Point RoadMaple Bluff, WI · Waterfront5 bd4 ba4,210 sq ftMadison lakes, since 2016
Homes with the water in the window.
Waterfront and near-water homes on the Yahara chain, sold by four agents who read pier permits for a living.
- 4.9 from 214 sample reviews
- Frontage measured, permits checked
- Equal Housing Opportunity
5 lakes, 6 shorelinesMendota, Monona, Waubesa, Kegonsa and Ripley
On the market now
Homes we are showing this week
- New this week$1,895,000Lake Mendota4218 Bluff Point RoadMaple Bluff, WI · Waterfront5 bd4 ba4,210 sq ft
Active$1,240,000Lake Mendota1107 Shorewood BoulevardShorewood Hills, WI · Near water4 bd3 ba3,180 sq ft
Active$865,000Lake Monona3320 Winnequah RoadMonona, WI · Waterfront4 bd3 ba2,640 sq ft
Active$749,000Lake Waubesa5904 Dockside LaneMcFarland, WI · Waterfront3 bd2 ba2,180 sq ft
Active$529,000Lake Monona2 Founders Quay, Unit 410Madison, WI · Condo2 bd2 ba1,320 sq ft
Offer pending$1,095,000Lake Mendota6825 Century Shore DriveMiddleton, WI · Waterfront4 bd4 ba3,460 sq ft
Waterfront, specifically
The part of the listing sheet nobody writes down
Twenty-three shoreline properties on our tour list this season, and not one of them sells on square footage alone.
Tour the waterfront collectionTen sample properties across five lakesFrontage read properly
Exposure, depth at the pier head and permit status, checked before you write.
Measured, not quoted
We compare the shoreline against the recorded plat instead of the listing sheet.
Shot from the water
Every shoreline listing we take gets drone and on-water photography.
Due diligence
Eight things we check before you write
Six of them are on this page. The other two depend on which municipality your parcel sits in.
Frontage measured
Against the recorded plat, not the tax record. We have found listings eleven feet short of the sheet.
Pier permits verified
Permitted, legally non-conforming or never permitted at all. The distinction decides what you can rebuild.
Depth at the pier head
Taken at the current lake level, thirty feet out, before you buy a boat that will not clear it.
Shoreland zoning read
Setbacks, impervious limits and rebuild rights for your specific parcel, summarised in plain English.
Shared pier agreements
Pulled from the register of deeds and explained before your contingency period runs out.
Exposure and weather
East, west, bay or point. It changes the landing, the pier wear and how the house feels in August.
How it goes
Four steps, and the third is the one that matters
Most buyers are surprised that the shoreline homework happens before the offer rather than during the inspection period.
Sit down with us
Ninety minutes on Monona Avenue. Budget, lakes, timing and what your weekends actually look like.
Tour in batches
Four or five homes an afternoon so the comparison is honest. Most buyers see eight to fifteen.
Check the water
Frontage measured, pier permit verified, depth taken at the pier head, zoning read for your parcel.
Write, negotiate, close
Offer priced on comparable frontage, inspection response handled, and a walk-through the morning of closing.
Two minutes, no email
Which lake fits your weekends?
Answer three questions. We will point you at the shoreline that matches how you actually use the water, then you can argue with us about it.
Prep that pays
Two weeks and $2,400, not a renovation
A Monona living room before and after our pre-list punch list. Drag the handle to compare.
Before
AfterPaint and lighting first
Neutral walls, matched bulb temperature and two replaced fixtures. About $2,400 on this house.
Edit, then add
We removed roughly a third of the furniture before our stager brought a single piece in.
Photograph the light
Shot at 9am, when this room gets the water reflection on the ceiling.
- See the full prep punch list
Where we work
Six shorelines, one office
Everything on this map is inside a twenty-five minute drive of our door on Monona Avenue. We have walked the frontage on every one of these lakes this year.
The Yahara chainMendota to Ripley
402 Monona Avenue, Suite 3Madison, WI
The people
Four agents who live on this water
Between them: forty-four years of licence, and a combined eleven boats they will not stop talking about.
Nora grew up on Governors Island in a house her grandfather built in 1961, which is a long way of saying she has been answering questions about pier…Nora BrandtBroker and founderLake Mendota, Westport and Governors Island
Desmond came to real estate from commercial construction estimating, which shows up in how he reads a house. He can tell you what a roof replacement…Desmond OyelaranAssociate broker, west shoreMiddleton, Shorewood Hills, the Mendota west shore
Priya covers the south lakes, which is the part of our map where a family can still buy frontage in the seven hundreds. She has closed more Waubesa …Priya RaghavanRealtor, south lakesLake Waubesa, McFarland, Stoughton and Lake Ripley
Tomas handles the in-town side of the business: condos on the Isthmus, the Monona peninsula, and the near-water houses that let a buyer walk to a sw…Tomas FerreiraRealtor, in-town and condosDowntown Madison, Monona, the Isthmus
After closing
What people said once the keys changed hands
4.9214 sample reviews
Nora measured the frontage herself and found it was eleven feet short of the listing sheet. That one afternoon changed our offer by a number I am still slightly stunned by.
Marguerite HollowayMaple Bluff · Buyer representationWe moved from Austin knowing nothing. Desmond drove us around the four lakes for two hours and by dinner we had eliminated half the county. Best use of an afternoon in the whole process.
Dev ChandrasekaranMiddleton · Relocation servicesThe drone photos sold our house. Buyers kept mentioning the shot looking back at the skyline. We had offers over asking on the first weekend.
Aileen NovakMonona · Listing and marketingPriya checked the water depth at the pier head before we wrote. Turns out my boat would not have cleared it at low water. Nobody else was going to tell me that.
Russell EbersoleMcFarland · Waterfront due diligenceFirst house, and we asked roughly nine hundred questions. Tomas answered all of them without once making us feel slow about it.
Carmen and Luis BatistaMonona · Buyer representationForty-one years in that house. Nora handled the whole thing gently and got us a price that made the move possible. The Monday reports meant I never had to chase anybody.
Beverly TrzebiatowskiWestport · Listing and marketingDesmond priced out a roof, a furnace and a panel upgrade while we stood in the driveway. We knew exactly what we were buying before the inspection confirmed it.
Jonah KittlesonShorewood Hills · Buyer representationWe wanted a cottage we could rent a few weeks a year. Priya checked the rules with the town in writing and it turned out we could not, which saved us from a bad assumption.
Simone AchterbergCambridge · Second homes and investment
Straight answers
Questions we answer weekly
The shoreline ones come up on every single tour. If yours is not here, call the office and ask.
Still wondering about something? Call the office and you will get a person, not a form.
(608) 555-0149All frequently asked questionsOn our sample data, Lake Mendota frontage runs roughly $14,000 to $26,000 per foot of shoreline depending on exposure, depth and the house itself. Lake Monona is meaningfully less, commonly $9,000 to $15,000 a foot. Lake Waubesa and Lake Ripley are lower again. Those are illustration figures, not an appraisal, and any individual property can sit well outside the range.
For most buyers, yes. Shorewood Hills residents get a beach, a pier and a slip program by village permit. Monona has a swim pier and two launches. McFarland has a village landing. You give up stepping off your own lawn into the water, and you often cut the tax bill in half.
No, and this is the single most common surprise in a lake purchase. A pier can be permitted, legally non-conforming, or never permitted at all. It matters most when you want to replace or extend it. We verify the status on every shoreline property our buyers get serious about.
Late April through June. The water is open, the yard has come back and buyers can actually picture the summer. In-town homes are much less seasonal and sell well from March through October.
We build the analysis on comparable frontage and exposure first, then adjust for the house. A hundred feet of protected east-facing shoreline moves the number more than an extra bedroom does, and a pure square-footage comparison will mislead you on this market.
In most Dane County transactions the seller's brokerage offers compensation that covers buyer agency. Where it does not, we agree the amount with you in writing in the buyer agency agreement before we tour, and it becomes part of the offer negotiation.
Start with a conversation, not a listing
Tell us how you want to spend your weekends. We will tell you which lake fits and what it costs to be on it.
Four agents, one office on Monona Avenue, replies within one business day.