Sample design · This website is a demo, made to show what your business site could look like. The company, people and reviews on it are not real. · This website is a demo. The business is not real.

Built by Prebuiltwebmarket.com
(608) 555-0149Get my home value

Since 2016

A small office that knows one thing thoroughly

We are four agents on Monona Avenue who sell waterfront and near-water homes on five lakes. That is the whole business, and it is deliberate.

The Lakeside Living Realty office interior in Madison
402 Monona AvenueMadison, WI

How this started

Nora Brandt grew up on Governors Island in a house her grandfather built in 1961. By fourteen she was the person neighbours asked about pier permits, which turns out to be reasonable training for a career.

She got her licence in 2007 and spent eight years at a large downtown brokerage, where she watched buyer after buyer sign on a waterfront property without anyone measuring the frontage or checking whether the pier was permitted. Twice she saw a sale fall apart in week three because a shared pier agreement had never been read.

Lakeside Living Realty opened on Monona Avenue in 2016 with one rule: the shoreline homework happens before the offer, not during the inspection contingency. Desmond joined in 2018, Priya in 2019 and Tomas in 2021, and the rule has not changed.

We are still four people. We have turned down the chance to grow twice, because the thing that makes this work is that each of us knows our own lakes properly rather than all of them vaguely.

The Madison isthmus seen from the water
Lake Monona, looking backMadison, WI

Sample firm statistics

  • 214Sample transactions closed since 2016
  • 98%Sample average of list price achieved
  • 24 daysSample median days on market
  • 19 yrsYears our broker has worked these lakes

The four of us

Who you will actually work with

You get one of us, not a team of assistants. The person who answers your first call is the person at your closing.

Nora Brandt, Broker and founder
Nora Brandt19 yrs

Nora Brandt

Broker and founder

Lake Mendota, Westport and Governors Island

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 permits since she was fourteen. She got her license in 2007, spent eight years at a large downtown brokerage and opened Lakeside Living Realty on Monona Avenue in 2016.

She handles most of the firm's north shore and Westport business, and she is the person the other three agents call when a frontage measurement does not match the plat. She has closed sample transactions on every lake in the Yahara chain.

Nora runs the firm's shoreline due diligence process and teaches a continuing education session on riparian rights for Dane County agents twice a year.

Credentials

  • Wisconsin licensed broker since 2007
  • Graduate, REALTOR Institute (GRI)
  • Certified Residential Specialist (CRS)
  • Instructor, Dane County riparian rights CE session

Has swum the Mendota crossing four times, and says the third was the only pleasant one.

nora@lakesidelivingrealty.com
Desmond Oyelaran, Associate broker, west shore
Desmond Oyelaran11 yrs

Desmond Oyelaran

Associate broker, west shore

Middleton, Shorewood Hills, the Mendota west shore

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 costs on a 1951 village home within a few hundred dollars, and he does it before you write the offer rather than after the inspection.

He covers Middleton and Shorewood Hills, and he works with a lot of relocating buyers, many of them heading to Epic or to the west side hospitals. He runs the firm's remote-buyer process, including the recorded walk-through videos.

He and his wife live in Middleton with two kids and a very slow golden retriever named Beacon.

Credentials

  • Wisconsin licensed associate broker since 2015
  • Accredited Buyer's Representative (ABR)
  • Certified Relocation Professional coursework, 2019
  • Ten years in commercial construction estimating

Keeps a laser measure and a moisture meter in the car, and has used both on a first showing.

desmond@lakesidelivingrealty.com
Priya Raghavan, Realtor, south lakes
Priya Raghavan8 yrs

Priya Raghavan

Realtor, south lakes

Lake Waubesa, McFarland, Stoughton and Lake Ripley

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 and Ripley sample transactions than anyone else in the office, and she knows which bays go flat in the evening and which ones do not.

Before real estate she spent six years as a high school chemistry teacher in Stoughton, so she explains things clearly and she is genuinely unbothered by a buyer who wants to ask the same question three different ways.

She chairs the firm's first-time buyer workshop, which runs quarterly at the Monona Public Library.

Credentials

  • Wisconsin licensed salesperson since 2018
  • Accredited Buyer's Representative (ABR)
  • At Home With Diversity certification
  • Leads the quarterly first-time buyer workshop

Ice fishes on Waubesa and will absolutely tell you where, which is unusual.

priya@lakesidelivingrealty.com
Tomas Ferreira, Realtor, in-town and condos
Tomas Ferreira6 yrs

Tomas Ferreira

Realtor, in-town and condos

Downtown Madison, Monona, the Isthmus

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 swim pier instead of owning one. He is the agent most of our first-time buyers work with.

He spent four years managing a downtown restaurant before getting his license, which means he is unfazed by a Saturday with six showings and a difficult phone call in the middle of it.

He also shoots most of the firm's listing video, including the on-water footage, from a small aluminum boat he is faintly embarrassed about.

Credentials

  • Wisconsin licensed salesperson since 2020
  • Pricing Strategy Advisor (PSA)
  • FAA Part 107 remote pilot certificate for listing drone work
  • Shoots the firm's listing video and on-water footage

Knows which Isthmus condo buildings have the quiet floors, and will say so on a showing.

tomas@lakesidelivingrealty.com

How we work

Six rules we do not bend

Written down in 2016, and we still read them out to new agents on day one.

The water question first

Frontage, permits and depth get answered before anyone falls in love with a kitchen. It is the difference between a good purchase and an expensive lesson.

No referral fees, ever

We recommend inspectors, lenders and trades we would use ourselves, and we take nothing from any of them.

Show the working

Every offer price comes with the comparable sales behind it. If the number does not make sense to you, we have not done our job.

Four agents, on purpose

We are not trying to be the biggest brokerage in Dane County. Four people can each know their lakes properly.

One business day

Every enquiry gets a human reply within one business day, usually sooner. Nobody gets dropped into an email sequence.

Say the hard thing

If a house is wrong for you, or priced wrong, we will say so early. We have talked clients out of more than one purchase.

Licensing

Credentials and disclosures

Wisconsin requires brokerage disclosure at first substantive contact. Ours is in every buyer agency and listing agreement, and we will walk you through it rather than slide it across the table.

  • WI Brokerage #55-9014 (sample placeholder)
  • Equal Housing Opportunity. We do not discriminate on any protected basis.
  • Errors and omissions insurance carried on the brokerage and each agent
  • Continuing education current for all four agents
  • Commission is negotiable and is agreed in writing before any work begins
Signing closing paperwork at the office table
A Monona closingSample transaction

Come in and meet whoever fits

Tell us which lake you are thinking about and we will put you with the agent who walks that shoreline every week.

Talk to an agent(608) 555-0149

Four agents, one office on Monona Avenue, replies within one business day.

Cookie preferences

Choose which cookies you allow. You can change this at any time from the link in the footer.