What ninety-two feet of frontage actually buys you

Every waterfront listing on the Madison chain leads with a number: 60 feet, 92 feet, 140 feet. Buyers learn quickly that the number drives the price. What takes longer to learn is that two properties with identical frontage figures can be worth strikingly different amounts, and that the figure on the listing sheet is not always the figure a surveyor would give you.

Where the number comes from

Most listing frontage figures are copied from the tax assessment record, which in turn was copied from a plat that may be seventy years old. Shorelines move. Seawalls get rebuilt in slightly different places. Lot lines that run to the water at an angle produce different measurements depending on whether you measure along the shore or across the chord between the two lot corners.

We have measured listings that came in eleven feet short of the advertised figure and one that came in six feet long. Neither seller was being dishonest. They had simply never checked. On a Mendota property where frontage is carrying somewhere between fourteen and twenty-six thousand dollars a foot, eleven feet is not a rounding error, it is a renovation budget.

Exposure changes everything

A hundred feet facing due east on Mendota and a hundred feet facing due west are different products. East-facing shoreline gets morning sun on the water and sits in the lee of the prevailing westerly wind, which means a calmer landing and less pounding on the pier through a summer of afternoon chop. West-facing frontage gets the sunset, which plenty of buyers will pay for, and takes the weather.

Protected bays are their own category. A property tucked into a bay on the northeast side of Waubesa can be flat water at seven in the evening while the main lake has a foot of chop. If you own a rowing shell or a small child, that difference is the whole purchase.

Depth at the pier head

The question we ask on every shoreline showing is how much water is at the end of the pier at low water. Mendota is deep enough that this is rarely a problem near shore. Waubesa and Ripley are shallower, and a buyer with a boat that draws three feet can find themselves with a beautiful property they cannot actually use as intended.

• Measure depth at the pier head and thirty feet beyond it
• Ask what the lake level was on the day you measured, because it swings
• Find out whether the pier can be extended under the current rules
• Check whether the neighbors' piers narrow your approach lane

What the pier itself is worth

A permanent crib pier is a structure. It may be legally non-conforming, meaning it can stay but could not be rebuilt in the same form if it were lost. A sectional aluminum pier is equipment, typically nine to eighteen thousand dollars installed, and it may or may not be included in the sale. We have seen both assumptions cause a problem at the final walk-through, because nobody wrote it into the offer.

Frontage is the price. Exposure, depth and permit status are whether you enjoy it.

How to use this on a showing

Walk to the end of the pier before you walk through the kitchen. Stand there for five minutes. Notice which way the wind is coming from, whether the water is moving, how close the neighbor's pier is and whether the shoreline structure looks maintained or patched. Then look at the house. Almost every buyer does this in the opposite order, and almost every buyer who has bought once does it this way the second time.

If you are looking at shoreline property this season and want the frontage checked against the plat before you write, that is work we do on every property our buyers get serious about. It takes an afternoon and it has changed the number on more than one of our offers.