Relocation
The map before the listings
About a third of our buyers start somewhere else, with a job offer, a start date and a browser full of towns they cannot place. Handing them more listings does not help.
Step one
Two hours in a car beats two months of browsing
We start every relocation with a driving tour of the four lakes, timed to whatever commute matters to you. You see Middleton at five in the afternoon, the Beltline at eight in the morning, and the search narrows itself by dinner.
- Timed to your real commute, not to an average
- School boundaries checked in writing for specific addresses
- Month-to-month rental leads if you want to land first
- No charge, and no obligation to buy with us afterwards
The year
What the four seasons actually feel like
Nobody moving here from a warm place believes the winter description until February. We would rather you heard it from us first.
January to March
Cold, roughly forty inches of snow in an average year, and the lakes freeze solid enough for shanties and skating. The city plows well. Most transplants say the second winter is much easier than the first.
April to May
Ice-out on Mendota lands in early April most years. Piers go in, the town exhales, and the strongest three months of the property market begin.
June to August
The reason people move here. Long evenings, warm water, and a farmers market on the Capitol Square that is genuinely one of the best in the country.
September to November
The underrated stretch. Warm water, no boat traffic after Labor Day, and shoreline colour through October that surprises everybody.
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.
Commutes
Drive times that decide where you look
Sample off-peak figures from each area to the three places our relocating buyers most often work.
| Area | Lake | Commute notes |
|---|---|---|
| Maple Bluff | Lake Mendota, north shore | Nine minutes to the Capitol Square, fourteen to the university, twenty-five to Epic in Verona. |
| Shorewood Hills | Lake Mendota, south shore | Eleven minutes on foot to the campus edge, seven minutes by car to the hospitals, thirteen to the Capitol. |
| Monona | Lake Monona, east and south shore | Seven minutes to the Capitol Square, eleven to the university, twenty to Epic in Verona. |
| Middleton | Lake Mendota, west shore | Eighteen minutes to Epic in Verona, fifteen to the Capitol, ten to the west-side hospitals. |
| McFarland | Lake Waubesa | Fifteen minutes to downtown Madison, twenty-two to Epic in Verona, five to the Beltline. |
| Westport and Governors Island | Lake Mendota, north shore | Nineteen minutes to the Capitol, twenty-two to the university, twelve to Middleton's downtown. |
Sample drive times for demonstration. Rush hour on the Beltline adds ten to twenty minutes to most of these.
Moving questions
What transplants ask us
Usually in this order, usually in the first phone call.
If you have never lived in Dane County, six months of renting is often the cheaper mistake. Lake choice is hard to reverse and a winter on the ground teaches you things a tour cannot.
Verona itself, Middleton, Fitchburg and the west side of Madison. From Middleton the drive is about eighteen minutes outside of rush hour, which is why so many west-shore buyers are Epic families.
Madison Metropolitan, Middleton-Cross Plains, Monona Grove, McFarland and Waunakee all draw buyers for different reasons. Boundaries change, so we check any specific address in writing rather than working from memory.
Downtown and the near-east side are genuinely walkable and the bus network is decent. Everywhere on our lake map, you will want a car, and if you own a boat you will want something that tows.
It depends enormously on the age of the house and the insulation. A 2004 build and a 1938 colonial of the same size can differ by a factor of two. We look at three years of utility bills on anything our buyers get serious about.
Book the orientation tour
Send us your start date and your work address. We will put together a route and two hours, and you will know the map by the end of it.
Four agents, one office on Monona Avenue, replies within one business day.