LakePlace.com in the News

Waterfront Escapes Are A Click Away
By Amy Spreeman
On The Water

Whether you call them cottages or cabins, the waterfront getaways are top destinations for one in five families in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan. This time of year people from all over the country are flocking up north to rent, purchase or visit friends owning lake homes.

Even those who already live year-round on the water often seek the laidback "up north" lifestyle away from their daily routines. But finding that getaway through traditional means such as classified ads or real estate agents has always been anything but relaxing.

One up-and-coming Web-based company has finally laid to rest that frustration with a new site called LakePlace.com. During the summer months, LakePlace.com is the most visited vacation property Web site in the world according to Alexa.com, a research company the tabulates Web site rankings.

"People don't have time for a lengthy search process that involves hours of phone queries and browsing multiple real estate Web sites that are frequently vague or outdated," says Dane Charles, a Menasha entrepreneur who joined the breakthrough online venture that puts thousands of potentially perfect little lake places at the fingertips of buyers.

One-stop Shopping

LakePlace.com is a relatively new tool for anyone seeking to own waterfront property or rent family vacation getaways in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The one-stop shop lets browsers view more than 20,000 properties ranging from $30,000 to $18 million. With hundreds of brokers and affiliates posting their listings, LakePlace.com has become the largest database of lakeshore properties in the Midwest.

In addition, LakePlace.com features an extensive network of resort owners and lake homeowners renting out their waterfront properties by the day, week or month. The listings include 800 individual cabin rentals and 80 premium listings of featured resorts that list their amenities in great detail and provide navigational links by Google Earth and Google Maps. Additionally, LakePlace.com features a general directory of more than 2,000 Minnesota and Wisconsin resorts.

That's good news for waterfront homeowners who don't want their personal space invaded for weeks on end by visiting guests looking for summertime lakeshore fun.

"It's now easier than ever to help visiting friends and family members find a vacation site with accommodations to please everyone. LakePlace.com is revolutionizing the way vacation property is bought, sold and rented for the perfect wasterfront dream," says Charles.

Humble Beginnings

LakePlace.com was started two years ago by a pair of Internet entrepreneurs from Minnesota. Dave Gooden and Cameron Henkel created LakePlace.com as a tool for lakefront seekers who demand fast, complete solutions.

The founders say their website was born from agitation. While searching for their own perfect family cottages, Gooden and Henkel quickly learned first-hand the difference between what makes a user-friendly Web site, and what doesn't.

"The poorly designed MLS search engines we tried to navigate were anything but accurate, and agency sites were limited to a small geographic area – forcing us on a time-consuming journey searching hundreds of user unfriendly Web sites," says Gooden, LakePlace.com's co-founder.

A few frustrating months later, the two took a stab at designing their own easy-to-use cutting-edge navigational database, and LakePlace.com was conceived.

"Our goal was to make it a little easier for people to get started in their search for the ‘up north' lifestyle," Gooden says. "We wanted to create one single, easy-to-use website, which neatly organizes lake properties for sale, private cabin rentals, and family resorts throughout all regions of Minnesota and Wisconsin.

A captive audience

Real estate professionals pay a monthly or yearly membership fee to capitalize on a very targeted audience – the thousands of weekly potential buyers visiting LakePlace.com. Major markets include the Twin Cities, Milwaukee, Des Moines and Chicago, and visitors come from all 50 states and from as far as Germany to locate a Northland getaway.

By exclusively promoting the Minnesota and Wisconsin experience to the rest of the world, LakePlace.com has quickly become one of the largest and most visited regional Web sites on the Internet, with 6 million hits and 100,000 visitors per month, and averaging 2 Million page views. That's more traffic than both states' government tourism sites, ExploreMinnesota.com and TravelWisconsin.com.

"Our relationship with LakePlace.com over the past six months has yielded many inquiries from qualified buyers who see our listings," says Patrick O'Hearn, managing broker of Loon Lake Realty in Little Suamico. "Their Web site is very nicely done, and I felt it was well worth the money we've invested in their program."

O'Hearn's Loon Lake business is one of the more well-known brokers of Northern Wisconsin lake properties, and he says 50 percent of his business comes from the Internet. Loon Lake Realty has been listings properties on its corporate site for the past eight years, and he sees LakePlace.com as a good match to bring in even more potential buyers.

"The staff at LakePlace.com is excellent to work with and responsive to our needs, which is a plus for our customers," O'Hearn says. "There is just something about having a place up North. For those of us who live in Wisconsin, it's a dream ingrained in our consciences."