Sell Your House in Lake St. Louis, MOin the CA or Out of It

The dock is part of what you are selling, so it gets prepared like a room. Check the supports for warping and rot, clear the path down to it, and stage it the way you would a deck: if there is space, a table and chairs or a chaise lounge does more than any description can, because it shows a buyer what an evening there actually looks like. A private dock also means a buyer skips the community boat-slip waitlist, which people have sat on for years, and that is worth saying plainly in the listing rather than leaving a buyer to work out. Dock size is capped at 30% of your shoreline, so if you are considering adding one before you list, that is the constraint to design around.

Yes, and it is the first thing we establish about any home here. Lake rights come from owning a property within CA boundaries, not just living within city limits, and large parts of the city sit outside those boundaries. Two houses of the same size on the same side of town can attract completely different buyers depending on which side of that line they fall. A 63367 zip code tells you the mailing address and nothing about lake rights, and it does not tell you whose public services you are on either, which can be Lake St. Louis, St. Charles County, Wentzville or O'Fallon.

Carefully, and with more than a spreadsheet. In a normal subdivision you can find five recent sales of near-identical houses. On the water there may be none, because frontage, elevation, views, whether you sit on open water or a quiet cove, and which of the two lakes you are on all move the number and none of them appear in a square-footage comparison. That's why price per square foot can be a bad pricing metric. We price from the lot first and the house second, because a buyer can change the kitchen and cannot change the view.

With waterfront especially, we also shop the house to our private network of buyers before it goes public. That gives us real feedback from Lake St. Louis buyers and agents on the number before it is committed to, which is worth more than another comparable would have been. Often enough a desirable waterfront sells before it reaches the open market at all, which is why so many of the waterfronts we have sold went pre-market.

Commission, title and closing costs, any transfer costs, and whatever you decide to spend on preparation. Repairs and credits to buyers are negotiated once you're under contract. Commission is not a fixed rate we publish, because it depends on the property and what the marketing needs to be. What we will do before you commit to anything is put the actual numbers in front of you, including what you would net, so the decision is made on potential money in your account rather than a percentage.

Late April into early May, with a second window in August. The reasoning is practical: docks are back in, pools and hot tubs are open, the lawn is green and the lake is in use, so a buyer sees the property doing the thing they are buying it for. Listing in late April also puts you in front of the buyers already looking while many owners are still waiting for May or June, so you compete against fewer properties. August works for the opposite reason, as last minute buyers who want to be in before the season closes start to urgently look.

The listing agreement, a nine-page seller's disclosure, a pool and spa disclosure if you have one, and your subdivision's own fee schedule alongside your CA dues, because many subdivisions charge separately and a buyer will ask.

We sell homes across the Missouri side of the Greater St. Louis region. Here are the main areas we serve:

St. Louis City: Central West End, Downtown, Downtown West, Midtown, Forest Park Southeast, The Grove, Shaw, Tower Grove South, Tower Grove East, Soulard, Lafayette Square, Benton Park, Fox Park, The Hill, Dogtown, St. Louis Hills, Southampton, Princeton Heights, Holly Hills and Carondelet.

St. Louis County: Clayton, University City, Richmond Heights, Maplewood, Brentwood, Rock Hill, Warson Woods, Olivette, Ladue, Frontenac, Creve Coeur, Maryland Heights, Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Des Peres, Town and Country, Manchester, Ballwin, Ellisville, Chesterfield, Wildwood, Valley Park, Fenton and Eureka.

St. Charles County: St. Charles, St. Peters, O'Fallon, Lake St. Louis, Cottleville, Dardenne Prairie, Wentzville, Weldon Spring, New Melle, Augusta, Defiance, Foristell, St. Paul, Portage Des Sioux, West Alton, Flint Hill and the surrounding unincorporated communities.

Other surrounding counties: Arnold, Festus, Pevely, High Ridge, Hillsboro and Imperial in Jefferson County; Troy, Moscow Mills, Winfield and Elsberry in Lincoln County; Warrenton, Wright City, Foristell and Marthasville in Warren County; and Washington, Union, Pacific, St. Clair and Sullivan in Franklin County.

That list is not a boundary. If your town is nearby and not named here, send us the address and we will tell you whether we are the right team for it.

Five of these towns have a seller page of their own, with recent sales and what moves the price there: Chesterfield, Cottleville, Lake St. Louis, O'Fallon and Wentzville.