WATERFRONT INTELLIGENCE FOR BUYER AGENTS
LAKE LBJ · INKS · MARBLE FALLS · BUCHANAN
Waterfront research.
Ready for your buyer.
A branded Tour Brief for your buyer. The full analysis for you.
Your first property is free — the full Agent Deep Analysis included.
Type an address on Lake LBJ, Inks Lake, Lake Marble Falls, or Lake Buchanan — if we've analyzed it, the full agent analysis opens on the next page. Most $1M–$4M waterfront listings are already analyzed and ready to go.
The day count on a listing is the age of that posting, and nothing more. Your analysis prints the history behind it — how many times this address has been listed, and how long the house has actually been trying to sell.
When two records disagree about a lot's frontage, your analysis prints both numbers and argues which one to trust. The Tour Brief you hand your buyer gets the number we settled on — never the argument.
Not a brokerage. Not a lead service. We never contact your client, and we never publish an address you send us.
One Address In. Two Documents Back.
ADD VALUE FOR YOUR BUYER
Lakefront Tour Brief
Your name. Your brokerage. Waterfront research they won't get from a standard listing sheet — printed, and theirs to keep.
Your branding. LakefrontBrief research. No buyer login.
Side by side, when the day has more than one home — page 2 of the sample.
See a Tour Brief (PDF)KEEP FOR YOURSELF
Agent Deep Analysis
The research behind the brief — the frontage investigation, the comps, the deal read, and our number. Your copy, not theirs.
The number, the range and the ask, on the first page — then nine more arguing it.
See a Full Agent Analysis (PDF)BEFORE, DURING, AFTER THE SHOWING
Give Your Lakefront Buyers More Than a Listing Printout
MLS tells a buyer bedrooms, baths, and square footage. The Tour Brief helps them understand the part they're paying the premium for — the water.
Before the tour
Your buyer gets a professional guide to the lakefront homes you're seeing — your name and brokerage on the cover.
During the tour
They compare frontage and water type side by side, and read each home's dock and flood zone on its own page — and, where there's something to look at, an on-the-tour list written for standing on the dock.
After the tour
They leave with one document worth re-reading, not a stack of near-identical MLS printouts.
Give your buyer the kind of preparation they remember.
Try a listing freeTHE AGENT'S COPY
Inside the Agent Deep Analysis
The tour brief is the client's. This one is yours: one home worked end to end, the number argued line by line rather than handed to you as a single score, and deliberately unvarnished. 357 built so far; 161 of them cover waterfront homes on our four lakes listed in the $1M–$4M band right now. The sample below is the same house as home #1 in the tour brief above — one property, read both ways: the pages the client sees, and the copy you keep.
WHAT'S IN ONE
- What this property is — every fact with the record it came from.
- The frontage investigation — every source with a reading on the lot, side by side. On the sample home the readings run from about 55 ft to 210.1 ft, and the analysis says which one to use and why.
- Where our own data was wrong about this house — on this sample that IS the frontage section: the two figures it overrules are both ours. Published in the sample, defects and all.
- The listing history the day-count hides — the sample home read 76 days on that listing when the analysis was written. It had been on the market since May 2025 — 447 days, across three separate listings, and had already failed to sell in 2012 and in 2015.
648 of the 1,514 listings we track have been listed more than once. On 619 of those the whole history runs longer than the posting's own count — a median 103 days on this listing against 537 days on the market.
- How we get to a number — six separate reads, each shown with its own weight and the argument for that weight, so you can throw one out and see what happens. The weights get argued down as often as up: the automated valuation models are the joint-heaviest leg at 35% and the analysis spends a page on why they still don't simply win.
- The comparison grid — the home against its closest analog, line by line, every adjustment shown, with the gross adjustment printed as a percentage of the comp price so you can see how far the bridge is stretched.
- The deal read — the case for paying less, and the case for the seller. Written to be argued with.
- Verify before contract — the open items, with the dollars wherever we can put one on them: six of the sample's eleven carry a dollar band, a seventh prices the annual carrying cost, and the remaining four say what they move instead.
Negotiation — the offer ladder and the timing — is the one section withheld from the public sample. The sample says so itself, in its own words: a client's private brief is where that belongs, not a public page. It is in the analysis you open here.
Not a licensed valuation. Not a licensed survey. You get our number, the range around it, and how confident we are in it.
| Source | Whose | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Our screening row | ours | ✗ 210.1 ft |
| Our working county-derived figure | ours | ✗ 130.8 ft |
| Listing field "Waterfront Feet" | listing | 59 ft |
| Listing "Lot Size Dimensions" (source: county records) | county | 59' × 332' |
| Arithmetic check on those dimensions | check | 19,588 sf vs 19,602 sf listed — 0.07% |
| Our land-value model's shoreline arc | ours | 57.8 ft |
| County parcel-map ring, water end | county | ~55 ft |
ADDRESS WITHHELD, EVERY NUMBER REAL
LAKEFRONTBRIEF
A 0.45-acre open-water lot on Lake LBJ
- Frontage
-
From our own working county-derived figure130.8 ftFrom our own analysis59 ft
Both of the wrong numbers here are ours. This home's brief titles its frontage section "our screening figure is wrong": our screening row read 210.1 ft and our working county-derived figure 130.8 ft, both wrong by roughly 2× on a narrow, very deep lot. Four further reads land near 59 ft — three of them not ours, plus an arithmetic check on the listing's own dimensions. Working frontage: 59 ft — calibrated, not survey-verified.
Not a substitute for a licensed survey.
- Dock & boathouse
-
No dock, boathouse, lift, ramp or retaining wall · a shallow sand flat at the shoreline · a large private sand beach
There is no dock to price, so the brief prices its absence — and shows its own restraint doing it. A model fitted on Lake LBJ open-water and cove sales since 2024 puts a dock at +38.2% (95% confidence +13.1% to +68.8%); the brief takes roughly −7% in its grid instead of −38%, calls that choice conservative and seller-friendly, and says the value is at or below the bottom of its range if the measured effect is even half real.
- Waterfront view
Faces 115° of open water · 3.2 acres of open water within about 500 feet
- Flood zone
-
FEMA Zone X — outside the mapped 100-year floodplain
Shaded X on this parcel — the 0.2% annual-chance band — while the cluster to its east is unshaded. The brief prices the difference at −$15,000 and puts an elevation certificate and a bindable insurance quote on the verify list.
- Road & traffic
The nearest major road (RM 2900) is about 1.5 mi away — well off the highway grid.
- Boat ramp
6 min by road to the nearest public ramp
- County cross-check
-
Ask$3,275,000Our analysis$2,950,000County appraised$2,078,780The brief's county leg$2,350,000
The county reads about 30% below our analysis here — and the brief does not simply follow it down. It says absolute county levels are demonstrably noisy in this market, carries the county leg at $2,350,000, weights it 5%, and uses it for direction rather than level: every county-anchored reading of this parcel lands between $2.0M and $2.6M. Ours is the $2,950,000 — that is the figure the brief argues for and defends, and the others are the checks we hold it against.
Your copy carries our value. The Tour Brief you hand your buyer carries the facts without it.
- Comps
Every comp here is a proxy and labeled one — the last list price at close × 0.944, this project's convention in a non-disclosure state, and "estimates, not facts" in the brief's own words. The heaviest comp leg carries a NEEDS VERIFICATION flag and an agent MLS lookup beside it, worth ±$110K. Texas hides most closes; we prove the ones we can.
- What to verify in person
The brief's top two of its eleven open items for this home: dock feasibility — sound the depth off the beach and get an LCRA shoreline-permit pre-read, worth ±$200–300K and the decisive item in the file — and 24 months of verified short-term-rental income, worth ±$150K. Records can't settle these; a sounding and a phone call can.
The same brief at a very different ask.
ADDRESS WITHHELD, EVERY NUMBER REAL
A 2,608 sq ft open-water home in Granite Shoals, read from its photos as an original 1980s-90s build with no visible remodel cues — under contract at $999,750 when the sample was published, down 28.6% from where it started, a fall the brief prints on its own first line
- Frontage
60 ft, hand-reviewed for our analysis — and the brief still puts a survey on the verify list rather than calling it settled.
- Waterfront view
True open-water frontage: about 98 ft to the water, an outlook spanning roughly 185° — an unusually wide panorama — and big water effectively off the dock, about 600 ft out. About 10.7 acres of open water within about 500 ft of the shoreline.
- Dock & boathouse
Dock 323 sq ft and boathouse 1,657 sq ft on county records — a double boathouse with two lifts, both boats tarped in the photos, so the lift and cradle hardware could not be confirmed. At ~1,980 sq ft the structures are over the 1,500 sq ft LCRA threshold, so a permit is required: confirm it exists and transfers.
- Flood zone
FEMA flood zone AE on file — flood insurance likely required. The brief says get a quote before contract, not after.
- County cross-check
-
Ask when we wrote it$1,190,000Our analysis$1,270,000County appraised$1,472,327
Our $1,270,000 was written on 2026-07-29, when the ask was $1,190,000 — above it, not below. The home had already stepped down from $1,400,000 in April through $1,299,000 in May to that July figure. Nine days after our number the seller cut again, to $999,750, and it went under contract. What it actually clears at will never be public: Texas does not publish closing prices.
- Comps
The client page carries three nearby open-water sales — one at 0 miles, one 0.2 miles off, one 0.9 miles away — and no prices beside them, because Texas does not publish closes. The agent copy carries the priced grid: seven weighted reads, two of them same-street comparables.
- What to verify in person
The brief's open items: the LCRA permit on ~1,980 sq ft of dock structures, over the 1,500 sq ft threshold — confirm it exists and transfers; the bulkhead, which is not visible in a single listing photo and needs a structural look rather than a photo; and a flood-insurance quote on Zone AE before contract.
This is home #2 of the published Tour Brief — open its pages and check every line (PDF). Four things above are not in it: our analysis value, the $1,190,000 ask it was written against, the county's appraised value, and the agent-copy comp detail — the Tour Brief omits our number by design, the county figure is on the appraisal district's own site, and the agent copy isn't published.
Built for Central Texas Lakefront
Constant-level matters: LCRA normally operates these pass-through lakes within about a foot of their target level, outside floods and scheduled maintenance drawdowns, so a dock and a shoreline behave predictably.
The 262 waterfront homes we track on the constant-level lakes sit inside 1,514 listings we follow. Near-water and off-water homes are outside what we measure.
Lake Buchanan is tracked as a fluctuating lake: 1 of the 114 values there come from Lake Buchanan’s own sales; the rest are an automated estimate, a county figure, or one of our analyses, and none is adjusted for the drawdown. 68 of its listings already carry a finished analysis. We publish no coverage figure for it.
148 of 149 on these three lakes in the $1M–$4M band are ready today.
262 waterfront listings tracked · 230 ready today — the analysis already opens.
If a waterfront house on these three lakes is listed, it is in our data. Homes across the road or with a lake view aren't waterfront and aren't ours.
How You Get One
THE ANALYSIS IS ALREADY BUILT
We pre-build the mid-range first: every waterfront listing from $1M to $4M on Lake LBJ, Inks Lake, Lake Marble Falls, and Lake Buchanan is already tracked. 161 of them have a full analysis built — type the address and it opens on the spot. For the 1 we haven't reached yet, and for anything on a lake we don't cover, we say so plainly rather than guess.
That first one is free with nothing attached — no card, no account, and it includes the full Agent Deep Analysis. What comes after it isn't priced yet; we'd rather set a number against real briefs than guess at one now — and if a price ever applies to something you send us, you'll hear it from us before we run it.
Try a listing freeWhat These Documents Actually Say
Three passages, word for word, from documents we have already delivered — two of them from the published samples you can open and check. Addresses withheld; nothing rewritten for this page.
TOUR BRIEF
This home fronts open water; the figure is the straight-line distance to the lake's widest stretch (at least ~1,000 ft across) — the boat route follows the channel, so the actual run is longer. In plain terms, that is a real run to big water — worth doing by boat before you decide.
From the published sample's Lakefront Tour Brief — read it in the Tour Brief sample (PDF)
PRICING ANALYSIS
A model outputting a number within 3% of a price this house has already carried, unsold, through 206 days is not predicting — it is reading the listing back.
From a delivered Agent Deep Analysis — address withheld; figures as of its delivery date
DEAL READ
The dock is a real number, and it may be a zero. A covered slip with a lift plus bulkhead work is a $120,000–$175,000 item, and on a shallow sand flat the shoreline-permit answer may be no dock at any price.
From the published sample's Agent Deep Analysis — read it in the Agent Analysis sample (PDF)
ILLUSTRATIVE TOUR EXAMPLE
Drawn From Our Own Shoreline Measurements
Side by side, the water tells different stories — a river arm, a channel — and a brief prints that difference instead of one 'waterfront' checkbox. Two homes we have briefed are marked, each read the way a brief reads it: facts only, never a price.
Shorelines drawn from the same lake outlines every frontage figure is measured against — base geometry © OpenStreetMap contributors.
The two sample briefs sit inside the dashed rings — addresses withheld.
Every figure above is from public county records or the home's own brief, printed with its source. No price, value, or verdict appears on a named home here. The two named homes are from our own tracking — we chose them; nobody sent them. Your listing on this map? We'll feature it or remove it — your call.
An example, not a limit — the same brief runs for one home or a full day of showings.
We Show Our Work
Every number traces back to a public record, a measurement, or a method we name — not a black box. Our shoreline reads are strong comparative measurements, not a substitute for a licensed survey — and when a listing's map pin disagrees with the county parcel, we flag it and hold back everything that pin alone would have told us.
Dock and seawall values come from a priced tier table — reviewed on 10 homes and tested against 32 more priced rows. Half the time it lands within $12.5K of our own hand-priced grid; one time in ten it differs by more than $44K. In those 32 tests it never got the direction wrong and showed no habit of running high or low. Two caveats we'd rather say than have you find: Texas doesn't publish sale prices, so these tests measure the table against our own priced grid rather than against sales — and the tier values were set partly in view of that same grid, which makes this a consistency check rather than independent validation.
Where a commercial valuation model appears in a brief, it is labeled as one — and we tell you when it is only reading the listing back. What records can't measure — water depth at the dock, silt in the back of a cove, whether the dock's LCRA permit is clean and transferable — the brief turns into on-the-tour items instead of pretending.
Right now, 35 of the 262 waterfront homes we track carry two frontage figures on file that don't come from the same source — our own automated screen of the parcel map, and a separate figure from the listing or a recorded plat. On 21 of them the two land more than 20 percent apart. Two records on file differ, so we print both figures rather than pick one. The two usually disagree in our screen's direction, not the listing's — on 13 of the 21 our automated read is the larger number — which is why that read stays a screen and is never the frontage we settle on for a buyer. Where an agent has analyzed a home by hand, the Tour Brief your buyer sees carries the single figure that analysis settled on.
ONE LOT. OUR OWN DATA, WRONG TWICE.
Both wrong numbers are ours, both roughly 2× too high on a narrow, very deep lot, and the published sample prints four independent reads against them before pinning 59 ft. See how we found it — page 3 of the agent analysis (PDF)
The Numbers Behind the Numbers
- Frontage
- measured from county parcel records against the mapped shoreline; a comparative read, not a survey
- Dock and seawall
- valued from a priced tier table, tested against our own hand-priced grid
- Water type
- every home is classed as open water, cove, or finger/channel from measured shoreline geometry — not one undifferentiated 'waterfront' checkbox — and the brief reads the finer grain in its own words: a cove mouth vs. its interior, a river arm below a dam, a peninsula point
- View
- how many degrees of open water the lot actually faces, plus how much open water sits near it
- Road noise
- actual TxDOT traffic counts for the road, and how far the house sits from it — not a guess from how close the road looks on a map
- Boat ramp
- straight-line distance and drive time where we have both
- Flood risk
- looked up directly against FEMA's flood maps, and we say in plain words whether the lot sits inside or outside the mapped 100-year floodplain — and that the zone describes the land, not how high the house sits on it
- Comps
- built for a non-disclosure state. Texas doesn't publish sale prices, and we don't pretend otherwise
- A second read
- where the county publishes an appraisal figure for the parcel, the value is checked against it — that is 456 of the 1,514 homes we track today. On the rest the county publishes none, so there is no second record to check against and we don't imply one
Your buyer request page
Share a page with your name, logo and contact details. A buyer can ask about a property or get in touch before choosing one, and the request comes to you.
Buying on the Water?
This page is for agents. Ask your agent for a Lakefront Tour Brief on the homes you are considering. If your agent has shared a request page with you, use it to ask about a property or to start a conversation.
There's nothing for you to sign up for here — your own agent requests it.
Send Us One Address You Already Know.
One you've walked, one you're showing this week. You'll know in the first look whether the frontage number matches what you already believe — and you'll have a branded Tour Brief to hand your buyer at the showing.
Your first property is free — the Agent Deep Analysis included.
Pricing after that isn't set yet — you'll hear it from us before it applies to anything you send.
No subscription to start and nothing to cancel.
Your address goes straight to us to build the brief — we don't pass it to another agent.
THE BUYER'S COPY
Inside the Tour Brief
The deliverable is paper, not a password — something your buyer carries from showing to showing rather than another link they'll forget to open. One property or an entire day of showings, print-ready, carrying your name and brokerage.
Every home gets its own pages — two for the first home in the published sample and three for the second — plus a side-by-side comparison when there's more than one and a plain-English explainer on the back.
Real pages and passages from the published sample — addresses withheld, every number real.
Every home's page opens on the waterfront read — and pulls the decisive numbers into one box, printed below word for word.
At a glance
From page 3 of the published sample (PDF). The road line carries the measured distance and the actual traffic count, not an impression.
From the comparison grid, when the day has more than one home — water type, frontage and condition side by side. Where the sample has no condition read it prints an em dash, and its own key on that page defines the dash as "not in our data."
WHAT A HOME'S PAGE COVERS
Road, ramp, and county notes print when there's something worth saying — silence is a finding too.
Prefer the real thing? Read the published client sample (PDF) — addresses withheld, every number real. The long version that stays in your bag — the Agent Deep Analysis — is its own document, next section down.
You advise the client. We supply the research. Your copy carries our number and the argument behind it. The Tour Brief you hand your buyer never carries it. A client page sent from the share sheet carries it on every home we price, ticked on to begin with; the box that takes it off is on that sheet, in front of you before you send — your call on every home. Your letterhead introduces the brief — it never claims you produced the numbers. The client pages point back to you for anything further — never to us.
LakefrontBrief is built and run by Colorado Bend Software on Lake LBJ. It is not a real-estate licensee or an appraiser — this is a data practice, not a brokerage.
Need just the comps for one address? You can share those on their own.