Let me sum it up for you in my relative terms.

Our Ft Lauderdale area house is worth about $2mm as of today. The house we will be finishing up at the Lake(19mm) next year will be nearly the same value. HOMSTEADED property taxes are about $30k in Ft Lauderdale and will only be about $2800 at LOTO on a vacation home.

I could list a bunch of reasons the Lake isn't headed for anything like 2008, but there will always be naysayers and cheerleaders. Just buy what you like and can afford, if you aren't trying to flip it, or sell anytime soon, no downturn will matter, even in the longshot it happens.

Let me sum it up for you, You act like no one else gets an opinion, seems the biggest cheerleaders in this thread are ones trying to move land, all this posturing Hey look at me, I could give two ****s,

I must be one of the few that doesn't see the attraction with LOTO, been there a handful of times, just another body of water with bars,

you have not made it unless you're in the look at me club, LOL

I would wait a good 6 months before deciding to see how stuff shakes out. You need to run the numbers. My current guess is the only way you are going to break even with rental income vs expenses is if you are putting at least 50% cash down. I think there will be pull back, but I don't believe it will be too extreme.
I bought my condo pre covid at less than half of it's current value and if I was renting it, I'd still need to rent it about 70 nights a year to break even if I was using a management company.

I'd say that the 2 people who responded and you are referring to who actually own and develop property at LOTO have a lot more knowledge about the LOTO real estate market than a guy who visits the lake once or twice a year for a long weekend.

For me, it was my first lake vacation as a teenager in '77. Once I was able to afford a boat as an adult in '98, the memories of boating on that lake drew me back. Spent the next 25 years going to the lake multiple times a year with the last 4.5 years having my boat there full time. The lake has changed dramatically over that timespan and I can see if you like a quieter, sleepier lake LOTO would not be for you. In a lot of ways it is no longer a lake for me due to the post-COVID influx of people and even before COVID, the growth of the average size of boats there and the increase of how rough the water is on weekends. But if you like performance boating and live in the Midwest, there still is no better place to go and take in all the action. My son, who first got drug along with us to the lake as a 6-year old, now at 30 still goes back to the lake at least a couple times a year. As a kid you never could have told he liked it. Seemed to just tolerate it. Then as an adult he couldn't wait to get back down there. Told us many of his favorite childhood memories were of the lake. Blew my mind as he isn't much into boating at all!

As for rental property, I agree with Griff above. A friend just dropped over $500K on a new unit (in the yet to be completed building facing towards Dog Days) at Topsider. Thinks he can swing it by renting it out. NFW. The math doesn't work. I'd sit back and wait and see how inventory does over the next several months.

I read your edited post, so I'll just point or that I only made one comment, about MY reasons for believing in the lake. And I didn't mention my development at all. Only my build as an example of logic.

And I also told the OP to buy what he likes or can afford, and that all downturns(if) right themselves. For example, how does the price point look now compared to Pre-2008? :cool:

Lake Expo article that just came out today relative to the discussion
https://www.lakeexpo.com/real_estate...5270e631d.html

Lake of the Ozarks It's booming but rates are going up hope it stays booming there & nation wide:confused:

I may not boat on the lake much but that has nothing to do with the amount of times Ive gone to look at properties and was ready to buy when things went crazy, so the tracker you planted on my truck must be broken....:D