If your plans for 2023 include buying a new lake house, you may want to pause and take a look at this first. Whether it's a summer house, rental property, or your full-time home, where you choose to buy can make all the difference.

The vacation rental company Evolve recently set out to help buyers find the perfect place to purchase a lake house in 2023. Evolve notes that there are 480,000 lakes on the U.S. mainland alone, and knowing where the best areas are to invest is important.

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The team at Evolve took into consideration several factors to come up with their "Best Places to Buy a Lake House in 2023" list. They used the following to comprise a list of their top 12 choices.

  • Zillow's 2022 median home values
  • Vacation rental performance metrics for lake towns across the U.S. to learn where bookings lead to higher median revenue.
  • Estimated yearly expenses to run a vacation rental (approximately 30% of total revenue) to help calculate the cap rate.

What Michigan Town Made the List of Best Places to Buy a Lake House?

In a list filled with pretty spectacular locations scattered throughout the country, one northern Michigan town landed pretty high for the "Best Placed to Buy a Lake House in 2023".

The popular summer destination of Traverse City found itself in the No.4 spot, but not just for reasons you would think. Of course, location is everything with TC being nestled on the shores of Lake Michigan, but Evolve pointed out a few other factors making it a great place to invest.

"Investors can find ample waterfront inventory at lower price points on these lesser-known shores. Look for homes along Silver Lake, Long Lake, and Island Lake in particular — all of which are tailor-made for family vacations", the write-up said. "Plus, they have major potential to earn with the right strategy. Many of Evolve’s top-performing Traverse City homes sit on these lakefronts and blow the area’s median revenue out of the water by earning as much as $169,000 a year. Our RES team says they’re larger homes (think five bedrooms) with amenities like private docks, hot tubs, paddle boards, and kayaks".

If this is there to buy something new that could even generate some extra income, make sure to check out what Traverse City has to offer.

Check out the full list of "Best Places to Buy a Lakehouse in 2023" here. 

LOOK: See America's 50 Best Beach Towns

Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.