Land O' Lakes, Florida.

Land O' Lakes is named accurately, and the water is the thing that separates one listing from another here. Scattered through the area are dozens of lakes, some large enough to ski on, many with private frontage attached to individual properties, and a lakefront home in Land O' Lakes trades at a materially different level than an identical house two streets inland. Establishing which one a listing actually is becomes the first job of the photography.

That is aerial work. From the ground, a lakefront back yard shows a strip of water through trees and a neighbor's dock, and it is genuinely hard for a buyer to tell whether they are looking at a hundred feet of private frontage or a shared easement with a glimpse. From the air the frontage, the shoreline, the dock and the size of the lake are all immediately legible.

The housing is more varied than the newer communities to the east. There is 1970s and 1980s stock on generous lots, much of it under mature oak, alongside acreage properties on well and septic with room for boats, workshops and trailers, alongside newer subdivisions closer to the Suncoast Parkway. Older lakefront homes are often single story with the good glass facing the water, which means the rear elevation is the important one and the interiors facing the lake need blending so the view survives.

Canopy over the older streets keeps the clean exterior window early, and long private drives are worth showing rather than cropping out.