Manitouwabing is a very interesting "finger lake". Three smaller lakes joined when the Hurdville dam went in a century ago, which is why it packs nearly 120 km of shoreline into 3,000 acres and has so many back bays. Twelve miles from Parry Sound, and you can still boat to the public docks at McKellar for the farmers' market.
The question I get most is whether the lake is holding its value. Like almost every lake, values are down from a few years ago so I publish every waterfront sale on Manitouwabing going back to 2020: how many changed hands each year, what they actually sold for, and how close that was to asking. Cottages and vacant land are kept separate, because they behave differently. You can read it further down this page and draw your own conclusion.
Current listings are below, and the full sold record is underneath them.
Latest Lake Manitouwabing Cottage Listings
The Lake Manitouwabing Market
Every sale on this lake since 2020, published in full. Cottages and vacant land are reported separately because they behave differently, and averaging them together hides both. These are the actual closed figures, not an estimate.
Lake Manitouwabing peaked in 2021: seventeen cottages sold at a median of $1,400,000, and sellers were getting 105% of asking. Five years on the median sits at $970,000 and buyers are paying 96% of list. The Parry Sound district as a whole is roughly flat over the last twelve months, so the regional number tells you very little about this particular lake — which is the case for reading a lake on its own.
Volumes here are small. Nine sales in 2022, thirteen so far this year. A single unusual property moves a yearly median, so read direction across several years rather than trusting any one figure. Vacant land is the quieter story: eighteen parcels changed hands across 2020 and 2021, and only seven in the five years since.
Sales and Prices by Year
Switch between cottages and vacant land, and between median and average price. Bars are the number of sales; the line is price.
Cottages
| Year | Sales | Median Price | Average Price | Lowest | Highest | Sale-to-List |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 13 | $820,000 | $962,462 | $450,000 | $2,900,000 | 101% |
| 2021 | 17 | $1,400,000 | $1,303,516 | $576,760 | $2,150,000 | 105% |
| 2022 (9 sales) | 9 | $1,170,000 | $1,324,556 | $415,000 | $2,600,000 | 103% |
| 2023 | 19 | $930,000 | $1,192,053 | $442,000 | $2,775,000 | 96% |
| 2024 | 18 | $977,500 | $1,049,625 | $615,000 | $1,659,250 | 97% |
| 2025 | 25 | $816,000 | $999,420 | $425,000 | $2,451,000 | 98% |
| 2026 (partial year) | 13 | $970,000 | $1,216,000 | $570,000 | $1,899,000 | 96% |
Vacant Land
| Year | Sales | Median Price | Average Price | Lowest | Highest | Sale-to-List |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 6 | $400,568 | $406,522 | $190,000 | $613,000 | 115% |
| 2021 | 12 | $530,500 | $635,833 | $41,000 | $1,350,000 | 111% |
| 2022 (1 sale) | 1 | $465,000 | $465,000 | $465,000 | $465,000 | 83% |
| 2023 (3 sales) | 3 | $422,000 | $445,667 | $255,000 | $660,000 | 100% |
| 2024 (2 sales) | 2 | $612,500 | $612,500 | $325,000 | $900,000 | 85% |
| 2025 (1 sale) | 1 | $215,465 | $215,465 | $215,465 | $215,465 | 43% |
Years marked in red had fewer than ten sales. With one or two transactions the figure describes those properties rather than the market — read it as indicative only.
Figures come from MLS sold records for waterfront properties in the Lake Manitouwabing area of McKellar and McDougall, deduplicated to remove properties listed on more than one board. Sale-to-list is the average across that year's sales. Records before 2020 are too sparse in the source to publish honestly, so the series starts there. For the wider district, see the Parry Sound quarterly dataset back to 2010, or the Ontario Cottage Market Forecaster™ for the current directional read.
Local Lake Insights
- Large, many-bayed “finger lake” covering approximately 1,178 hectares (~3,000 acres) with nearly 120 km of shoreline.
- Dam-controlled system operated by Parry Sound PowerGen as part of the Seguin River Water Management Plan, regulating seasonal water levels.
- Excellent proximity to Parry Sound, offering quick access to marinas, shopping, dining, healthcare, and Highway 400.
- Close to The Ridge at Manitou, a championship golf course, adding lifestyle appeal for both seasonal and year-round owners.
- Known for miles of great boating, with expansive navigable stretches ideal for cruising, paddling, fishing, and watersports.
- Shallow zones occur in back-bay areas created by water-level increases; deeper basins offer preferred swimming and docking conditions.
- Most cottages trade between $570,000 and $1.9M, with a 2026 median of $970,000. Larger estate properties do clear $2M — the highest sale in this record was $2.9M in 2020 — but they are the exception rather than the norm.
- Vacant waterfront lots have become genuinely scarce: eighteen sold across 2020–21, only seven since, and none so far in 2026.