Lake Burton

The Lake at a Glance

Lake Burton is the highest and largest of six stairstep Georgia Power reservoirs on the Tallulah River, sitting at a full pool of 1,866.6 feet in the northeastern corner of Georgia in Rabun County, near Clayton. Its dam was completed in 1919, and the lake celebrated its centennial in 2020. At 2,775 acres with 62 miles of shoreline and depths of over 100 feet, it is a mid-sized mountain lake prized for the remarkable clarity of its water and the biodiversity of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains. The town of Burton, once the second-largest in Rabun County, lies beneath the surface — bought out and demolished when the dam closed.

The market here is small and exclusive. Roughly 80 homes are typically for sale at any time, with very few vacant lots, and Burton has long been a second-home haven for affluent Atlanta buyers. Timpson Cove Beach, Jones Bridge Park, Moccasin Creek State Park, and the upscale Waterfall Club anchor the lifestyle, and traditions like the Memorial Day wooden boat parade and decades-old Fourth of July fireworks define the calendar.

What Buyers Need to Know First

The single most important fact about Lake Burton is not its beauty — it is its ownership structure. About 70% of Burton homeowners do not own their land. They lease it from Georgia Power on 15-year residential lease terms, while only about 30% of the lake is fee-simple, privately owned land. This distinction shapes everything downstream: whether a lender will finance the purchase, how your property is taxed, whether you can rent the home short-term, and what happens at resale. It is entirely possible to buy a beautiful Burton home and discover only later that you own the house but not the ground beneath it. Before you fall for a listing, read our leasehold-versus-fee-simple breakdown — it is the first thing every Burton buyer should understand, and the thing most competing guides gloss over.

Who Buys on Lake Burton

Burton has long been one of Georgia's most exclusive lake markets, a second-home haven for affluent, well-connected Atlanta families who value clear mountain water and privacy over convenience. Inventory is thin — roughly 80 homes for sale at any time, with very few vacant lots — so buyers here tend to be patient and specific about what they want. Some are retirees drawn by Georgia's favorable retirement-income tax treatment and the quiet of Rabun County; others are families building a multigenerational lake tradition; a smaller group are investors, who must focus on the roughly 30% fee-simple inventory because Georgia Power discourages short-term rentals on lease lots. Understanding which of these you are shapes the entire search, from the ownership type you target to the part of the lake you focus on.

Wherever you land, the pattern that separates happy Burton buyers from frustrated ones is the same: they settle the ownership question first, line up financing suited to a lease lot when needed, price the full annual cost including any lease rent and the pass-through land tax, and understand the dock and boat rules before they make an offer. The pages below walk through each of those decisions in depth — ownership, cost, taxes, docks, water levels, and the honest tradeoffs nobody volunteers on a sunny showing — so you can move on a Burton home knowing exactly what you are buying.

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