Best of Lee is South Ft. Myers

[hiknapster]

Oh, okay. Retiring to the area is much different than trying to make a living there. There are more than enough mortgage brokers and real estate agents. Many have left those careers to find other employment, although they are not having much luck with that, either. My MIL worked in a property appraiser's office for about six years, and even she was recently let go.

[NY62]

Originally Posted by hiknapster

Oh, okay. Retiring to the area is much different than trying to make a living there. There are more than enough mortgage brokers and real estate agents. Many have left those careers to find other employment, although they are not having much luck with that, either. My MIL worked in a property appraiser's office for about six years, and even she was recently let go.

I know what you are saying. Hopefully with the new presidency things will turn and people down there will once again have jobs. Things are slow all over. The biggest problem is the fuel costs, they are hurting eveything.

[kroeran]

[Finally my choice for the best area is South Ft. Myers. Both in terms of value and location it offers the best of everything. Being off Daniels you're in a relatively safe area but can still find nice SFH's for under $300k. Minutes from Bell Tower, Gulf Coast Town center, and the Airport. The best local restaraunts are also in the Daniel's/Cypress Lake corridor. The Summerlin/Gladiolous area is also nice but still not quite my favorite.[/quote]


after looking all through the southeast US we ended up buying just off Daniels up Palamino at Paseo gated comm. Great south european style townhouses (they are a bit over the top in design, and not for everyone) built around sub-neighbourhood pools and semi-detached going at half original list for around $200K and less. Great neo urbanist town centre with a tennis club and resort style super pool and NO GOLF!!! there is a non-bundled golf club up Daniels for those into that...

5 minute drive to the restuarants at Daniels and the Tamiami Trail...I am a fan of Bahama Breeze.

prices will likey recover a bit once they sell off the current inventory, or maybe they will suspend the build out until the market recovers.

[JMadison]

Can anyone enlighten me on where the "missing" 300,000 people are? I've read the "Cape-Coral/For Myers metropolitan area was 571,344 people". But Cape Coral shows maybe 150K, Fort Myers about 60K?

I've looked at maps and City-Data and can't seem to see where 300K other people are hiding, LOL!

Have a friend suggest we by homes in the area and am trying to assess it as I've never been there, despite being a Florida "native".

As anyone from Florida can attest, and as SWFL_native points out, Florida has very nice, and very awful spots... often adjoining each other. So it'd be useful to know where the other 300K people are hiding, LOL!

[whippersnapper]

Most residents live in unincorporated Lee County, i.e. North Fort Myers, south Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres, etc. The city limits of Fort Myers doesn't encompass too large of an area, which is why the population seems so low.