Bonita Springs / Estero (Cape Coral, Country Club, Lee: real estate, foreclosure, condos)

[ice station zebra]

Looking for a gated, resort style condo with community pool close to golf and within 1/2 hour to the beach and shopping. I'm a newbie at this, but I've picked-up that the ideal condo would be 10 to 15 yrs old, have a low vacancy, high owner, low renter, low foreclosure ratio to units. Ideally, we would be on a second floor or higher with 1200+ sq feet. Are there any condo communities out there that fit this description?

Thanks

[ChrisA70]

Look into Fountain Lakes in Estero...

[pinda]

I know someone who loves living in Rapallo. Resort style living.

[justNancy]

You need to be more specific and mention a price range. You need to look at the monthy condo fee too.

Why 10 to 15 years old? How many bedrooms?

Miromar Lakes in Estero is really nice. It's about 5 or 6 years old. You can get a $1,400 sf condo for around $175,000. Villagio is also very nice and has its own little town center. There are 2/2 condos, roughly 1,500 sf, selling for $120,000.

Rapallo mentioned above is very new AFAIK. I think I saw the development being built in around 2006. A 2/2 will run about $150,000 in this market.

Pelican Landing & Bonita Bay are both golf course communities in Bonita Springs and have lots of amenities. They are older communities that are well established. Marsh Landing is in Estero and is about 10 years old. You can buy a really nice condo for around $145,000.

There are way too many to list.

I'm not in Real Estate..just a resident giving my opinion based on my own experience & research.

[hiknapster]

My guess is they are trying to avoid Chinese Drywall.

[justNancy]

Originally Posted by hiknapster

My guess is they are trying to avoid Chinese Drywall.

I thought about that too, but I don't think it was used before 2004 or after 2007. I also read that some buildings that were renovated could have Chinese Drywall.

I don't want to go off-topic, but a Realtor showed me a house in Cape Coral that had Chinese Drywall and didn't mention it. It had been completely remodeled. I only found out about it by doing lots of research. An earlier inspection found defective drywall and it was removed. So I guess it's something that doesn't have to be legally disclosed once it's removed?

It's so hard to even begin to list all the developments in Bonita and Estero without having a price range. I mean, Vasari is very pretty, but the fees are outrageous. Chris mentioned Fountain Lakes, which is nice, but I'd never call it a "resort" compared to Miromar Lakes, although I admit I haven't visited Fountain Lakes in a while. Breckenridge is also nice and it's been around for a long time. Wildcat run is very nice, so is Worthington Country Club and so on, and so on. Oh, just thought of Spanish Lakes too.

[hiknapster]

As an agent, by law, you have to disclose what you know. If you know the building has previously had Chinese drywall then you must say it. If you didn't know, you didn't know.

But this is not the road I even remotely wanted to go down. I was just saying that may be what the OP is thinking. I probably shouldn't have even done that because I don't have an opinion, one way or another. There is no hard and fast rule for when Chinese drywall was first used or stopped.

I do agree, though, that there are far too many gated communities, subdivisions, etc. that it is pretty difficult to only point out a few. One really needs to look around and decide for themselves. Last I heard, Pinda was having a hard time narrowing down a community, too. It's not easy.

[ice station zebra]

To all who responded...many thanks. Up until hearing from you I was under the impression that there wasn't a lot of choice for resort style, gated condos. Clearly that is not the case, which is good news. I'll be coming down in the next couple of months and check everything out for myself, but you have encouraged me to believe I should be able to find something.

The 10 to 15 years old comment was based on the desire to be in a relatively well established community, built before Chinese drywall and not likely yet renovated. I would think 1200+ sq feet would pretty much exclude one bedrooms. What would have been more helpful is if I had said two bedrooms, not less than 1200 sq ft. I'm retired on a fixed income,so as far as price goes the sky is not the limit. I guess for the right place we would go as high as $150,000. For all fees, hopefully only maintenance fees, I would not want to go much higher than $600 per month.

Thanks again for your input and advice.

[justNancy]

I just sent you a DM with a link to a list of condo communities in Lee County.

Good luck!

By the way, my mind is going. Really. I typed Spanish Lakes and I was thinking of Spanish Wells. I never lived there, but I passed it every day for 13+ years. Very close to the beach too. It's a golf course community in Bonita Springs.