Back from Cape-Coral, Fort-Myers,Naples (Cape Coral, Lehigh Acres: for sale, to rent, HOA fees)
Fort Myers - Cape Coral areaLee County
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I posted a little while ago about driving down to the Fort-Myers area from Atlanta to eventually move to the area.
We are mid-forties and have nationwide transferable jobs, and no school is needed.
We are looking at 80k-150k tops homes.
We drove from Cape Coral for a week south to Naples.
The best shopping/convenience which we both enjoy seems to be in Fort-Myers south to Estero (That huge outdoor mall there is awesome.) but Cape Coral has some nice shopping too.
I enjoy planting tropical plants, fruits and palms and can't really be too much inland as temperatures drop a lot in the winter at night and kill delicate plants.
1)NAPLES:
Well we started in Naples as it was the farthest from our centrally located Fort-Myers hotel.
Naples is cute but you can feel the rich feel, we drove to orangetree where I had noticed online nice homes in our price range sitting on 1 acre or more.
Well that didn't take long to realize our mistake, the area is a swamp, most homes had puddles all around or in the front. We saw drier sections but the whole area looks really poor, with thrash in the yards,rusty abandoned cars, I wouldn't call it ghetto as we saw nice clean homes but most wasn't nice.
That ruled Naples out which was too south for my taste anyway.
2)LEHIGH ACRES/BUCKINGHAM:
The second day was spent in Lehigh acres and Buckingham and it was worse than the Naples swamp. I now understand why 90% of people I talked to online and offline told me to not buy there.
This looks for the most part (80%) like a ghetto and sorry if I hurt someone's feelings.
There is here and there some nice cute little sections but most is very run down, ugly, lost in the middle of nowhere.
We saw 1 walmart, we know there is only 1 hotel.
So after driving the whole area for over 2 hours we went to Buckingham which I figured being a section of Fort-Myers would be nicer, well no, I actually found it worse.
We had a scare there actually when we parked in an empty for sale home and walked around the property, we couldn't see inside with the sun glare so my wife and daughter put there faces close by the living room window to look inside and both backed off telling me there was a guy squatting inside that went hiding inside the home (They saw trash laying around inside too it wasn't like a family lived inside). We took off in a hurry and will never ever walked on a vacant property without an agent in the know.
Anyway we joke about that one now but we probably beat the record for fastest back out of a driveway ever.LOL!
3) NORTH FORT-MYERS:
We saw quite a few trailers parks here, lots of smaller older type homes, lots of unpaved roads which don't bother me but my wife hates them.
We stopped at a walgreens and a gas station and the crowd was scary looking along with 3 homes and this area wasn't great either but I (Not my wife) could live here with a little more research. I like that you get more acreage than other areas but shopping you will have to go to the cape or Fort-Myers.
4)CAPE CORAL:
Well this is the area that we would potentially move in. I wouldn't go much further north than pine island blvd even if around embers pkwy it was real nice. It is too barren up north and far from the shopping.
Some areas of CC are ugly and scary some others are very nice and well taken care of.
We were actually blown out 2 or 3 times by brochures we grabbed in front of for sale homes that were 100k-140k, very nice homes in nice landscaped areas.
We actually came back to the cape on our last day to investigate further, we walked into grocery stores, talked to people at random, went to lunch in restaurants and every one was nice telling us what they thought of living here. Quite a few Northerners which my wife is (I am fom Europe) and they told us the good and the bad, but mostly good.
I love the Del Prado blvd, Cape Coral pkwy and Pine island blvd for shopping, so many stores and convenience, so more than likely I would look inside that area.
This is probably going to be the area I will research further.
5) GATEWAY/SAN CARLOS:
We did not like San Carlos that much even if the area felt a lot safer than Buckingham to the north.
It seems to be a blue collar area like us, but these people should try to keep up with their homes/Lawns a little better. I would go to Cape Coral before to consider here.
Gateway has some nice gated or not neighborhoods but it's very small and so close to ugly Lehigh cares and Buckingham I would hate to drive close to these areas to go anywhere.
6)FIDDLESTICKS:
This is lovely but a little over our pocketbook or we would move here hands down.
Well I would like to hear opinions from people that live or have lived here especially around Cape Coral.
We still don't know if we would move outright or buy and try to rent when we don't use the property.
There will be more posts coming, that's for sure.
You left out the most up and coming area of SW Florida, ESTERO..... Unless you must live on a canal and get to know ALL OF CAPE CORAL'S RULES, REGULATIONS AND SEWER SCAMS, I would check out Estero, you mentioned a nice outdoor mall, Would that be The Coconut Point Mall in Estero? I would suggest looking in the estero area, draw a 5 mile radius with the Coconut point mall smack dab in the center and start on the outside and work your way in. How about Bonita?
Please, rent for a year before buying anything to be sure, unless you have someone that you can really trust to guide you WHO ACTUALLY LIVES HERE here and now and is experiencing the area for at least 5 years. The Cape, like all gated and most non gated communities has a $hit load of rules so please investigate those before purchasing. Please read thru all of the past posts on all area's and make educated decisions. Don't forget that the traffic now is not to bad, wait till season when all the crazy northerners are back and drive like their the only ones on the road. What takes you 15 minutes to get somewhere now could, in season could take 45 to 60 minutes. Always remember, location, location, location!!!! Investigate Estero. Don't settle just because the price is cheap. "Ya get what ya pay for" , also, make sure you use a "good" home inspector. ask lots of questions!!!
Hi
Naples is cute but you can feel the rich feel, we drove to orangetree where I had noticed online nice homes in our price range sitting on 1 acre or more.
You actually looked at homes in Orange Tree? There are NO homes in Orange Tree on an acre of land and there never has been.
I can write and write and write but until someone actually visits and tells the truth it is useless. The same thing happens up here. I gush about Knoxville and then someone visits and says, "Wow. Is that place NICE!"
Anyway, go with your gut instincts. They are right on target. And you don't have to worry about jobs or schools? Oh heck, yeah!
I do agree that Estero is nice. Nice folks there, too. But it can be a bit more expensive. It's great for people that want to be more central and have a job to go to.
But Cape Coral doesn't really have any crazy rules. Most of our family lives on The Cape and it is normal things like not being able to park a cargo trailer. We have a poster on here called "Equal Rights" and he didn't realize the rules so he's angry. But the rules are nothing more than you would find anywhere less. In fact they can be a heck of a lot less than in some communities that want the mailbox a certain color or the length of the grass to be so many inches.
I lived in the area for ten years and we still have most of our family in Cape Coral. I lived in Bonita, Island Park and San Carlos and you have nailed down exactly what is going on in swFlorida. The vibe. The people in certain neighborhoods. And sure enough, you found a crackhead or methhead in one of the abandoned homes.
I did not visit Estero beside for coconut point mall because there is not much below 150k. You get a nice condo with no yard and a community pool. I don't want anything less than 1/4 acre.
justNancy
Maybe that area I mentionned is called "Golden gates"?
Anybody familiar with this area should know where I am talking about east of 75.
hiknapster
Yes Estero is more indeed. I came upon a builder at the beach and started asking questions about homes, he sent me to 500K neighboorhoods, that's useless to recommend that to someone that tells you they have a 150k budget.
I love Florida, it has always felt like home. I love the heat and humidity, when it's 95 degrees and the sun is beating on me, I love it. I love the palm trees and can look at them until I go blind. People tell me the bugs, o my god the bugs in FL, well come see spiders big like my hand in Georgia, we have spiders everywhere and nasty ones, lots of other bugs too.
We went in some areas with my wife and she would freak out at hundreds of large insects until I told her they were dragonflies and none would touch her which they did not.
The big flying roaches are cute too, nature at its best.
BigMunch
Yes we did watch the news. 2 people were murdered in Lehigh acres and 1 in that golden gate/orange tree area of Naples while we were there. 2 areas I found "Ghetto" like.
We have crime here in Georgia too, log on right now to AJC.com and read, it's the same.
easytim
Yes I do fish but a lot less than I used too. I have become kind of an animal lover and even if I eat meat there is no way I can kill anything. I don't blame people that enjoy it of course, but when I fish it all goes back alive. I recently was fishing at Fort Desoto and a guy got a small fish that he threw on a dock to die, I couldn't believe it, I walked to the fish and threw it back in the water. My passion lies more in snorkeling/diving now which I know this area is not good for but the keys are not far.
I really wish you hadn't addressed the bug issue to me. I said nothing about bugs. I only said you were dead on in your beliefs about each area. There is someone on the Florida forum that is going on and on about how people told them there was going to be huge bugs and he didn't see any since he moved here. I never warn people about bugs or the heat. I do explain dew point to folks but I had no trouble with either when I lived there. Ugh. Just what I need.
But Georgia is very similar to southwest Florida when it comes to bugs and snakes. It shouldn't be any different.
Maybe that area I mentionned is called "Golden gates"?
Anybody familiar with this area should know where I am talking about east of 75.
I am more than familiar with this area. However, you specifically mentioned Orange Tree which is a planned development (not gated) and has nice homes on .25 acre lots. There's no area of Naples called Orange Tree, so it sounded as if you were looking at Mapquest. Waterways (gated) is next to Orange Tree. Both are about 9 miles East of I-75. and there are beautiful homes in Waterways, many of them well above the range you mentioned. Waterways has more amenities, so the HOA fees are higher, but very reasonable. There's no way anyone can call that community "rundown" or "ghetto" like. You can drive even further to Ave Maria, and find a lovely community of upscale homes. I am definitely not recommending that community (I'm too much of a sinner! ) but to come to an area you don't know at all and make an assessment based on your very limited experience is extremely objective, to say the least.
I wasn't criticizing you, but your post doesn't make much sense to me. I mean, first you are talking about driving east of I-75 because you saw homes on over an acre. Then you decided you don't want to live east of I-75 because it's inland, but you looked at houses in Buckingham. Then you say you'll probably end up with a home in Cape Coral. You're all over the place, not only in location, but in price and lifestyle. If you looked at homes in Fiddlesticks, you'd know that even the lowest priced single family homes run around $300,000 and I think an equity membership of $80,000 is mandatory (but I'm not positive) Still, you've suddenly jumped from a range of $85-$150 in a rural area to a country club community off of Daniels with houses starting at about $300,000 with a $300+ monthly HOA. But you didn't look in Estero because you knew you couldn't find a house priced under $150,000.
This is what confuses me. Good luck in your search, but my head hurts.
Last edited by justNancy; 09-18-2011 at 05:37 PM..
Reason: fix typo
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