The Property Pilot
The Property Pilot
Built from the numbers I actually use with clients — not generic advice that would apply anywhere in America. Some of this is true wherever you buy in Florida. Most of it is only true in one city, which is exactly why it is worth having.
Coastline — including the Caloosahatchee — from NOAA GSHHS full-resolution shorelines. County boundaries from US Census cartographic boundary files, Lee outlined in gold. Community positions from published GPS coordinates. Not a navigational chart.
Nine communities across Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties — and they are not interchangeable. A canal grid in Cape Coral, a river city in Fort Myers, a harbour in Punta Gorda and a different price tier entirely in Naples. What is true in one is frequently wrong in the next.
The Caloosahatchee runs straight through the middle of it, and it is the reason “Gulf access” means four different things depending on which side of a bridge you end up on.
That is the whole reason these guides are organised by city rather than lumped into one “Southwest Florida” page.
Applies statewide, or anywhere on the Gulf Coast. Start here if you have not picked a city yet.
Why the date you become a Florida resident may matter more than the date you buy — and why you do not have to rush a purchase to protect it. 8 pages, fully sourced.
Get the guideFlorida can take a qualifying veteran’s property tax bill to zero. Plus the funding fee waiver, and why VA condo approval fails here more than anywhere else. 7 pages, sourced.
Get the guideOver 400 miles of canals on a grid, city utility assessments that attach to the lot, and four different water classes that are four different markets. Nothing here transfers cleanly from another city.
The areas, the north–south trade, and the two questions that decide it before the neighbourhood name ever matters.
Read the guideWhat a Cape Coral lot owes in city utility assessments — $32,288 on a standard North 1 East lot — and how to find out before you offer.
Get the worksheetBridges, depth, seawall, flood zone, dock permits. The things that are irreversible after closing.
Get the checklistWhat a Cape Coral home actually costs every month. Insurance, flood, taxes, the assessment, and the reserve nobody budgets for.
Get the worksheetAn older, far less uniform city than Cape Coral — a historic palm corridor, the only genuinely walkable downtown in the region, and master-planned communities out east. Three different propositions inside one city.
Unincorporated Lee County, fifteen minutes west of Cape Coral — four small communities, no high-rises, and a set of county height and density rules that explain why it looks the way it does.
Researched, not yet written. I would rather publish nothing than publish something thin about a market — but I work all four, so ask me directly in the meantime and you will get the same answer the guide will eventually give you.
32 years a commercial pilot before selling Florida real estate full time. Cape Coral, Fort Myers and Lee County — relocation, waterfront and new construction. Licensed agent and licensed mortgage lender. Nearly 50 five-star Google reviews. Ich spreche Deutsch.
That is the normal starting point, and it is the most useful conversation to have early. Tell me how you would actually use the place — boat or no boat, full-time or seasonal, timeline — and I will narrow it down honestly.
Email me what you’re afterOr reply, text or call 239.977.8498 · Ich spreche Deutsch