Any insight into the Ft Myers, FL market for BRRRR or flipping?

[Shane M.]

I am in the Tampa Bay area and am new to investing. My area right now is just completely not feasible for me with limited capital and complete rehab job houses listing at 200K in C class areas. Ft Myers seems to have a lot better of a price point and is still drivable for me to do what little work I can accomplish on my own and to even feel comfortable self managing if it becomes a BRRRR. Anyone in this market have any insight for a newbie that has time to chat?

[Kristina Kuba]

@Shane M.

On a macro level, we saw huge increases during the pandemic years of home values in all the big cities in Florida. From my perspective, I don’t see a huge downshift in places like Miami and Tampa because we are driven by new jobs. For example, tech companies like Pfizer came to Tampa and Tampa among top 10 fastest growing U.S. tech hubs for IT talent.

Now when you go 2.5 hours south to Fort Myers, there is a lack of tech and growing jobs to support the high growth in the last 2 years. In my experience, I would be very cautious calculating ARV on your BRRR's and flips down in Fort Myers. Fort Myers home prices were up 31.7% compared to last year, selling for a median price of $415K. There were 435 homes sold in June this year, down from 646 last year.