Best Gulf Beach for building a beach home rental

[Leland S.]

For some reason, I've decided I want to build a beach home along the Florida gulf coast. I want to make sure it can perform at a 10 cap or above. My understanding of Destin it's too expensive and returns aren't great. Panama City is a grungier environment but has higher returns. I was liking the Laguna Beach area, however, I saw lots in not-ideal places running for $500k. For that price, I'd have to put in a $2M total product - 4/5 bed home with pool/hot tub etc - which only grosses me 150k. Then I learned of Fort Meyers Beach where an agent told me sand is going for $300K, but a quick internet search shows sand is actually going for 1.7M. Possibly the demand is still too high for beach homes to make the numbers investor friendly, or possibly I just need to make sure I find the right spot and build the right product. 

I'm thinking of taking a week's vacation along the coast in a couple of weeks for my birthday/investment trip to do some field research. Contacts would be nice.