New Guy in Southwest Florida - Naples

[Dave Dagostino]

Good morning all.

I have been a member lurking around for a while and have decided it is time to get off the sidelines and into the game. I have worked in the real estate arena my whole career in the surveying profession. The last 17 years I have successfully run my Surveying & Mapping firm here in Naples Florida and have watched people make millions in real estate. The amount of wealth here is unbelievable with single family estate homes selling for North of $20-$40 million. 6 of the Forbes 400 richest own houses here.

Residential tear downs and new builds are netting over $500K easily in the City of Naples with many deals netting closer to $800K. I will eventually play at that table but must learn to walk before I run and accumulate some ante. There are many areas here in SW Florida that are more "normal" in price range which is where I plan to start. I have been listening to podcasts constantly, reading the forums as well as all of the suggested books by the podcast guests for a few months, and have learned a ton.

My main goal right now is to network and meet more people that are investing here in SW Florida to learn more detail about the Golden Gate Estates, Cape Coral, Lehigh Acres, and Charlotte County markets as I believe these would be good areas to get my feet wet. I do not have a lot of capital to work with so I'm thinking I would like to try to rehab/flip some properties to build up some capital and grow from there. 

Would also love to share my experience and knowledge in any way I can to help others and hopefully answer a few questions. I plan on attending some REIA meetings in April to meet new people and I am always available to meet and network if anybody in the area would like to get together and talk. Really looking forward to a new and exciting endeavor in real estate.

Thanks for reading my long winded post!

[Dave Dagostino]

Thanks @Billy Davidson @Charles Peralta and @Seth Nadreau for the welcome.

Definitely excited to get my feet wet after watching forever and soaking up a ton of info here. Yes I live in Golden Gate Estates myself and there a few Specs going up around my area. I actually have a lot out there I may build a spec on - the numbers seem to work so doing more due diligence now. For those not familiar Golden Gate Estates is the great example of the Florida Land Swindle in the 60' where Gulf American Land Corp sold swampland to people. The entire subdivision covers 80 square miles! It's crazy.