All Forum Posts by: William Stokes

@Benjamin Cowles, I just wanted to chime in on whats wasterful in our area. The abundance of 3000-30,000 sqft homes that sit empty 9 months out of a year. Having my dinky 500-700 sqft in comparison to that seems like an episode of Tiny Homes of SWFL.

I sometimes ponder the minimalistic life, because I feel like there are lots of benefits. I wouldnt mind owning a tiny house or 2. Hell if we had more live-aboard friendly marinas that didn't cost an arm and a leg i'd be living on a boat, but the fees are more than a mortgage! I'm interested to see how this would work out in our area as well.

Contracting it myself. I talked to Mike with Express homes and he says they only build in certain communities and the Cape, so Bonita Springs is out of the question.

That actually sounds like that's more up my alley. What community are you building in?

I'm looking at a few, but didn't want to move on any until I selected a builder, viewed their floor plans, and made sure we won't run into any foreseen issues with the zoning and permits.

I talked to a few folks at DR Horton, and what I was told is that their subsidiary companies Express Homes and Emerald Homes are the only ones who build on lots in non-HOA communites - Not DR Horton themselves. Express only builds in Cape Coral and Emerald is the luxury line that only builds $800k and up homes. I'd be fine with DR Horton because they seem to have the best value per sq footage, but from what I hear, they only build standard homes in select communities only.

I am having the darndest time trying to locate a credible custom home builder in Collier / Lee County (Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples). The ones that I've discovered only build $100k homes in Cape Coral, Lehigh Acres & Punta Gorda, or million dollar homes in Naples - Fort Myers. 

Anyone know the players in town who do everything in between? Thinking of doing a SFH or duplex in a ***non-HOA*** community of South Ft Myers or Bonita Springs. I've come across newer companies but dont want to go with someone without a longstanding credibility here in southwest Florida. Wouldn't want them to close shop and leave town 3 months into my home warranty.

I may or may not have intentionally overloaded on key words. Nevertheless, I appreciate any light anyone can shed.

Wow congrats. I'm sure the closing jitters are gone, but its gotta feel good to be climbing closer to your goal (and not paying crazy prices to do so).

For one property, I would look into more of a landing page site instead of a full blown website. It'll be cheaper in most cases. Vrbo and Airbnb will always be your best sources for generating leads (sadly). But a website is good so you can advertise your home on social media and bring people directly to your property instead of them comparing you with the masses of the listing sites. I'm not familiar with webchalet, but i would recommend you go with a one & done deal for your website.  Have it built using Wordpress for example, so that you can easily change the content. I would also have it set up so you self host it instead of paying a company or web designer to host the site. 

@Mike Strelser Does this property have gulf access?

Hi @Eric Cozby and welcome. I do a lot of work in the Naples/Fort Myers when it comes to rentals. I'm interested in hearing more about your plans. I always love when someone local shows up on BP, it allows me the oppurtunity to converse with other RE professionals and investors in the area.

I did my online prep test at larson education. Passed with a breeze. I'm sure I got no more than 5 wrong