What can you get for $50,000? in Cape Coral Florida

What can you get for $50,000?

BY DON MANLEY •  June 28, 2009

Single-family options abound today in a price range that was virtually nonexistent at the housing market’s 2005 peak — $50,000 to $100,000.

Everything from unlived in, recent-vintage, pool homes to decades-old dwellings situated along a canal can be had. And thanks to the explosion of foreclosures and short sales, they can be found throughout Lee County, although most are located in the two communities hit hardest by real estate speculation: Lehigh Acres and Cape Coral.

Getting two or even three times more value for the dollar is common today, compared to 2005 when the median price for single-family homes in the county hit its all-time high of $322,300.

This is the seventh and final installment of the News-Press’ look at how much home can be purchased today at certain price points, as compared to four years ago. The series started with an overview and has encompassed six different price points, starting with $1 million.

Homes that would have fetched $200,000 to $225,000 in 2005 can now be had for $50,000 to $75,000, said a Realtor in Lehigh Acres.

The pickings and accommodations would have been far slimmer back in 2005.

Spending $50,000 to $100,000 in 2005 “would have bought you a little cottage or a very tiny condo,” probably in Lehigh, North Fort Myers or in a rural area, said Barb Cain in Fort Myers.

Today, it’s possible to double the living area square footage, she said. “It’s (price per square foot) just half of what it was three or four years ago. In fact, some are even 60 percent,” Cain added.

One of her listings, in Estero’s gated Island Club development, helps illustrate the market’s transformation.

The two-bedroom, two-bathroom home with 1,557 square feet of living area is available at the short-sale price of $100,000, down from the $170,000 sought when it hit the market about one year ago. That same home sold for $249,000 in February 2005.

In Lehigh Acres, a closing was held June 17 on a home in the Meadows at Mirror Lakes subdivision. The three-bedroom, two-bathroom home, with central water and sewer service and a screened-in patio and spa, was listed for $117,900 and sold for $100,000.

The development offers amenities, such as tennis courts and a picnic area, and sits across Milwaukee Boulevard from the Mirror Lakes Golf Club and near Mirror Lakes Elementary School.

“That house, back in ’05, probably would have sold for close to $200,000,” said the listing agent, Richard Minnig of Realty World C. Bagans.

Lehigh is rife with three-bedroom, two-bathroom homes, with two-car garages and about 1,400 square feet of living area, built by First Home Builders of Florida during the housing boom, he said. Those homes, Minnig said, sold for about $250,000 in 2005 and now sell for about $60,000.

The company also built many similar homes in Cape Coral.

Just $50,000 bought a four-bedroom pool home with a fenced-in backyard in the Villas neighborhood in south Fort Myers last month. Built in 1961, the foreclosed home was appraised at about $85,000 this year and would probably have fetched $185,000 to $190,000 at the market’s peak, said the listing agent,  in Cape Coral.

She and other Realtors said the market for homes in this price range has been white hot in 2009. For example, slightly more than 1,700 such homes have sold in Cape Coral alone so far this year.