Fort Myers Top Place to Buy a Vacation Home

If you’re looking for a great place to buy a vacation home, Fort Myers is a good spot to begin and end your search. Known for its white sand beaches and endless sunshine, some rightfully consider the city tops when it comes to purchasing a vacation home.

The experts at Rented.com certainly seem to agree. The website recently ranked Fort Myers one of its top locations for buying a vacation home. The property management site looked at trends in housing costs and tourism, then analyzed the information to help predict rental success.

In order to come up with a market’s rental potential, the website looked at things like property taxes, real estate prices, rental and occupancy rates and average maintenance costs. Analysts also looked at any legal regulations for an area that make short term rentals more difficult and looked at rental property demand for a specific area.

They pointed out even during an economic downturn, the markets on the list remain established vacation destinations. Of course, Florida perfectly fits the bill with plenty of beach towns and hundreds of miles of shoreline.

For Fort Myers, in particular, Rented..com posted a median listing price of $199,000 and estimated rental income of $24,000. The city also ranked high on other similar studies, including one produced by Zillow.

As part of its Second Home Index, Zillow ranked cities based on their rental income and investment potential. Analysts looked at the price-to-rent ratio and the 12-month home value forecast.

For this ranking, Fort Myers came in at number three in the nation. The city received a score of 88.9 out of 100 for homes priced between $150,000 to $250,000. Zillow predicted a 12-month appreciation of 5.6-percent.

Overall, Zillow gave locations in Southwest Florida high marks for golf, beaches and boating and amusement parks or attractions.