# What I’m Seeing in the Southwest Florida Real Estate Market Right Now

By Shaina Newkirk (@shainanewkirk) · Published 2026-09-27

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**What I’m Seeing in the Southwest Florida Real Estate Market Right Now**

There’s a version of the monthly real estate update we’ve all seen. Median sale price, closed sales, pending sales, inventory, days on market and a bunch of arrows showing what went up and what went down.

Those numbers matter. I look at them all the time. But they don’t always tell you what it actually feels like to buy or sell a home here right now.

Because nobody buys “the Southwest Florida real estate market.” You buy one house, on one street, in one neighborhood, from one seller. And lately, those little details are where the story is.

One of the numbers I’m paying the most attention to right now is days on market.

Recent local data puts the median around 80 days in Naples, 78 days in Bonita Springs and Estero, and 91 days in Fort Myers.

That matters because there’s a big difference between negotiating with a seller on day 3 and negotiating with that same seller on day 83.

By then, they’ve spent almost three months keeping the house ready for showings. They’ve watched other homes come on the market. Maybe they’ve reduced the price once or twice. Maybe they already bought another home. Maybe the property is sitting vacant and costing them money every month.

At some point, the conversation can change.

A seller who wasn’t interested in negotiating during the first week may look at an offer differently two months later. That doesn’t mean every older listing has a desperate seller behind it. It just means time can create motivation.

And that’s where I start paying attention.

Maybe there’s room on price. Maybe the seller will contribute toward closing costs or a rate buydown. Maybe they’re more willing to make repairs or include furniture. Sometimes the opportunity isn’t the brand new listing everyone is watching. It’s the house everyone else already scrolled past.

Here’s where things get interesting though. While homes are taking longer to sell, inventory has actually come down year over year in several of our local markets.

Homes for sale were down about 22% in Naples and Fort Myers and 31% in Bonita Springs and Estero in the latest numbers I reviewed. Pending sales were also up significantly in Naples and Fort Myers.

So is it a buyer’s market or a seller’s market?

I don’t think that question tells us much anymore.

I’m seeing homes in the same city, sometimes even the same neighborhood, behave completely differently. One updated, well-priced home gets attention quickly while another a few streets away sits for 90 days.

Same ZIP code. Similar price point. Completely different situation.

That’s also why I’m paying just as much attention to what isn’t selling as I am to what is.

When I see a house sitting for 60, 90 or 120 days, I want to know why.

Was it overpriced from the beginning? Is insurance an issue? Does it need a roof? Is there a special assessment? Are the HOA fees turning buyers away? Is there new construction nearby offering incentives that make the resale harder to compete with?

Or is there really nothing wrong with it?

That last one is where things can get interesting for a buyer.

Sometimes a perfectly good house gets overlooked. Maybe it started too high. Maybe the photos didn’t do it justice. Maybe another listing got all the attention when it first came on the market.

Whatever happened, an overlooked listing can eventually become a very different negotiation.

This is also why broad headlines about “the Naples market” or “the Southwest Florida market” only tell you so much.

If someone tells me Naples prices are up 2%, my next question is… where in Naples?

A condo and a single-family home aren’t the same market. Neither are a golf community and a non-golf community. West of 41 and farther east can behave differently. Flood zones matter. HOA fees matter. Assessments matter. Condition matters. What’s happening three doors down matters.

Cape Coral is another perfect example. Two houses can be five minutes apart and look almost identical online, but one has assessments paid and the other doesn’t. One has newer major systems while the other may need a roof soon. Both may technically have Gulf access, but the actual boating experience could be completely different.

That’s why I always come back to the same thing. Real estate is hyperlocal.

If you’re buying right now, I wouldn’t automatically dismiss a house because it’s been sitting. I’d want to figure out why it hasn’t sold and whether that creates an opportunity.

How many times has the price been reduced? Is it vacant? Has the seller already purchased another home? What have comparable homes actually closed for? What else is competing with it today?

And probably the most important question: what might this seller say yes to today that they wouldn’t have considered 60 days ago?

For sellers, I think there’s an equally important lesson here. The first few weeks matter.

Once a home starts accumulating days on market, buyers notice. The conversation can slowly change from “we should see this before someone else buys it” to “it’s been sitting for two months, what do you think they’ll actually take?”

That doesn’t mean you have to underprice your home. It means the price and positioning need to make sense for the market you’re entering today, not the market your neighbor sold in two years ago.

That’s really the story I’m watching in Southwest Florida right now.

Not whether one big median number moved up or down a few percentage points, but why certain homes are moving and others aren’t.

The statistics give us the big picture. The individual house, the street it sits on, the competition around it and the people on both sides of the transaction tell us what’s actually happening.

And that’s the part of the market I think is a lot more useful.

If there’s a house in your neighborhood that’s been sitting forever and you’ve secretly been wondering what’s going on with it, send me the address. I’m probably curious too. 😂

**Shaina Newkirk | Southwest Florida Real Estate Advisor**

  
_Helping you find your place under the sun. ☀️_