I'm thinking of buying a house in florida for retirement, finally got the wife convinced this is a good thing. I was wondering where in florida should I look where I can live on the water (so I can have my own dock). Be able to run a 42' off shore with no problems or headaches from neghbors and local harbor masters. Live within 1 hour from a major airport, (so I don't have to drive for ever to pick someone up visiting) . Don't want to spend extra money just to live in a fancy neighborhood (things like that don't mean nothing to me). I want a nice house in a middleclass location. Want to live close to a city not 20 minutes into the woods or swamp.

Cape Coral/Ft. Myers is nice. We looked all over and was the best for the money we could find. There is also a international airport in Ft. Myers.

I'm up North af Tampa in Hernado Beach, waterfront prices are still halfway under control here. You can get something decent here for around 400k on the canal. That's about the cheapest I think you will find any more on the water down here that's anywhere neer anything. We are about 45 minuits from Tampa international and about 5 minuits from a own called spring hill which has everything you will need.

Many people in the Broward County area, (Ft. Lauderdale) are moving up to the Jupiter/Tequesta area to avoid the traffic congestion and high taxes.

The Cape Coral area on the West coast gets you a pretty good bang for the buck.

North of Jupiter on the East coast is Stuart, Ft. Pierce and Port St. Lucie.
Reported to be like Ft. Lauderdale was 20 years ago. Good Luck!

cape coral, april we purchased a corner lot, 310 feet with two! docks and 20,000 lb lifts, home built in 1986, live in pa and just took the 38 topgun down , less than 30 min, to the NEW airport building, last week saw a dolphin swim by in the cannal. i looked real hard in ft. lauderdale area and for what i got it would be a 1960`s tear down house, lots of go fast boaters close by, glad i made the move...

Check out Tarpon Springs--but be prepared--the littel town I'm in has seen property rpcies go 40% since January. They are flattenint right now but still nutz. A house I had on beachside tht I bought 10 years ago for $140K ahd couldn't give away when I got transferred is now $450K0016oosf with small pool.

Just sold a small condo--100sf for $175K--we bought it 3 years ago for 35K

So get out the KY

Tarpon is about a half hour south of me, realy nice place but you will get bothered about a loud boat there. It is an old greek sponge diving town with alot of cool history but also alot of old folks and the rest are commercial shrimpers and sponge divers, they yell at you for ideling loudly in the canal at 3 in the afternoon yet they rumble in and out with their diesels roaring and deck hands yelling at 3 and 4 in the morning. I know they are earning their living and I'm not mas at em about that, it's the fact that they complain about us that pisses me off.

Elec1
Check your email

The Keys (Marathon) for boating are hard to beat, depending on the wind you could boat in the Atlantic or Gulf the color of the water is incredible, Miami is 1 1/2 hr away, alot of channels and bays to live on. We also have both sunrises and sunsets

Marco Island is a beautiful place to live. I moved here from NYC about 2 years ago.
Much less expensive than the east coast, and less expensive than Naples.