Future of Marco Island: Marco Island, one of the most opulent tropical islands located in Florida, bustling with new home construction, thriving hotel business and encased by warm pristine gulf water. What does all of this equal one may ask. Well, from what I have been told by my realtor friend, the property values here on Marco Island have been going through the roof. Last summer, June 4th to be exact, my wife and I were in contact with a person that owned a indirect waterfront lot that was just to the North of San Marco Rd. Sure, it is about a 45 minute boat ride to get to the Gulf of Mexico, but hey, it was a waterfront lot, with indirect access to what we deem as our Mecca, the open Gulf of Mexico waters! To the facts, this lot was "for sale by owner" for $210,000.00 Lots of money for us, and what we thought was just a decent lot. Needless to say we passed on the "deal" thinking that we would find something better soon. We were wrong, now, (as of July 2004) according to my computer researching, M.L.S searching comrade, the cheapest waterfront lot (if there is such a thing on Marco) was listed at $675,000.00! Now how in the world could this be true? Just a mere year later and yes, we are priced out of our waterfront lot. So this brings me to my conclusion, there are people on Marco Island that purchased their homes and lots back when the getting was good, i.e.: waterfront homes for $140,00. This era ended about 6-8 years ago. We have these home owners that now can sell their homes for up to a cool million or in that neighborhood. With this thought in mind, there are families with kids, that perhaps inherited their lairs from their parents or distant aunts and uncles, or got lucky and purchased when the time was right. Many of these home owners with children are indeed selling their homes and moving to Naples or maybe Fiddlers Creek. You say, so what, let them grab their profit and get the heck out of dodge, we don't need them on our island anyway. Fine, many of the profit grabbers have made their move, and newbie's are buying million dollar plus homes and lots. What are these thick wallet home buyers like? Well, I will tell you...They are about 55-65 years old and are retiring with benefits. Many have homes up North that they will spend the summer in, along with a "lake house" in the nearest town that provides a getaway from their normal life. What are they lacking and not bringing to Marco Island with their purchase of property? KIDS. We are in the process of building up our fairly new Marco Island Charter School. The question is for what? It is the opinion of this writer that with the Bill Gates and Donald Trump affordable property prices, there are not families with kids moving to Marco Island, further promoting my speculation that we are going to see a rapid decline in the population of our two island schools in the next several years. Never mind the property prices, I think that most families would choke on the 8-10 thousand dollar a year taxes! There is nothing that we can do to curb the lust for tropical waterfront property. Marco Island is a unique area with weather that is some of the best in the world. Our water is a magnet that many people see and fall in love with at the crossing of the Jolly Bridge. It will be interesting to see if our island transforms itself into a elite community of retired millionaires, gated, with all of the labor force living off island, and children imported from "up North" during spring breaks and other holidays to quell the Grandparent urges to see someone under the age of 50 and to hear a little bit of noise. The future of Marco Island will no doubt be that of wealth, and will continue to be the top jewel of the 10,000 islands and the Everglades.
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