Cape Coral ranked second best for first-time home buyers

First-time home buyers welcome to the City of Cape Coral.

The city ranked second best in the country for you, according to a WalletHub survey released on Tuesday.

“Cape Coral is hot right now,” said Scott Riddle, real estate agent and co-founder of Southwest Florida REGroup at MVP Reality. “Just look at the statistics. I mean, there’s close to 1,000 brand-new homes built in 2023 and newer on the market right now. And the ease of everything. No matter where you are in the Cape, you’re 5 to 10 minutes from shopping, for groceries, to go out to have drinks, to have dinner.”

A growing city that also drew first-time home buyer and now real estate broker Dirk Fischer.

But he said he quickly found himself underwhelmed.

“I moved from Germany to the United States in 2008,” Fischer said, partner at 5th Homes LLC. “And Cape Coral has a very good reputation in Germany, in Europe overall. You have the palm trees; you have the canals. And then that was the big awakening, when you live there, when you actually do live there, and you realize that this is nothing but a huge area that has house, after house, after house, but there’s nothing to do. There’s no social life.”

So, what reels in first-time home buyers to the Cape? The price.

“Most first-time homebuyers will come, they want at least three bedrooms, at least two baths, they want to be in that $350,000 to $400,000 price point, that’ll put them you know, at somewhere around that $1,500 to $2,200 a month mortgage payment,” said Riddle. “When you tell them that it makes them feel a little bit better, because if you can buy in that $350,000 to $400,000 range, basically, are you going to rent for that price or are you going to buy for that price?”

Cape Coral was also ranked second best because of the number of home listings they have, new building permits per capita and lead the country when it comes to real estate agents. It all makes it a smoother transition for first-time home buyers.