Real estate deals that shaped the SWFL landscape in 2024

Author: David Dorsey, Gulfshore Business
Published: Updated:

The rise of online retail and continued regional population growth played a large role in a series of yin/yang real estate transactions that defined Southwest Florida’s top deals of 2024.

Established shopping centers and industrial warehouse buildings stood out when looking at last year’s most lucrative deals. “Retail is obviously still really strong,” says Matt Simmons, a property appraiser for Maxwell, Hendry & Simmons. “People have predicted the death of retail so often. ‘Everybody’s shifting to online, and we’re never coming back.’ But the idea that everybody is going to be buying everything online — nope. That’s not going to happen.”

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 accelerated online shopping trends in the U.S., boosting annual percentage revenue from about 10% in 2019 to about 16% in 2024, according to a study done by Capital One bank. That 16% figure sounds substantial, Simmons and other area real estate experts said. But because more than 80% of retail revenue still happens in person, it means shopping centers will continue to hold and increase in value.

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