Naples Florida Golf  Homes in Audubon

Audubon is an exceptional 770-acre private gated community located West of US 41 in Naples, Florida.  It is merely a few miles south of Bonita Beach Road.  If you've shopped the country club communities in Bonita Springs you might want to take a look at what Audubon has to offer.

The homes and lifestyle at Audubon of Naples are outstanding and consist of 407 estate homes and properties, 28 fresh water lakes, pristine private nature preserves and cypress preserves.

Amenities are paramount at Audubon and include a 36,000 square foot luxurious clubhouse, with fitness facilities, card rooms, library, pro shop, croquet courts, 25 meter pool, and private, formal, and informal dining. There is also a very active tennis program featuring eight Har-Tru tennis courts.

The Audubon golf course was designed by architect Joe Lee. The Audubon community has hosted many PGA tournaments have been played on his courses. Most recently, renovations have brought the entire golf course and practice facilities up to the most current standards. To assure availability of tee times and course enjoyment, golf memberships are limited to a maximum of 350.

Home owners at Audubon of Naples enjoy either a social or full golf equity membership.

Homes for sale at Audubon Golf and Country Club begin in the $500,000's and condominiums at Audubon are available from the $500,000's, also.

For a current list of real estate for sale at Audubon Golf and Country Club contact mailto:chris@BonitaSpringsAgent.com

Audubon Country Club

Audubon Tennis

Audubon Swimming Pool

Audubon Montclair Condominium

Audubon Cypress Preserve

Audubon Golf Course

Audubon Gated Entry

Audubon Country Club

It was about this time last year that I was harassed and badgered into switching to my own self hosted blog.  Apparently, there were a few people that felt I had potential and thought that I should get my big girl URL, www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com.  I promptly named her Betty and started typing.  Three keyboards and now a new laptop later I'm somewhere up around 500 posts for this year alone.

Thank you Bob Carney, Sarah Cooper and Linda Davis for making me take my training wheels off.  Super, special thanks to Bob for fixing everything I break on this blog.  I think it needs updated again, by the way.

The blog has done some great things for me this year. I've been to Washington DC to speak at NAR Mid Year, I started writing a little column for the Naples Daily News and I'm going to speak at FGCU a couple times in the next week and in the spring.  Who woulda thunk it?

Thanks for reading, Betty and I appreciate it.

Bonita Springs Board of Elections Moved To

25987 S. Tamiami Trail, Bonita Springs, Florida 34134

Bonita Springs Board of Elections Moved To
25987 S. Tamiami Trail, Bonita Springs, Florida 34134 

That's about 1.25 miles north of West Terry Street in the same plaza with FIG's Restaurant.

This old post is being repurposed to tell people where the Bonita Springs Board of Elections is now located.  It has truly been a pleasure talking to all of the registered voters of Lee County but I really do need to get work done.  Since Lee County Supervisor of Elections didn’t exactly make their new address googleable, here you go:

…and then on with the old story that ranks so well for Early voting in Bonita Springs, Fl:

This week we've been allow to vote early in Lee County, Florida.  The lines have been long according to internet news reports and the day I stopped in to the Bonita Springs Lee County Board of Elections was not much different.

First and foremost, it was cold so I want everyone to know that I suffered while I tried to vote early.  The line was about an hour long and the line was in the shade.  I escaped the line and stood in the sun trying to not die from exposure.

While I was in line one of the firefighters said *hi* in my general direction.  Since I didn't recognize him and he wasn't one of the firefighters that picked the lock to get my infant twins out of my car that fateful day 20 years ago I wasn't sure he was talking to me.  He then said, "Lumberjack is inside voting."  I was surprised mostly because he knew Lumberjack and knew I was his mother, not because the punk was voting.  The rules to this house are:  If you don't vote, buckle your beak.  You have no permission to complain or whine about politics unless you've punched a ballot.  I have a zero tolerance policy, too.

Moments after my exchange with the firefighter Lumberjack comes out of early voting with his buddy, Gravy.  I hadn't known it but when Lumberjack registered to vote he took a friend and got him registered, too.  Isn't that fantastic?

I'd really catch heck if I didn't mention that his twin voted yesterday.  She got lucky with a 15 minute line.  She also said that when she finished her ballot they all cheered her for being a first time voter and applauded.  She also told me she got goose bumps when she voted for president.  I hope it wasn't a write in with her own name.

Wonder if I should let her know that when I left the early voting building they gals working their applauded me for having "the best shoes at the board of election".  It's a gift.  I have excellent taste in footware.

If you're looking for early voting or you need to get registered for the next election visit http://www.leeelections.com.  The Bonita Springs Lee County Elections office is on Old US 41 Road just north of the railroad tracks.  You can also find your polling location on super Tuesday by putting in your address here:  http://precinctfind.com/pl_fl_lee.php

Our Version of Fall Foliage

Talk amongst yourselves.  I'm sporting a majorly disturbing headache of no cable internet with a twist of real life, I think my brain is bleeding, migrane. I'm going to ice down my gray matter and bring you more of Bonita Springs tomorrow.

Beating a dead horse usually involves a dead horse, a striking object of some type, a person who is delivering the beating and an observer that is probably in denial about what is happening. Feel free to pick your character in this act.

Sometimes I wonder if everyone has just grown used to the sounds of the thumping of the bat makes beating the dead horse. Other times I figure that new faces have returned to Bonita Springs and they missed the other dead horse articles about how appraisals work, how absorption rates work, why overpriced homes won’t sell and how if an overpriced home accidentally did sell, it wouldn’t appraise and make it to closing. It’s true. It’s all true and I’m here to help you work through the denial.

Folks, welcome to November and the official, bona fide beginning of our busy season in southwest Florida. If your Bonita Springs home is for sale or you’re thinking of capitalizing on selling it during the busy season there are some rules and guidelines you’ll need to stick to and I mean it.

First, they’re not my rules or guidelines. They’re the rules and guidelines of the industry of lenders, underwriters and appraisers. There’s nothing you can do to seduce any of them into accidentally finding more value in your home than it is actually worth. That goes for Bonita Springs real estate or anywhere else you’re trying to sell. They also don’t care what you originally paid for it or what you want to “get out of it”, either. They don’t care that you currently own more than one home and they don’t care that you owe more than you are going to have to sell your home for.

Second, don’t think for one moment that if a buyer shows up with a wheel barrel full of gold bullion that they would be stupid enough to pay cash and accidentally pay too much for your home. Gone are the days of buyers falling head over heals in love with a home and finding a way to somehow, somewhere get the money to buy it. There are still too many homes out there just as good, if not better and they’ll find one with a more attractive price and a reasonable seller. Buyers are doing their homework and they’re tough customers.

Third, if you interview four real estate agents and three of them tell you the right price to list your home and you pick the fourth agent who agrees to list your home at the exorbitant price you won’t sell your home this season.

Read Also: Price Remains King in Bonita Springs Real Estate

You’re still playing games with the imaginary buyers that all of these excess homes were built for. You’re not winning, your debtors are. All you did was find a week enough link in the chain to feed your ego because you can’t believe your home isn’t worth what you think its worth.

I guarantee you’ll eventually find an agent either inexperienced enough or desperate enough to take the listing if you interview enough people. You’ll find someone careless enough to cloud the Bonita Springs real estate market with another overpriced listing that will be stale the instant it hits the market. When Easter rolls around you’ll complain and say, “My house was listed for the whole season and that … that horrible agent didn’t sell it.”

Sellers, here’s where I’ll remind you that when you point the finger of blame at someone, look down at your hand and see that there’s three fingers pointing back at you. Selling your real estate is business and you better get serious about it or you’re going to be standing on your front porch with inside out pockets come spring. You need to get complete control of your home’s valuation and pricing. Certainly rely on real estate agents and appraisers to get your home priced right but also demand the figures for inventory and an absorption rates for your area and style of home. If the people you’re counting on to help you sell your home can not do those calculations for you look down at your fingers again and figure out who should be finding someone who can figure it out.

What if, for example, there was four years of inventory competing for buyers against your condo or home. Would you honestly “try it a little higher and reduce later” if you knew you could be writing checks for four years? That makes about as much sense as asking your broker to peddle that stock you’re stuck with at a price “a little higher” than market just to see if there’s a sucker out there that can’t do math and doesn’t have CNBC.

Read also: So, What Is The Absorption Rate For Your Bonita Springs Home?

Literally years have gone by with sellers and agents belly aching that their overpriced listing won’t sell. Well, if you keep doing the same thing to sell your Bonita Springs home that you’ve done for the last couple of years, don’t you think you’re going to keep getting the same results? Not pricing real estate for the current market and denying what is going on is like a little kid holding their breath until they pass out because they didn’t get what they wanted.

Maybe it’s time you sat down and figured out the real, current, right-now value of your home and how many years of inventory you’re competing with for the few qualified buyers out there. Don’t forget to calculate the holding costs from today until the date that the home may sell according to current rates.

It’s time to quit ignoring the reality of what has happened. Get honest with yourself and your situation or take your home off the market.

###

Real Life in Bonita Springs is a project by Chris Griffith dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers about the Bonita Springs, Florida area.  Find out what it is really like to live in Bonita Springs, Florida by reading about our fair city. You’ll get the latest in local real estate information, Bonita Springs real estate market reports and a little bit of humor.  If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story about the idea, after all, this site is just for you.

You can subscribe to a weekly email newsletter by visiting www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com and entering your email in the subscription area on the left pane of the web page or by adding us to your reader by subscribing to this blog. Oh, and if you’re reading this content anywhere else but www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com it is probably stolen.

The Best Real Estate in Bonita Springs is Free

Well, you can borrow it. It's not exactly  free, free.  This picture and this post is for you, the Bonita Springs resident who lives and works in the prettiest little city of SW Florida and forgets to take advantage of the beach.

The last few days in Bonita Springs has brought us picture perfect, clear weather.  I think tomorrow evening you should take your sweetie or your kids to the beach at 5:30.  You must stop at the store and buy a cheapy kite for everyone in your party and you should fly kites until the sun goes down. It's the perfect thing to do with kids, plus, it's inexpensive.  Those kites are sometimes as cheap as a dollar or two.

Make sure you take pictures and lots of them.  Make sure you upload them to Walgreens.com and get them printed, too.  You'll want to look at the pictures of your good time on Bonita Beach 10 years from now, 20 years from now.  You might even end up taking a family picture to send to your friends for the holidays.

Get out there and use your beach.  It's just sitting there waiting for you.  Remember, beach access 2-9 are free, free, free.  Look for the flags hanging on Hickory Blvd. to find them.  They look like this:

The Mermaid of Bonita Springs

For the third time in as many weeks I've been able to take in a Florida Everblades hockey game at Germain Arena in Estero.  I got to see the preseason game, season opener and last Friday, Lumberjack tagged along and brought the Mermaid.  She's just so darn cute and a lot of fun too.  Have a look at her and get a good eye full.

One of the most popular things that goes on at the arena besides the Zamboni, the fights, the between period tricycle races or the balled up T-shirts being thrown into the audience is Swampee the everglades mascot. Kids love him and even a few grown ups do, too.

I sell real estate and buyers ask me all the time about gators.  It never ceases to amaze me how much fear people have regarding alligators.  I've lived here for 25 years and I still have all my fingers and toes.  I can count maybe a dozen gators I've seen and it wasn't in parking lots at the Coconut Point mall, the tennis court at the country club or at the beach.  The media, once again, worked its magic and people are afraid of something that is less probable than a lightening strike.

Ok, maybe I lied to you.  Maybe attacks by gators happen all the time, when least expected, to defenseless real estate agents minding their own bees wax watching hockey.  I knew I should have stayed in bed in quite little Bonita Springs, Florida and pulled my blankets up over my head.  It's just not safe for a delicate flower like me to be that close to a gator.

Watch closely as this gator attack unravels.  Turn your head if you're sensitive to blood, gore and polyester stuffing.

I should have known better that to disrupt him in his natural habitat.  You can just smell the danger in the air.

Observe the defensive posture the gator takes when he realizes that I'm in his territory.

He lunges toward me at such a speed the camera shutter can't keep up!!  When animals attack!

Just before he strikes with his razor sharp teeth I hold up my alligator bag (with matching shoes) and say "You sure you wanna try that tough guy?"

...and just like I expected he turned tail and ran. Probably back home to his mommy.

If you'd like to see this gator up close and personal visit www.FloridaEverblades.com for the season schedule.

If you're really lucky one of the between period entertainment shows could be the pee wee Everblades.  If you haven't seen jersey's at ankle length and helmets so big they're like life sized bobbles, you're really missing it.  The kids get a standing O every time they come out.  My favorite!  They're so stinkin' cute!

If you're like many of the local residents and vacationers, you get one good look at the turquoise waters and you start thinking boat.  The ultimate dream in Bonita Springs, Florida is to own real estate on a canal so that your own boat is floating in your own back yard.  Realizing the dream for some, is out of range due to the fact that waterfront, gulf access, canal homes are a premium piece of real estate.

Bonita Springs offers alternatives for boaters with many well places public boat ramps and county/state parks.  Within a five mile radius there are a handful open to the public, listed below:

• Imperial River Boat Ramp:  27551 South Tamiami Trail, Bonita Springs, Florida.   
• Koreshan State Historic Site: US 41 Estero at Corkscrew Road, Estero Florida.
• Carl Johnson State Park:  8700 Hickory Blvd, Fort Myers Beach.
• Wiggins Pass State Park: at the Gulf end of 111th Ave. Naples Park, Florida.
• Cocohatchee River Park: at the intersection of Wiggins Pass Rd & Vanderbilt Road, Naples, Fl.
• Weeks Fish Camp: Coconut Road West of the Hyatt Coconut Point hotel, Estero, Florida.
• North Bay Park by Big Hickory Grill and Marina

In addition to the public boat ramps listed, there are several spots still open to the public on back bays, rivers and causeways.  North of Bonita Springs in Fort Myers, Sanibel and Bokeelia are more ramps, as well as in the Naples, Marco Island and Everglades City.   Planning a day trip to any of these docks and boat ramps let's a boater sample the area, the city boating facilities and a new waterway to explore.  Now, go forth and boat!

Read also: The Great Calusa Blueway

Free Mulch at Imperial River Boat Ramp

If you're watching your pennies and skimping on taking care of your lawn and gardens here's a freebee for you.  Did you know that Lee County has a mulch pick up at Imperial River boat ramp.  When the county trims trees and shrubs they go thru a wood chipper and then the chips are put at the ramp for free pick up by Lee County residents.  The sign pretty much explains it all.

The Imperial River Boat Ramp and mulch pile are located on the East side of US 41- Tamiami Trail on the South side of the river.  It's just .5 mile north of Bonita Beach Road in Bonita Springs, Florida.

What Happened to The Mailboxes?

They'll be back.  I just found this and thought it was funny enough to bump the mailboxes for a week.  It's located in the Lakes of Estero.  The Lakes of Estero is a single family home community on River Ranch Road across the street from Estero High School.  I was showing  property and found this in a cul-de-sac.  I wonder if it confuses dogs?

Today, you get a fire hydrant.  Why?  Because I'm whooped.  Things have picked up considerably lately and I haven't had a moment to myself or even a minute or two to write a good article about some of the fascinating things I've seen out there showing real estate, like:  I saw my first short sale where the appiances weren't the only thing gone, but the owners stole the crown moulding from the ceiling and moulding decoration for the tray ceilings, too.  That was a first.  I asked my home inspector and he hadn't seen that yet, either.  So, there you have it.  Crown molding, the unknown commodity.

If I don't get to talk to you in a day or two, have a good weekend!