As Southwest Florida’s real estate market recalibrates after peaking in 2022, three industry experts told a packed audience that the region’s current downturn is far from a crash.
About 1,300 real estate and development professionals filled the Caloosa Sound Convention Center in downtown Fort Myers on March 12 to hear Justin Thibaut, Denny Grimes and Matt Simmons present their 2026 Market Trends outlook under the theme Data over Drama.
Grimes, president of Denny Grimes & Team at Keller Williams Realty, criticized media coverage that has portrayed the region’s housing market as struggling. He pointed specifically to a Wall Street Journal headline last summer that labeled Cape Coral as the worst housing market in the country.
Just five years earlier, Forbes named Cape Coral among the best places to invest in real estate.
“There’s a lot of drama out there,” Grimes said. “The Wall Street Journal came out and said the Cape Coral market’s the worst in the country. They’re focusing on the wrong issue. They’re focusing on the timing. Some people bought real estate at the wrong time. Real estate has no expiration date. But if you don’t buy at the right time, or you try to sell it at the wrong time, it’s going to give you a little bit of whiplash.”
About 1,300 real estate and development professionals attend the Market Trends 2026 event at the Caloosa Sound Convention Center in Fort Myers. Industry experts said Southwest Florida’s housing slowdown reflects a market correction after the pandemic-era boom.
Market Trends
Grimes said the current market adjustment is far milder than the housing crash of 2006 to 2009, when median home prices plunged sharply after rapid growth earlier in the decade.
During the pandemic-era boom from 2020 to 2022, median sales prices rose by 12%, 25% and 20%. Over the past three years, prices declined by 3%, 2% and 5% last year.
Grimes said the data suggests the steepest part of the downturn may already have passed, though he expects buyer’s market conditions to persist for several years.
“Right now, sellers still have equity on their porch,” Grimes said of homeowners who purchased before the 2020-22 peak. “They’re better off selling sooner instead of later. Don’t wait for it to come back. Because I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
He predicted continued downward pressure on prices, a rise in distressed properties and increased in-migration to Southwest Florida in 2026, which he said could improve conditions for real estate agents. Sellers, he added, are likely to net more money by selling sooner rather than later.
Thibaut, president and CEO of LSI Companies, highlighted development corridors experiencing significant growth across Southwest Florida.
They include an area east of Interstate 75 and south of State Road 17 in Charlotte County, the Oil Well Road area east of Immokalee Road in Collier County and eastern Corkscrew Road in Lee County, where Kingston’s 10,000-home community broke ground last year.
Burnt Store Road in Charlotte County is poised to rival — or even surpass — Babcock Ranch in new construction in the coming years, Thibaut said.
“We’re going to start tonight in Charlotte County,” Thibaut said at the beginning of his presentation. “Remember, permits fell here. But the momentum continues. Opportunities continue to present themselves. This is why areas like Burnt Store Road are now a full-blown builder battleground.”
D.R. Horton (999 homes), GreenPointe Holdings (1,762), Taylor Morrison (1,440), Neal Communities (1,316) and Pulte Homes (222) all have single-family developments planned in the Burnt Store Road corridor.
Justin Thibaut, president and CEO of LSI Companies, speaks during the Market Trends 2026 event in Fort Myers. Thibaut highlighted major growth corridors across Southwest Florida, including Burnt Store Road in Charlotte County and eastern Corkscrew Road in Lee County.
Market Trends
“Every national homebuilder is now in this corridor in Charlotte County,” Thibaut said. “Babcock Ranch still the big number puller.”
Even so, residential permits at Babcock Ranch declined from 1,526 homes in 2024 to 863 in 2025.
Thibaut said that drop reflects a natural market adjustment rather than a collapse. Builders, he said, are working through excess inventory created during the boom before increasing permit activity again.
“This is a normal market correction and a stabilization of inventory,” he said.
Simmons, a property appraiser and managing partner with Maxwell, Hendry & Simmons, focused on the commercial real estate sector, which he said remains strong as population growth fuels demand for retail and office space.
“We had a really strong year in 2025 for commercial building activity,” Simmons said. “Permits were up. The dollar volume was up. It was just an extremely busy year for commercial construction. Lots of new, exciting projects coming.”
Strong commercial land sales over the past two quarters suggest continued investment ahead, he added.
Simmons also highlighted redevelopment opportunities at Bell Tower Shops in south Fort Myers. He said the center would benefit from adding residential units nearby, similar to the 350-unit apartment complex developed within Gulf Coast Town Center and a planned apartment project replacing a shuttered movie theater at Coconut Point in Estero.
“They’re trying to breathe life into Coconut Point,” Simmons said. “That’s what we need at Bell Tower.”
He also pointed to two newer drive-thru-only concepts near Colonial Boulevard just west of I-75: a Chick-fil-A and a Starbucks designed to capture heavy traffic in the area.
“What are they after there?” Simmons said. “Eighty-thousand cars per day. The Starbucks is the third drive-thru-only concept in the U.S.A.”