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We’ve already covered the sections of Cape Coral that offer the direct sailboat access, so let’s now turn our attention to the areas behind the bridges. In many cases, if you go this route you will quite simply get more home for the money. So if you don’t NEED the higher clearance, then you don’t necessarily need to pay for it! There’s also some very pretty areas that went undeveloped for long periods of time due to being behind bridges, but which have now built out into very desirable neighborhoods of late model homes. The downside being that they don’t tend to be quite as high appreciation areas and in most, but not all instances, they tend to be at least a bit longer boating runs to open water. That’s the tradeoff, but again, you get a nicer home because of it. If you spend more time in the property and enjoying the waterfront setting from your pool deck overlooking the canal, perhaps this may be better suited to your needs anyway.
I like to think of it as the following example. If you are spending, let’s say $500k: With that budget you can have a wonderful, short boating run on a direct sailboat access parcel of land that’s worth $325k of that figure. Let’s also assume it has a swimming pool and a fairly decent boat dock and lift, accounting for another $50k of that value. That leaves only $125,000 of value in the house. This of course means that you are getting a very modest home actually, in order to accomplish such a great boating location! Alternatively, on the opposite end of the spectrum, you could have a beautiful brand new house with a pool that’s everything you want in a home, but it’s behind a couple bridges and it’s a long boating run out (ex: 45 minutes). Granted these are the rather extreme examples, and most everyone naturally seeks that happy balance somewhere in the middle of a nice house and a reasonable run, but this just goes to show how it’s often a matter of being behind a bridge and a little bit of run time to get the best house for a reasonable price point. Just a matter of what’s most important to you!
Now whether or not you NEED sailboat access or not depends largely on the size boat you are looking to accommodate. As already mentioned in the section about bridge heights, they tend to vary from about 7’ to 11.25’ in height. So if your boating plans call for a large or particularly tall vessel, behind a bridge may simply not be an option for you anyway. This depends entirely on the type of vessel you have in mind, but in very general terms most of the boats behind the bridges do not exceed around 32-34 feet or so. Again, it totally depends on the specifics of the vessel and it’s clearance though.
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