Marco Island is a very unique island in Southwest Florida. The largest of Florida’s legendary Ten Thousand Islands chain that goes from Everglades City to Flamingo, the island has an impressive array of sights and sounds to keep homeowners enamored with the community for a lifetime.
Part of the 99-mile Wilderness Waterway, Marco Island’s varied animal life alone is astounding. There are hills of sand, pine forests, sandy fields and beaches, and a mangrove swamp. Burrowing owls inhabit the island–nature lovers say that the islet is the only one in the Ten Thousand Islands chain to be home to these unique creatures.
Marco Island has a full range of city services, with an excellent school system and infrastructure. Residents can find plenty of things to do on Marco Island, including scuba diving, kayaking, jet skiing, fishing, and much more. There are even archaeological excavations thousands of years old from indian tribes, such as the Calusa Indian Burial Mount and the world famous MarcoCat sculpture.
The islet was home to nearly 15,000 residents in the 2000 census, but new data to be released on December 21, 2010 is expected to show significant growth from those figures. The real estate boom led to growth from the Naples, Florida metro area, with many beautiful homes commissioned during that time. With the subsequent housing pullback, Marco Island real estate has been found by bargain hunters to be priced very attractively. In fact, Marco Island condos and bank owned properties are some of the best deals on the market.
Marco Island homes at the time of this writing range from $69,900 for a 460 s.f. townhouse to $10,500,000 for a 11,000+ s.f. luxurious estate. There is an abundance of properties on the island with water frontage, many with private access to the pristine Gulf waters.