AK-Alex King Group-How Local Expertise Turns Island Building Challenges Into Smooth Closings

Every lot on Fort Myers Beach tells a different story—and that’s exactly why building or buying here demands a smarter playbook. We pull back the curtain on island new construction, the realities of flood and wind insurance, and how local permitting truly works when staff, forms, and standards shift in real time. From navigating setbacks and drainage plans to decoding rental rules across the island’s distinct zones, we map out the decisions that make or break a coastal purchase.

We share a favorite win: guiding a savvy out‑of‑state investor from curiosity to a closed, off‑market land deal that aligned with his goals. That journey highlights our approach—educate first, design to the lot you have, and partner with lenders and insurers who understand coastal risk. Appraisals can get tricky with knockdowns, discounted builder inventory, and micro‑market comps, so we show how to advocate with facts and keep financing live without crossing the line. The theme is constant momentum: complete permitting packages, proactive problem‑solving, and relationships that get the right person on the phone when a submittal stalls.

You’ll also hear why higher‑end buyers are reshaping the island’s future, fueling demand for Gulf‑front homes, better restaurants, and a stronger service base. We talk first steps for newcomers—a guided tour that ties lifestyle, rental categories, and neighborhood character to a smart search plan. Whether you’re elevating a legacy home, choosing between a drainage swale and a buried system, or weighing condo vs lot, we lay out the practical moves that reduce risk and speed up results on Fort Myers Beach.

If you’re serious about building or buying on the island, hit follow, share this with a friend who’s Florida‑curious, and leave a quick review to help more people find the show. Your questions shape future episodes—what’s the one step you want a deeper breakdown on?

Alex King Group - Premiere Plus Realty
Alex King / Marc Taglieri / Justin O'Hara
100 Lovers Ln. Fort Myers Beach, FL 33931
(239) 232-6465
beach.realtor11@gmail.com
alexkinggroup.com

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Transcript

Welcome And Island Focus

Alex King 0:41

Great morning to everybody. Alex King here, Alex King Group of Premier Plus Realty with our weekly wild and wacky construction series on island building. And we have new host today, Mark Tagleary.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Justin O'Hara, Premier Plus Realty, Alex King Group.

Why Every Lot Is Different

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Awesome. So what are we talking about today, Alex?

Alex King 1:06

We're going new construction in Southwest Florida? Absolutely. Especially, I think, on um what the differences are building on an island versus like uh of major communities.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Yeah, lots lots of challenges on um on an island like this, especially after recovery where things aren't set in stone. I think we're all coming up against that on our on a daily basis. I mean, there are there are challenges with every aspect of the planning. The first part is um we have a lot of lots for sale. Yep. Um second part is you have to design a home that fits different varieties of lots. You know, you sell new construction out on um uh you know big master plan developments where builders have specific product, they're selling on specific types of lots. Nothing applies on an island like this. No two lots are the same, in my opinion, which is creating some super, super big challenges for everybody involved.

Alex King 2:08

That's correct. We got 50 by 90, we got 50 by 100, we got uh 50 by 100 parallelograms on certain streets that they had to change the setbacks two years ago from seven and a half feet to six and a half feet, just so we could get a house on it. And the builders actually went to the town council to educate them on the issue we had, and they were able to work that out. So these are some of the nuances on building on Fort Myers Beach for sure.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

So true, and you even think about the um the cottage lots on the north end, 50 by 60, some of those lots built by right?

Alex King 2:45

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_03 2:47

No one knows, right? No one knows until you know. You don't know until you take that first step. Justin, you and I talk about it all the time, right? You don't know until you take that first step into talking to a client that expresses interest on something. You can't understand everything on every lot on every street on the island and what works. So you kind of wait and play catch sometimes, right? Um, wait till you get that client that wants something, then you go chase down the information, right? Which over time will work for us because then we'll all know we talk to each other all the time in the office, we'll all know how we can help somebody best uh by that time. But that's that's where I see the challenges.

Learning By Doing With Clients

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Yeah, and and I think that our experience uh with these type of clients and these type of transactions uh certainly differentiates us from our colleagues that are off-island. Um, it's an imperative, I think, if you're a buyer, to use the beach agent who's familiar with these processes, experience these processes. Case in point, um, the closing we just had yesterday. Yeah, right. That that was kind of fraught, not fraught with peril, but it was complicated, right? It was complicated. Why don't we talk about that for a minute?

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Yeah, that was an an interesting one. Um, the team had an opportunity to uh bring in a um an investor coming in from Minnesota, very um unfamiliar with as far as time boots on the ground on Fort Myers Beach, but really well educated, experienced in the sophisticated sophisticated mind that we got our hands on. Justin and I took it on for the team, and we were able to uh work with him to to figure out what his wants, needs were, what his objectives were on the investment side, and then go off market and go to landowners that did not have their property on the market and find him something that that worked for him. And really, it ended up being to me, it's one of our the best deals we've put together as a team because you had Alex and Rita involved, you had Mark and Justin involved, and we found something off-market that worked. Uh, where four agents get a piece of a deal, which we're all in it for. And we have a happy customer. This guy's over the moon. He sent us a picture yesterday. He's got his deed in a framed thing on the table with a bottle of Rodney Strong, Chabernay sitting next to it. He sent us a picture of that yesterday, so feel good story.

Alex King 5:10

Yeah, I think that's really a good point here. That uh full-time professional realtors specializing in island building, but also the synergy of the team. We average around 50% on the buyer side on our listings. So working together, uh, four realtors or two realtors is also fraught with peril sometimes, but we're able to really work together synergistically as a team. And I think that is something so unique we have to offer. No one even has that. And we even hear it from our clients. I've never seen realtors work together like this. So keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

My loot, my new line with all the listings we have is yeah, stand on a sterile boulevard and spin in a 360-degree circle and tell me if you don't see a sign that says Alex Kingroom. There you go. On this island, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Make the dream work. All right, since we're talking about buyers, I'm gonna throw this out to you. Um, are today's buyers primarily end users, investors, or looking for a second home purchase?

Alex King 6:21

Well, are all three? Because every area of the island is uh that's gonna be the answer. That's the answer. Well, the island is so different from one section to another. It's divided basically in about five sections from real estate purposes, but even from geolocation purposes.

Beach Agents Vs Off‑Island Agents

Minnesota Investor Success Story

SPEAKER_03 6:41

How would you guys just quick off got an investor mindset looking for a rehab um on the island? Met with two builders, the husband and wife builder team out of South Carolina the other day, drove from Boutich up to uh just north of Publix, showing them lots and examples of new builds because they want to come in and build one for themselves and and and one as an investment property. And the the lack of education that they have, this is uh they're a perfect topic for this because they didn't know the first thing about the setbacks, about the requirements, about the difficulties navigating the permitting process and all that stuff. Had they been, to your point, Justin, had they not been with a beach agent? No good. No bueno, as they say, right? No bueno, no bueno.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

I mean, would you say um I know you have a line for what he just said. Go for it. We're gonna get you one. We're gonna get a client a what?

Alex King 7:41

Master's degree on Ford Myers Beach. No handcuffs, just education. Doesn't matter if you're gonna buy tomorrow or five years from now. Our primary goal is to get you educated. And that's what happened there. They called in Saturday night, and I said, let's get you, they're leaving Sunday afternoon, let's get you educated before you leave town. Bam. You do it all the time.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Yeah, look, I think that's what makes us really unique compared to our uh colleagues off the beach, also. Uh, where of course we're focused on selling real estate. That's how we make a living, that's how we feed our families, that's how we send our kids to college. However, um, I think we're a little different, and our approach is different, right? We educate clients, we teach them about the beach, we teach them what they can buy, what they can build, we show them the lifestyle, we immerse them in the experience of the beach, and then let them make that decision, right? And then we guide them through the process. Uh with that said, what property class do you think is seeing the most activity right now on the beach?

SPEAKER_03 8:46

Condos, land, lot, elevated, when I ran back over the last, and you know, I came and shifted over to the team in September. We've seen a lot of condos come online. A ton of condos come online. Um, I I still just think it's so diverse that I I don't feel like I have anything leaning in more in one direction. Alex might have better insight, he handles more deals in one direction or the other, to be honest. Um I and I think it's always going to be like that. There's so there's such variety in the product. Again, I go back to my experience all those years in production. This is the product. You you want it or you don't, right? There's different sizes of houses you could buy, but it's all for one the same reason, right? You buy a 1400 square foot house or a 4,000 square foot house, you all get the same amenities, you all get the same location, you all get that on this island. There's so much diversity that I think it's gonna be like that forever.

Team Synergy And Buyer Mix

Alex King 9:44

And we're starting to see the higher price buyers come into market. Um and this is critical because they're gonna be the driving force for the golf front, uh, the high-end restaurants that the restaurant tourists want to build. Um, and we can see that with uh 730 Matanzas, uh 673 Estero, uh 433 Palermo, um 290 Estralita, 3420 Estero, and um 8088 Estero. So those are all over$3 million unsold in the past year, and five of six of them, we represent buyer-seller of both sides. As a matter of fact, on the north end, um, is a tremendous area for people come in and we're starting to see the product go under contract and pending. Case in point, 730 Matanzas. And how emotional was that for the seller to uh let go of that property?

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Yeah, it was difficult. Yeah, it was difficult, but I think in the end he's happy.

Alex King 10:46

That's the key. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Um, so we started the conversation. You worked for that one, then I did. Yeah, um, we started off the conversation uh, you know, in new construction, and I want to circle back. It's like one of the biggest um the biggest things I hear when I talk to people out of new construction. The first questions uh over at 306 seminar, right? What's my insurance look like? Right? What's the risk? And what does Blender look like? Right? What is the landscape on borrowing? What's the landscape on insurance for new construction? How does that work? You know, it's the biggest thing, right? Everyone here's Florida market, you can't get insurance, you can't get a loan. We know that's not true, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:32

Let's let's tell the people the first thing like how many times you call another agent and they don't have the insurance number, right? Right, they don't have the flood, they don't have the homeowners, they don't know the number, they gotta go track it down from from their meanwhile.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

We have the transferable flood certificate teed up and ready to go.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

And again, how many agents don't even know? Right? They're coming off island, they're not talking flood when you know where I worked all those years. Nobody's talking flood, you're 30 feet above sea level, you're up in the hills of Florida, yeah, right. 30 feet above sea level, yeah. And you come down here and you have to talk flood insurance. And and fortunately for me, I own on the island, so I'm familiar with it. But if if you're an agent coming from Estero, Bonita, and that's all you work, and you're bringing someone, you don't have the first clue what you need right there. So that I mean, and that's that's a a good thing, you know, that you bring up there with the insurance.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

I'll tell you what, you know, the first house that you put me on, like first closing, I closed it with two open flood insurance claims, and nobody knew if that was a thing or not. If we could load, we did, yeah. Was it flood insurance? Was it cash? No, no, and and there are banks that'll do it. Seller received his and seller got paid, he got his flood insurance. Yeah, it was crazy, right? That was another one of those beach unique to the beach transactions that would never happen off the beach at all.

Educating Builders And Buyers

SPEAKER_03 12:52

There's always a path forward, right? Like people give up on deals all the time. And if you give up early on a deal, it's easy for you're in the inspection period, you got financing period 30 days, right? So, right now I'm working a deal. I got a 10-day appraisal period, I got a 10-day inspection period, I got an overlapping, I got a 30-day uh financing contingency. They're all running concurrently. This buyer can walk away at any point, yeah, right? And and fun deal. But those really exist on most deals, maybe not the appraisal contingency, right? But that's kind of part of the finance contingency anyway, if they don't get approved within the 30 days. And there's so many things that can go wrong. And if you're if you're gonna just give up and lay down and fold as an agent, as a seller, buyer, or on either side, I mean, you're gonna lose more deals than than you realize. You're gonna look back on 12 months and say, there were five other deals I had on the table that just went by the wayside. So I always had this thing when I was managing in the other world with the builders, like everything is fixable, right? Right, just keep the deal moving forward. I know you believe that. I mean, you a hundred percent. I remember doing a deal with you before I came on a team at 5583, you know, and and it was just like just let's just I I could sense from you that your mindset was ever I remember it. I remembered everything will work out, keep the deal moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

It was one of the first things you told me. Yeah, but I remembered, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:22

We both have the same real estate, it generally works itself out. There you go. And it doesn't mean you lay down and don't do anything, right? We communicate Alex and I communicate. That's still one of the top number deals that um, you know. Well, we did the lot. We did the lot absolutely the building, absolutely. But yeah, I mean, it's it's that's everything's fixable, got to keep it moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

What do the lenders think about the beach? Well, it's hard to rise that.

Alex King 14:46

Well, yeah, you know, a lot of folks have lenders in other states, um, and they want to use them. You know, they might have a branch that has a Florida uh license so they can lend here. Uh, we always work with the buyers to at least get a local lender involved. We have them from uh community banks to uh uh standard banks to mortgage companies, you name it, we have it local here, but time after again, it comes down to the end of finance period, and all of a sudden, the corporate approval department and uh Illinois, oh, this is on an island? Oh, we don't loan there. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 15:30

Yeah, absolutely.

Alex King 15:31

We we we know it, we've been through it, we always have a backup plan, so we have the local lenders in place. So we're gonna get you to the finish line every time.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Have you seen any issues um as far as appraisals go with the properties, um, you know, for these lenders, right? Um, have you had to deal with that?

Market Activity And High‑End Sales

Alex King 15:53

I think we're all dealing with that in various ways. Um you know, we've had quite a few uh newer properties being uh built by builders, and you know, they're they're moving their inventory at a discounted price instead of uh more towards the rack or market rate that we prefer. Uh so that makes it tough on appraisals. Um, it takes a lot of work. Uh, do you find that you're always were seems to be challenging the appraisal and helping get them educated with comps or different parts of the island where properties are that they weren't using?

SPEAKER_03 16:32

I I spoke to a team agent recently about an appraisal issue they had, and we were already navigating the one we had on 71 Miramar. And I think a lot of that a lot of agents. Um so the first there was an error on the part of the bank in in the request and the directions for the appraisal.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

But that's unique to where we are. So it's like we need to explain that to the bank again, like another level that we have to go deeper with our trusted partners, whether it's the bank, the appraiser, the insurance company, to explain exactly what we're doing down here and the conditions of the situation.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

In that instance, is it a uh a knockdown? So is the bank lending the money to a person understanding that it's a knockdown? So it's more of a land purchase, even though there's a structure involved there, which affects the appraisal number, which affects the amount they can borrow, which affects whether or not they want to move forward, because if they got to come up with another three, four hundred grand, they may not want to move forward, right? If they're trying to leverage the property. So that that's an example of one um that that we've been through recently, and and a lot of agents, and it's gonna be more important here. There are no appraisal issues out east, right? Which is where I've been doing a lot of my work right now, it seems out east. I'm not running into these issues, right? Um, they run into uh issues with that when the market really goes down, and it like six meetings, it trails probably six months. Um, but right now, those issues are gonna be here, and and agents don't understand that they have the ability to go directly to the appraiser and give them assistance and find comps that can work. There's nothing illegal about that. You can communicate with the appraiser. Now, the rep from the bank can't put it in front of them, and the owner can't talk to them, but you can act as some a conduit to to the important information to get that number.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Right, and we're we're we're just presenting them facts. Yes, facts, these are the closings we think. Yeah. Um listen to our opinion, yeah, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Kind of thing. So it was great. It was a lot of teamwork wanted that we were able to overcome it, we got it done, and everybody's happy on all fronts. What are you looking for there, JO?

Insurance, Flood, And Lending Realities

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Okay, I want to go with the elephant in the room here and talk to you guys. That's what let's do, let's do it. All right, let's juice this podcast up. Yeah, let's juice it up. We might not make some friends with this, but I'm gonna go there. All right. Permitting and a local government. It's the elephant in the room, it's something we deal with all the time. Um it's it's the obstacle that we face on both new construction and and resale, and the questions are boundless whether or not it's I have to take out my newly installed flood panels that I paid$40,000 for on my ranch home because all of a sudden they had to have a permit when they didn't have to have a permit. That's a local government challenge. Um, I feel like there's a lot of hurdles, right? You know, I think it needs to be talked about. And I think it needs to be talked about in the sense that again, emphasizing the importance of a local agent who can navigate you through this and has the personal contacts in the permanent office, in the local government, and has the experience to be able to answer these questions. Any real-world examples, you know, but look, it's a thing, right? It's a thing.

Alex King 20:19

Well, especially even in just the uh drainage, just getting the storm and drainage, flight plan final is takes time. Pervious versus impervious, impervious completeness ratio, yeah, drainage planes, drainage planes, and also they change staff um maybe three or four times in the past 12 months in the female drainage. Maybe over 36 months they change more.

unknown 20:52

Woo!

Alex King 20:52

Yeah, so um it's a challenge. Now, are you going to uh do a swell or are you going to bury a drainage pipe? Right. And when do you do that? And how do you how do you navigate that uh when it's been sitting in permitting and nothing's happened in 60 days or 30 days? Who do you call? Well, we know who to call. We know we can walk in there, we can nudge, we can work solutions out. Um, you know, I cannot tell you how many times we've walked over the permitting. Hey guys, I got uh Betty up north, uh, she's got a situation here. Um, they come out, they sit down, we look at it, we get on the phone, we solve the problem right then and there.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

But uh Mark, I I think there's two sides to to this story all the time on this, right? It's never it's never going as well as you think it is, and it's never as bad as it is either, right? And my personal experience with you know, when I brought my house back was it's it's the owner's responsibility or the builder representative of them to give the town the information they want the way they want. It package it and hand it over. Right. And and the better you are at that, or you're built if you're a builder, your team is at that, the faster the permits gonna come back to you. Right. Right. I know I know ten of the builders that are operating on here, and I got a good buddy of mine that they're putting in their first permit now. And and I keep riding them that that he's not gonna have everything in there. It's gonna get kicked back. I'm waiting for it because he's gonna submit any day. Uh I won't say their name, but and I'm curious to see what happens with that, right? Because um, something gets missed along the way, it gets pushed back. Now you're delayed two weeks. You do that four times, you're eight weeks, that's two months, right? So give the town what they want the way they want it, on their forms, not your forms, and submit it as a as a complete package. That's it. Then it then you're gonna you know you're bound to speed up your process and complain less, right? If you're chasing this form, that form, and and one is one is for electrical, one is for plumbing, one is for drainage plane, and you're chasing all these different things at different times, that's that's accumulating over the process.

Alex King 23:03

I mean, and another one is uh a lot of our houses were built way back before the setbacks were in place. Uh case in point, uh, we're now seeing uh a lot of houses get elevated. Okay, so um the setbacks are seven and a half from each side on the standard size lot, but it's uh um 6.2 on this side and 4.5 on this side. Um, so are they making people shift those? Yeah, you move the whole house.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Is that actually what is happening? No, I mean that but that's a I mean, I've seen that at the Jersey Shore where they lifted it and then they they had a shift it to get it into the new setbacks. Thankfully, they're not doing that.

Alex King 23:44

Well, see, no, that's a great question. I was uh a little worried.

Appraisal Hurdles And Solutions

SPEAKER_03 23:47

You need to move your house 10 to 10.

Alex King 23:48

Well, I mean to the point, I'm raising my up, but you know, there is an administrative variance, and so as long as you're not modifying the structure to add more square footage or something like that into that setback area, you get an administrative variance. Like, for example, I was expanding my deck right over there. I said, Yeah, I want a expanded deck right there. No, that's you can't do that, you have to work within this current setback. So, therefore, we move the deck on this side, not in this administrative area. But we know how to work with the people then. That's just a small example, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Right, yeah. My advice if you go into the permanent office of the town hall, by the way, this is a shameless product placement. Bring a box of donuts and a box of Joe.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

It works every time.

Alex King 24:40

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

So let me I I've got one more question. Um, this is the new construction question, and then we'll just talk about some vision and a you know. Um first time buyer, Fort Myers Beach. What's the most important first step for construction? New construction. We have a buyer looking at a lot. They come in, they say, I don't know anything about here. What's the first step?

SPEAKER_03 25:07

I just did, I just did it. The tour. It's it's gotta be a tour for me. I don't want to get in bed with a client that doesn't know it without me being their tour guide that first day. And I started at Boutich and I went, you know, I knew their I knew their purposes, so I didn't take them all the way down the south end, right? Because I know what they're looking for a little bit, but just to be able to add that they walked away grateful for the time that we spent with them. Alex brought them in on the front end, connected with them, and and the time that I spent with them on that. But to educate somebody on the the activities, the restaurants, the nightlife, in addition to the daily rentals versus weekly rentals versus monthly rentals, and through that time be able to prove yourself and being educated with the builders, having relationships with the builders, having relationships with the town members. That's that that windshield time that you're in a car with people in there is priceless. That to me is the first step when you come across a new place.

Alex King 26:07

Now, you can't uh want to buy on the beach without some lifestyle. And you know, the beach has events going on every weekend. Now, Justin says, You're not gonna do this. I said, Yeah, he said no, we're professional realtors, we gotta you know, got to have some status quo. I've got to do it. Do what you gotta do, Alex. Do what I gotta do. You know what? People expect it, right? Yep, strong festivals this weekend. We're the main sponsor. We love the island, so make sure you get your hat. There you go. And uh don't post this in all the papers, okay? All right, guys.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Yeah, you know what? That's a great segue. Last question, because I gotta ask you this. And and this one. Well, you both live on the beach, yeah. So it's really it's for both of you. I want to hear. We all know I don't live on the beach. I live up the McGregor Corridor. I got two kids at school in downtown Fort Myers. What excites you most about the future of the island?

The Elephant: Permitting And Local Government

SPEAKER_03 27:13

I just love seeing all the new construction. I see that it's bringing life. Every time I see a new house going up, I know what five and eight years and ten years is gonna look like. And you know what? I mean, that's why we're here. I mean, I did the opposite of what a lot of people did. I moved on to the island after Ian because I know what the potential is and uh and being here and getting involved. There's a lot of good people on this island.

Alex King 27:39

I would say the excitement I'm hearing from visitors came a year ago, two years ago, and they're going, oh my gosh, this is a different place. It's alive. It is alive, folks. Come and experience it, reach out to Justin, Mark, myself, Alex, Alex Tingri, and our house relative.

SPEAKER_03 27:59

Yes, we would have never met Cabo Jim either if we weren't on this island.

Alex King 28:02

There you go, Cabo Jim.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Thanks, guys. That's great, guys. Thank you very much.

Intro/Close 28:10

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