Data Analysis

New homes in Lee County now sell for less than used ones, and they are 23% of the market

Fort Myers closings rose 13% in July. The median price finished the year at exactly where it started, and the reason sits in what builders are charging.

The median new-construction sale in Lee County in July closed at $338,000. The median resale closed at $361,000. New construction was the cheaper half of the market by $23,000.

That is an inversion. New homes normally carry a premium, and in Lee they did as recently as last July, when the new-construction median was $350,000 and matched the county's overall midpoint. It has fallen 3.4% since while the county sold 42.8% more of them, 404 new-construction closings against 283 a year ago.

New construction is now 23.0% of everything that closes in the county.

The market around it

Lee County closed 1,758 residential sales in July, up 13.0% from 1,556. Florida Realtors, publishing the same county as the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro, reported 1,331 single-family sales up 13.0% and 431 condo and townhouse sales up 26.4%. Our count and theirs land within four sales of each other, which is about as close as two independently computed figures get.

The county median was $350,000 in July. It was $350,000 in July 2025. Not approximately: the same number.

Underneath that, the two halves moved in opposite directions. Resale rose while new construction fell, and the growing share of the cheaper half is what held the combined midpoint still.

Time and leverage both improved for sellers. Half of what sold went under contract inside 63 days, three days faster than last July. Sellers received 93.4% of original list price, up from 91.7%. That remains one of the widest concessions in the state, so improving is not the same as strong.

Why builders would price below resale

We can measure what closed. We cannot see a builder's cost structure or its incentive sheet, and this analysis does not claim to.

What the numbers support is narrower. Builders in Lee County moved 43% more homes over the year at a median 3.4% lower, in a county where the resale median rose. A sale price also understates what a builder gave up, because rate buydowns, closing-cost credits and finish allowances do not appear in it. The gap between new and resale pricing is therefore a floor on the difference, not the whole of it.

Florida Realtors' own figures point the same way from a different angle: the metro's single-family median is $385,000, up 2.7%, while its condo median is $260,000, unchanged, on 26.4% more closings.

What this does not mean

A 23% new-construction share does not mean 23% of Lee County's homes are new. It means 23% of what changed hands in one month was new. New homes close once and then sit in the stock for decades, while resales recycle, so new construction is always overrepresented in transactions relative to standing inventory.

New construction closing below resale does not mean new homes are worth less than used ones. Different size, different location within the county, different age of surrounding development. The two medians describe two different sets of houses.

Nothing here values a specific property, and a county median is not an appraisal.

If you are in this market

Buying in Lee County means the new-build option is currently priced at or below the resale option at the midpoint, which is unusual and may not last. Ask what the builder is contributing beyond the price before comparing the two, because that is where most of the real difference sits.

Selling a resale home in Lee, you are competing against a segment that grew 43% in a year and is discounting. Your listing has one lever. Theirs has several, and they can use them without touching the headline price.

If you own in Lee and are not selling, a median that finished the year unchanged says nothing about your home in particular.

Limitations

Lee County's new-construction and resale counts reconcile to its total closings, which is what makes this comparison possible. Seven of our nineteen markets fail that test and cannot support it at all, and it fails badly statewide, where the two categories account for under 5% of closings. A Florida new-construction share is not computable from our data and is not published.

Our Lee figures come from the Florida Gulf Coast MLS feed and cover residential closings only. Both our figures and Florida Realtors' are preliminary, and late-reported closings move them.

Sources and links

• Florida Realtors, Statewide by Metropolitan Statistical Area, July 2026
• Data hub: /data/fort-myers/
• Tool: /tools/florida-true-cost-of-ownership.html

Disclosure: Jon Brooks is a co-founder of Momentum Realty, a Florida real estate brokerage that owns and funds Florida Housing Intelligence. Momentum has a financial interest in Florida real estate transactions, including in markets named here. See our editorial standards.