As the uber wealthy flock to Florida’s east coast, buying waterfront estates in Miami’s Coconut Grove and compounds in the ultra-exclusive towns of Palm Beach and Manalapan, a much quieter wealth hub in the Sunshine State is emerging as a rival: Naples.
The city that long attracted “newlyweds and nearly deads,” as developer Emma Rickwood puts it, has a new reputation, as recent transplants spend more money and time in what was previously a seasonal market, brokers say.
The nearly back-to-back record sales of two homes last year in the Port Royal neighborhood sent a signal: The ultra-luxury market is strong.
In April 2025, billionaire David Hoffmann paid $85 million for a waterfront mansion, setting a record for Collier County. A week later, the billionaire DeGroote family of Canada sold their beachfront 15-acre estate for $225 million in the second-priciest home sale in the U.S., behind billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin’s $238 million purchase of a penthouse in New York City in 2019.
The “buzz” around Port Royal is “like we’ve never even dreamt of,” said luxury real estate broker Richard Prebish. (The overall market, like much of Florida’s, is experiencing price corrections.)
More property owners are cashing in, or hoping to. Naples is now home to the most expensive listing in Florida, an 8-acre, three-residence peninsula compound with more than 700 feet of beachfront, a deep water yacht basin and a floating dock. The property at 100 Bay Road, called Gordon Pointe, is listed with Gulf Coast International Properties’ Tim Savage. The asking price: $271 million.
Gordon Point is also in Port Royal, which is in the process of rebuilding its private club for $100 million after damage from Hurricane Ian. Storm repair will cost $2.2 billion in Collier County, including Naples and Marco Island.
The new club house is drumming up more interest in the neighborhood, agents say. Members must own a home in the community, and the membership buy-in is now hovering at nearly half a million dollars, up from $100,000.
Golf, beaches and nightlife
Naples gives brokers an easy pitch: calm beaches, stunning sunsets, nice restaurants and a bevy of golf course communities. The city’s known for its small-town Florida vibes and being home to old money.
Flashier wealth is more visible than ever, especially in the winter. Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche have all built new luxury showrooms, with Porsche unveiling an immersive studio, with a cafe and racing simulator, on Fifth Avenue South last summer.
The pandemic “brought in a whole new pool of buyers looking for a lifestyle change,” Prebish said. Still, Naples hasn’t been immune to bigger forces, including the effects of Hurricane Ian’s destruction in 2022, and the overall cooling of the U.S. housing market last year. Naples experienced the largest drop in housing prices in the country in 2025, down 6.5 percent.
But luxury buyers are still flocking to the region, many with their eyes on newly built homes. Spec home developers include Dick Portillo, founder of Chicago-based Portillo’s Hot Dogs, who, along with partners, sold a waterfront mansion in February for more than $15 million, part of three Portillo-built homes that hit the market for $57.4 million.
Space, waterfront and security are among the reasons why Naples boomed immediately following the pandemic, in a state with no state income tax — the same attributes that brought buyers to South Florida.
“Palm Beach is beautiful, but there’s very few houses on the beach. With President Trump in now, a lot of my clients are
getting very frustrated with their private jets having to reroute.”
“The concentration of wealth, in certain pockets of Naples, I’d say it’s as great as anywhere else,” Prebish said. “It’s just a quieter way of going about things.”
Dawn McKenna, a top broker in Chicagoland, expanded to Naples in 2014.
“It used to be we were the darlings of the Midwest, now we’re seeing a much wider range,” she said.
McKenna still sees a “strong flow” of deals from Chicago, Ohio, Minnesota, St. Louis, but is now seeing younger buyers, many of them families, who were considering Miami or Palm Beach choose Naples. (South Florida is a much bigger market than Naples, but Naples is wealthier on a per-capita basis.)
“Palm Beach is beautiful, but there’s very few houses on the beach. With President Trump in now, a lot of my clients are getting very frustrated with their private jets having to reroute,” McKenna said.
Naples, she said, is “way more flexible.”
“When you go out in Palm Beach, by 8 p.m. everything is shutting down. Naples is bumping at 10:30 at night. My kids, they want to come whether we’re there or not. It’s no longer your grandma and grandpa’s quiet little beach town.”
Confidence in local tourism is also strong. In March, Sculptor Diversified Real Estate Income Trust and Trinity Investments entered into a contract to purchase JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort and its two Naples golf courses for $835 million, marking one of the biggest hotel trades in Southwest Florida.
From luxury homes to luxury condos
As mortgage rates spike and inventory grows across the country, Naples’ real estate market is doing well. It helps that it’s still the high season.
Single-family closings between November 2025 to April 1 of this year are up slightly compared to the same period between 2024 and 2025, according to Multiple Listing Service data provided by McKenna. The $20 million-and-up segment of the market is also doing better, up 75 percent in the same period from four closings to seven closings.
McKenna said that with the closings expected from the Rosewood and Four Seasons condo projects later this year, “2026 will probably be one of the biggest years Naples has had since 2021, 2022.”
Pending sales in Naples were up 56 percent year-over-year in February of this year, while inventory is down 15 percent compared with the same period last year. Prebish said this is also true in Port Royal.
“We would typically have 50 or 60 homes available in the MLS. Now it’s around 30,” he said.
Off-market activity is also trending upward. Prebish brokered $80 million in sales during the first week of April alone through non-MLS transactions, according to his spokesperson.
Developers are seizing on the interest and betting it extends to condo living, building out glossy sales centers that mirror those in South Florida. Per-square-foot pricing is in the $2,000s and up, agents say.
“We’re competing a lot with price per square foot with new developments in Miami and Palm Beach,” McKenna said. “The amount of cranes, the amount of permits pending, the amount of investors calling is increasing, and increasing, and increasing.”
Rickwood and her husband Ian, of Henley Investment Management, who have been spending time in Naples for the past three decades, are now part of the wave of developers betting on the city’s next phase. A number of projects are in the pipeline, including Henley’s Halcyon Residences & Marina project in east Naples, the Rosewood Residences on Billionaires’ Row, and the Four Seasons Residences at Naples Beach Club and the Avenue, both in Old Naples.
After unveiling a 5,000-square-foot sales center, ironically built out in a former pawn shop building, Rickwood said they sold three units at Halcyon. Prices range from just over $3 million to more than $7 million. McKenna’s team, led by Christine Lutz, is handling sales.
“The response has been extraordinary,” Rickwood said.
Developer Andy Penev, whose firm APREA is building The Avenue in Old Naples, the city’s historical downtown, also created a multimillion-dollar sales gallery on Fifth Avenue, blocks from the project site. The two-phase development will include more than 75,000 square feet of stores, restaurants and wellness concepts; and 50 luxury condos. The four-building project, on a 4-plus-acre assemblage, was designed by architect Morris Adjmi.
Historically, developers in Naples didn’t invest the time and money on sales centers. But buyers, hungry for modern finishes and design, are demanding it. The Avenue’s sales gallery was designed by Nainoa, with a full kitchen, bathrooms and primary closets.
“A lot of the buyers expect a bit more design pedigree. They’re expecting more thoughtful layouts. They’re expecting this convenience,” Penev said. “These are people that can afford to be in any other market and they’re choosing Naples and I think that speaks volumes.”
The Californian buyer is among them, Penev said, as the demographic continues to shift.
“Californians are used to seeing the sunsets over the water,” he said.
Prices at The Avenue range from about $3 million to $8 million. McKenna’s team, also led by Lutz, was hired to lead sales and marketing.
Buyers at Halcyon skew younger, Henley’s Rickwood said, in their mid-forties and up.
“They’re mobile executives or early retirees looking for an activated lifestyle,” she said. “They’re not coming to Florida to die. They’re coming to Florida to live, and live their best life.”
Lutz said she’s gotten calls from three prospective buyers in the last month who are asking about the proposal to reduce or eliminate property taxes, including people from Texas and California. The Florida Legislature is expected to tackle the issue at an upcoming special session after declining to move any of the seven proposed bills forward during their regular session that ended in March.
“They like the fact that the conversation is happening,” Lutz said.
Prebish, who moved from Michigan about two decades ago and lived in California for two summers, echoed that more buyers are from California.
“California is magnificent and the people that live there would rather live nowhere else,” he said. “When I see an exodus from California like that, that tells me something.”