Bonita Shores

Updated August 2026 · Jesse McGreevy and Marc Comisar, Domain Realty

Best Realtor for Bonita Shores: Start Here

McGreevy and Comisar are the team Bonita Shores owners call first. Top 1% Nationally since 2008. Over $900 million in personal sales. If you are searching for the best realtor for Bonita Shores, whether you are ready to sell your Bonita Shores home or buy your next one, this page is the proof rather than the pitch.

Bonita Shores is a 531-parcel platted residential grid in unincorporated Collier County with a Bonita Springs mailing address, sitting immediately south of Bonita Beach Road and east of West Avenue in the Bonita Beach area. It has no gate, no club, no golf course, no marina, and no mandatory association of any kind. Most of it sits outside the Special Flood Hazard Area, roughly two miles from the Gulf, in a market that assumes coastal automatically means mandatory flood insurance.

That single sentence is the reason this page exists, and it is the reason most of what is published about this neighborhood elsewhere is wrong.

We built this page from the recorded plats, the Collier County certified tax roll, the Land Development Code, the National Flood Hazard Layer, the federal lead service line inventory, four decades of county ordinances, and every closed sale in the Southwest Florida MLS Matrix over the last two years. In the last 12 months we tracked 25 Bonita Shores closings and read the structured waterfront and Gulf-access fields on all 47 sales in the trailing 730 days, one field at a time. Where the data disagreed with itself, we say so on the page instead of picking the tidier number.

Selling your Bonita Shores home? Get a free home valuation at https://mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation or call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072. Confidential conversations welcome.

Buying in Bonita Shores? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873 for a personalized buyer consultation.

Why McGreevy and Comisar Are the Best Realtor for Bonita Shores

McGreevy and Comisar are the best realtor for Bonita Shores because we did the parcel work nobody else did. We lead Domain Realty Group, the #1 real estate team in Southwest Florida since 2012, Top 1% Nationally since 2008, and our office sits 3.5 miles from the Bonita Shores grid on South Tamiami Trail in Bonita Springs.

As the leaders of Domain Realty Group our team has closed over $2.5 billion in real estate, and Jesse and Marc alone carry over $900 million in personal sales. That production is the reason we can afford to spend a research cycle reading four recorded plats and a certified tax roll for a 531-lot neighborhood instead of republishing a stock description of it.

Bonita Shores market track record we measured (trailing 12 months, Southwest Florida MLS Matrix): 25 closings tracked · 8 active listings against 531 platted parcels, or 1.5 percent of the grid · about 4.1 months of supply · median closed price $600,000 across the full trailing 730 days · median $414 per square foot · median 83 days on market · median seller took 95.0 cents on the asking dollar. (Measured 2026-08-12 from the Southwest Florida MLS Matrix, filtered on both Sub/Condo Name and Development Name, with the counter verified live in both directions. These figures cover the platted single-family grid only; the three condominiums inside the footprint carry their own sub names and are excluded.)

For Bonita Shores sellers: premium marketing including cinematic video, drone, professional photography, a qualified-buyer database, and discretion with off-market capability when a seller needs it. On this grid we also do something most listing presentations skip entirely: we tell you whether your house is worth more as a house or as a lot, from the county’s own land-versus-improvement values, before you spend a dollar on pre-list repairs.

Honors and recognition:

• Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008
• 5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 20 Straight Years. Only 5 out of 21k+ Licensees (Gulfshore Life Magazine)
• #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012
• McGreevy and Comisar and their Domain Realty Group team have sold over $2.5 Billion in Real Estate
• McGreevy and Comisar alone have over $900 million in Sales
• Nationally Recognized Top Producing Realtors
• Platinum Sales Production Award Winners

Selling your Bonita Shores home? Get a free home valuation at https://mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation OR call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072 (confidential conversations welcome).

Buying a home in Bonita Shores? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873 for a personalized buyer consultation.

Key Takeaways: Bonita Shores in Fifteen Facts

Bonita Shores is a 1953-era platted grid of 531 parcels in unincorporated Collier County, landlocked with no boat access from any lot, governed by nothing except the county code, and mostly outside the Special Flood Hazard Area. These are the fifteen facts that decide a purchase or a listing here, each of them measured rather than asserted.

• Bonita Shores is in unincorporated Collier County, not in the City of Bonita Springs, and not in Lee County. It carries a Bonita Springs mailing address, almost entirely ZIP 34134, with exactly three of 531 parcels on 34110.
• There is no mandatory association. The Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association is a voluntary Florida not-for-profit with 160 members against 692 eligible parcels across the two subdivisions it serves, Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores, and dues of $50 per household per year on the first-party record.
• The association owns zero land inside the Bonita Shores plats. Zero common property, zero tracts, zero amenity parcels. The only non-private owner among the 531 parcels is North Collier Fire Rescue.
• Bonita Shores is landlocked with no boat access from any lot. Every mapped canal and the whole of Little Hickory Bay stop at West Avenue, and the community boat ramp sits on Little Hickory Shores legal descriptions in the adjoining subdivision.
• There are five interior freshwater ponds inside the plats totalling about 2.3 acres, with roughly thirty lots backing directly onto them and about ten more adjoining. They are not navigable and have no outlet.
• 79.85 percent of parcels are dominant Zone X on the effective FIRM, rising to 84.18 percent on the preliminary map. There are zero VE parcels on either map.
• 72.43 percent of parcel land is Zone X shaded, the 0.2 percent annual chance floodplain. Only 1.64 percent is unshaded. Bonita Shores is outside the Special Flood Hazard Area, which is not the same thing as minimal flood hazard.
• 100.00 percent of Bonita Shores is in Hurricane Evacuation Zone A, Collier’s first-evacuated zone. The flood zone and the evacuation zone are different instruments and both are true at once.
• 393 of 460 single-family parcels, or 85.4 percent, carry land value at or above the value of the house standing on them. Land is 63.7 percent of all just value in the grid.
• The 2025 certified roll values land at a flat $35.00 per square foot on 450 of 531 parcels. The 2026 preliminary roll breaks that flat rate apart by street for the first time.
• A guesthouse is impossible on every single-family lot here. The code requires 43,560 square feet and 105 feet of width; the largest RSF-4 parcel in Bonita Shores is 29,435 square feet.
• 283 of 531 lots, 53.3 percent, are narrower than the 70-foot minimum width, but only 9 of 531, 1.7 percent, are below the minimum lot area, and under the county’s nonconforming-lot provision that width shortfall costs the owner nothing in setbacks.
• Water and sewer are Collier County Public Utilities, not Bonita Springs Utilities. 528 of the 702 parcel records in the utility datasets are known-sewer (702 exceeds the 531 platted parcels because condominium units carry individual folios), and the federal lead service line inventory records zero lead lines and zero unverified lines across roughly 523 grid records.
• There is no minimum rental duration in Bonita Shores, but county registration under Ordinance 2021-45 is mandatory for terms of six months or less, at $500 per violation per day.
• Schools are Naples Park Elementary, North Naples Middle, and Aubrey Rogers High, identical for 597 of 597 in-grid addresses across both the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years. It is not Gulf Coast High, and any page still saying so is stale.

Table of Contents

Positioning and market Best Realtor for Bonita Shores: Start Here · Why McGreevy and Comisar Are the Best Realtor for Bonita Shores · Key Takeaways: Bonita Shores in Fifteen Facts · Bonita Shores Market Snapshot: What the MLS Actually Shows

Identity, plats, and governance Collier County, Bonita Springs Address: The Identity Question · The Four Plats and the Corporation That Filed Them · Living in Bonita Shores as a Homebuyer · The No-Association Reality: What Governs When Nothing Governs · The Fee Stack in a Neighborhood With No Association · The Improvement Association, and Why It Is Not an HOA

The lot, and what you may do with it What You Can Actually Build on a 60 by 130 Lot · The Teardown Economy, in Numbers · The Plan That Was Proposed, and What Happened to It

Infrastructure, water, and risk Drainage, and Why Is My Street Next Has an Answer · Street by Street: Water, Sewer, Trash, and Streetlights · Flood Zones Block by Block · Insurance Reality: What Bonita Shores Owners Actually Pay · What Gulf Access Actually Conveys · The Five Interior Ponds

Money, rules, and daily life Short-Term Rentals, From the Ordinance · Taxes, Save Our Homes, and the Teardown Trap · The Three Condominiums Inside the Grid · Schools, Healthcare, and Drive Times · The Adjacent Civic Pipeline: What Is Actually Funded Near Bonita Shores

Decision, conversion, and reference Comparable Communities to Consider · Why Buy in Bonita Shores: Honest Pros and Cons · Thinking of Selling Your Bonita Shores Home? · What Our Clients Say · Your Local Real Estate Experts · Frequently Asked Questions, Buyer Edition · Frequently Asked Questions, Seller Edition · Sources and Authoritative References · Downloadable Documents

Bonita Shores Market Snapshot: What the MLS Actually Shows

Bonita Shores currently carries 8 active listings against 531 platted parcels, which is 1.5 percent of the grid and roughly 4.1 months of supply. Across the trailing 730 days, 47 homes closed at a median of $600,000, a median of $414 per square foot, a median of 83 days on market, and a median sale-to-list ratio of 95.0 percent. The useful number here is not the median. It is the spread. ⚠️ These figures cover the platted single-family grid only; the three condominiums inside the footprint carry their own MLS sub names and are excluded.

The spread is the story, not the median

Closed price per square foot in Bonita Shores over the last two years ranged from $243 to $569. That is a 2.3x range inside a single 531-lot grid where every house sits on essentially the same dirt, in the same flood profile, on the same street network, in the same school zone. In a governed community with a design review board and a build-out window, that range compresses. Here it does not, because the bottom of the range is a buyer paying for land with a house on it and the top of the range is a buyer paying for a recent rebuild.

The single clearest row in the data: a 660 square foot two-bedroom on 3rd Street sold for $300,000, the cheapest sale in the set. That works out to $455 per square foot, which is above the neighborhood’s median $414. The buyer was not paying for the 660 square feet. That is the teardown economy visible from the demand side, and the assessment roll shows the same thing from the supply side.

Trailing 730-day closed statistics

Current active inventory

Median active days on market is 99.5, above the median closed days on market of 83. Read that as list-price discipline among current sellers rather than as an absorption problem. The homes that priced to the data went in 83 days at 95 cents on the dollar; the ones sitting are testing a number.

What we deliberately are not telling you

We are not publishing a year-over-year price trend for Bonita Shores, and we want to be explicit about why. The trailing 730-day window contains two partial calendar years, 2024 at n=6 and 2026 at n=18. Three non-comparable periods do not make a trend line, and any page that draws one from this sample is drawing a picture, not reporting a measurement. What is defensible is the full-window median, the full-window price per square foot, and the spread. That is what we publish.

One anomaly worth flagging rather than hiding: 47 7th Street appears twice in the closed set, selling for $440,000 in September 2024 and $572,500 in November 2025 on identical 1,807 square feet of living area. A 30 percent gain in fourteen months on unchanged square footage is either a renovation flip, a related-party transfer, or a data error. We check it before we use it as a comp, and so should anyone else.

Honors and recognition:

• Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008
• 5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 20 Straight Years. Only 5 out of 21k+ Licensees (Gulfshore Life Magazine)
• #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012
• McGreevy and Comisar and their Domain Realty Group team have sold over $2.5 Billion in Real Estate
• McGreevy and Comisar alone have over $900 million in Sales
• Nationally Recognized Top Producing Realtors
• Platinum Sales Production Award Winners

Selling your Bonita Shores home? Get a free home valuation at https://mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation or call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072. Buying here? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873.

Collier County, Bonita Springs Address: The Identity Question

Bonita Shores sits in unincorporated Collier County with a Bonita Springs mailing address, almost entirely in ZIP 34134. It is not inside the City of Bonita Springs, it is not in Lee County, and it never has been. That single split governs which flood map applies, which building department issues the permit, which school district assigns the seats, and which tax bill arrives.

This is the most-asked question about the neighborhood and the one the market gets wrong at the largest scale. Bonita Shores is one of only two Bonita-Springs-addressed neighborhoods that sit in Collier County, the other being Barefoot Beach. Everything else with a Bonita Springs address is in Lee County, either inside the City of Bonita Springs or in unincorporated south Lee.

One address, six different answers

The hundred-foot county line, and why it matters

Here is a fact that we have not found published anywhere else, and it explains an enormous amount of the confusion around this neighborhood. Bonita Beach Road’s pavement in front of Bonita Shores is in Lee County. The Collier-Lee county line runs at latitude 26.33042 across the entire northern frontage of the grid, and FDOT codes CR 865, Bonita Beach Road, to Lee County. Vanderbilt Drive, CR 901, running south from that intersection, is Collier.

So a Bonita Shores owner on 1st Street can stand in Collier County, look at a road surface a hundred feet away that is maintained under a different county’s jurisdiction, and reasonably conclude that the whole area is one place. It is not. The consequence shows up in the federal insurance data: of 2,711 NFIP claims filed in ZIP 34134, 1,569 of them code to NFIP community 120680, the City of Bonita Springs, which is the wrong community for every parcel in Bonita Shores. Bonita Shores rates under community 120067, unincorporated Collier County.

If you are pricing flood insurance, checking a flood map, or verifying a Community Rating System discount for a Bonita Shores address and you are looking at a City of Bonita Springs document, you are looking at the wrong document.

The ZIP code answer, corrected

A national listing aggregator publishes eight ZIP codes as the “most popular zip codes in Bonita Shores,” including several twenty-plus miles away. The measured answer from the certified roll is far simpler: 528 of 531 parcels carry ZIP 34134 and exactly three carry 34110. Almost entirely one ZIP, with a named exception. This is a small correction, and we make it because a page that gets the easy facts visibly wrong should not be trusted on the hard ones.

Thinking about a Bonita Shores purchase and unsure which county rules apply to your specific parcel? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873 and we will pull the folio, the zone, and the school assignment for that exact address before you write an offer.

The Four Plats and the Corporation That Filed Them

Bonita Shores was recorded as four separate plats, not one: Unit 1 at Plat Book 3 Page 1, Unit 2 at Plat Book 3 Page 43, Unit 3 at Plat Book 3 Page 80, and Unit 4 at Plat Book 10 Page 33. Units 1 through 3 date to 1953. Unit 4 came considerably later. Anyone describing “the 1953 plat” in the singular is describing three-quarters of the neighborhood.

The developer was a corporation, Bonita Shores Inc., chartered 1952-01-21, more than a year before the first plat was recorded, with James L. Walker and Robert Walker as officers of record. The corporation was involuntarily dissolved in 1987. You will see the development attributed to a differently-named individual on some pages; we attribute it to the corporation and its officers of record because that is what the state’s own corporate filings show. The 1952 articles of incorporation remain an open item requiring an in-person Collier Clerk session, and we will publish them here when we have them.

The grid, measured

Those two acreage figures are not a contradiction and we publish both deliberately. 188.0 acres is the gross platted extent, including every street right of way. 128.89 acres is fee-simple parcel land only. The gap between them, about 30 percent of the neighborhood, is pavement and shoulder. It is one of the reasons the grid feels more open than its lot sizes suggest.

Build-out by decade, and the fact that surprises people

The county roll records the year of first structure on every parcel. Counting any first structure:

Two readings, both of which matter to a seller. First, the 1970s was the real build decade, not the 1950s. Bonita Shores was platted in 1953 and then filled in slowly for two decades before it built out in earnest. Second, and much more consequential today: the 2020s has already beaten the entire 2010s, with 10 first structures against 8, and the decade is barely half over. That is not population growth. That is the teardown and rebuild cycle showing up in the county’s own data, and it is quantified in the teardown section below.

A note on this series. A second measurement route counting single-family parcels only returns 45 / 77 / 143 / 89 / 49 / 27 / 8 / 10. The two series agree exactly on the 2010s and the 2020s, which is the part that carries the argument. We publish the any-first-structure series and label it, so the number is reproducible.

The street inventory

The streets of Bonita Shores are 1st through 9th Streets, plus Forest Avenue, Valley Drive, East and West Valley Drive, East and West Lakeview Drive, and West Avenue, with frontage on Bonita Beach Road and Vanderbilt Drive at the perimeter. If a page tells you the neighborhood is simply “1st through 9th,” it has never looked at a plat.

⚠️ A warning that matters for anyone doing their own research: the adjoining Little Hickory Shores subdivision contains addresses on plain “6th St” as well as “6th St W.” A numbered-street address without a West suffix does not prove a parcel is inside the Bonita Shores plats. Only the recorded legal description settles it. Address form alone produces false positives, and it is the mechanism behind most of the misinformation about this neighborhood.

Living in Bonita Shores as a Homebuyer

Living in Bonita Shores means a single-story or two-story house on a flat rectangular lot, no gate, no guard, no clubhouse to walk to, no dues bill unless you volunteer for one, Collier County water and sewer at the curb, county trash on Friday and Tuesday, and the Gulf about two miles away by car. It is quiet, it is unmanaged, and that combination is the entire proposition.

Bonita Shores does not sell a lifestyle package. It sells autonomy plus location. What a buyer gets here is a fee-simple lot inside a market of gated, dues-collecting, architecturally-reviewed communities, three-tenths of a mile deep from Bonita Beach Road to 9th Street, 1.8 miles from Bonita Beach Park, 3.4 miles from Barefoot Beach Preserve, and inside the Collier County Public Schools attendance zone for Aubrey Rogers High.

Who actually buys here, from the data

We can describe the buyer pool without guessing, because the roll and the MLS both leave fingerprints. 253 of 531 parcels carry a homestead exemption, or 47.6 percent, rising to 252 of 460 single-family parcels, or 54.8 percent. Slightly more than half the single-family houses in Bonita Shores are somebody’s permanent Florida residence. That is a materially higher owner-occupancy rate than most of the seasonal coastal product nearby, and it is why the grid feels lived-in rather than shuttered in August.

The other half splits between seasonal owners, long-hold investors, and the rebuild buyer. That last group is the one growing: ten houses built in the 2020s, nine of them standing on parcels that show an improved-to-vacant transition in the roll history. Those are teardowns.

What daily life actually looks like

• Trash and recycling. Collier County solid waste District 1. Garbage collection Friday and Tuesday; recycling, yard waste, and bulk pickup on Friday. There is no association contract and no private hauler negotiation, because there is no association.
• Streetlights. Collier County does not light residential streets. With no association-owned property and no lighting district, exterior lighting in Bonita Shores is a per-parcel matter, typically an FPL Outdoor Security Light on the owner’s own account. The neighborhood is genuinely dark at night, and residents have twice declined to tax themselves to change that. That history is in its own section below.
• Mail. USPS Bonita Springs, 34134. A 1993 county resolution formally asked USPS to move these addresses to a North Naples designation. USPS never did it.
• Boats and RVs. Collier Ordinance 10-26 permits boat and RV storage in the rear yard only, with a six-hour window in the driveway for loading and unloading. This is county code, not a covenant, and it is enforced by complaint.
• Driveways. Collier Resolution 2003-411 caps lots with less than 75 feet of frontage at one driveway. That is 318 of 531 parcels, 59.9 percent of the grid, so the circular-drive question has a default answer here and it is no.
• Walkability. Real but limited. The interior grid is flat, quiet, and pleasant to walk. The Vanderbilt Drive bike lane stops at latitude 26.32862, roughly at 2nd Street, one block short of Bonita Beach Road. Crossing Bonita Beach Road on foot is a genuine consideration, and sidewalk coverage varies by FDOT segment.

The three-tenths-of-a-mile problem, honestly

Bonita Beach Road is a busy four-lane arterial and an evacuation route, and Bonita Shores fronts it for the entire width of the plat. Homes on 1st Street and on the Bonita Beach Road frontage carry road noise that homes on 8th and 9th Streets do not. That is a real, priceable difference, it is one of the things we walk a buyer through on site, and no aggregator page will ever tell you about it because no aggregator has ever stood on 1st Street at 5 p.m. in February.

Want to see the difference between the north end and the south end of this grid in person? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873 and we will walk it with you, street by street.

The No-Association Reality: What Governs When Nothing Governs

Bonita Shores has no mandatory association, no CDD, no MSTU, no MSBU, no zoning overlay, no PUD, and no zoning exception. Every one of those zeros was positively controlled against a live dataset rather than inferred from silence. What governs the neighborhood is the Collier County Land Development Code, the county Code of Laws and Ordinances, and the Florida Building Code. Nothing else.

That is a genuinely unusual condition in Southwest Florida, and it is the single most valuable thing to understand about buying or selling here. In a governed community, a buyer asks what the association allows. In Bonita Shores, the correct question is what the county allows, and the answer is materially broader.

What actually applies, instrument by instrument

Who enforces anything, if nobody governs

The honest answer is Collier County Code Enforcement, and it is complaint-driven. There is no board, no architectural review committee, and no neighbor with standing to compel anything. A violation of the 18-inch vegetation rule, the rear-yard boat rule, or an unpermitted structure is resolved by a county case, not by a covenant letter. That is slower than an association and considerably less intrusive, and which of those two words a buyer uses tells you whether this neighborhood is right for them.

Buying into a neighborhood with no association for the first time? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873 and we will walk you through exactly what changes about the closing and about living here.

What You Can Actually Build on a 60 by 130 Lot

On a typical Bonita Shores lot, 60 by 130 feet and 7,800 square feet, Collier RSF-4 zoning gives you a buildable footprint of 45 by 80 feet, which is 3,600 square feet, or 46.2 percent of the lot, with a 35-foot height limit and no lot coverage cap and no floor area ratio cap at all. Two floors under 35 feet is roughly 7,200 square feet of gross area.

The finding nobody else has: there is no mansionization rule

We ran a full-corpus search of the Collier County Land Development Code and Code of Laws with a live positive control, looking for any provision that would limit house size on an RSF single-family lot: floor area ratio, lot coverage cap, building mass ordinance, monster-house provision, or design review requirement. No such ordinance exists anywhere in Collier County for RSF single-family zoning.

There is no lot coverage cap and no FAR cap in RSF-4. The constraints on house size in Bonita Shores are the setbacks and the 35-foot height limit, and nothing else. Do the arithmetic on the modal lot: 60 by 130 feet, minus 25 feet front, 25 feet rear, and 7.5 feet on each side, leaves a buildable footprint of 45 by 80, which is 3,600 square feet, or 46.2 percent of the lot. Two floors under 35 feet is roughly 7,200 square feet of gross area on a 7,800 square foot lot.

That number startles people, and it should. It is also exactly why the teardown economy here is live and why houses on this grid trade over a 2.3x range in price per square foot.

The nonconformity that costs nothing

Here is the finding that resolves the single most common panic among Bonita Shores lot owners. 283 of the 531 parcels in Bonita Shores, 53.3 percent, are narrower than the RSF-4 minimum interior width of 70 feet. More than half the neighborhood is technically nonconforming on width.

Only 9 of 531 parcels, 1.7 percent, are below the minimum lot AREA of 7,500 square feet. The nonconformity is width, not area.

And under LDC 9.03.03 A.1, governing nonconforming lots of record, that width shortfall costs the owner nothing in setbacks. A 60-foot-wide lot of record in Bonita Shores builds to the same 7.5-foot side setbacks as a 70-foot lot. It does not require a variance, it does not require a hearing, and it does not reduce the buildable envelope below what the setback math gives you.

There is one bonus provision worth knowing: nonconforming corner lots of record predating 1982-01-05 gain 1,219 square feet of buildable area, a 45.5 percent increase, on roughly 72 parcels in the grid. If you own a pre-1982 corner lot here, your envelope is materially larger than your neighbor’s and you may not know it.

What is genuinely impossible here

A guesthouse cannot be built on any single-family lot in Bonita Shores. LDC 5.03.03 D requires a minimum of 43,560 square feet, one full acre, and 105 feet of width for a guest house. Zero of the 491 RSF-4 parcels in Bonita Shores qualify. The largest is 29,435 square feet, which is 32 percent short of the threshold. If a listing, a builder, or a plan set proposes a guest house on a Bonita Shores lot, it is not permittable, and separately, the county’s own guidance is that guest houses may not be leased or rented regardless.

Honors and recognition:

• Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008
• 5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 20 Straight Years. Only 5 out of 21k+ Licensees (Gulfshore Life Magazine)
• #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012
• McGreevy and Comisar and their Domain Realty Group team have sold over $2.5 Billion in Real Estate
• McGreevy and Comisar alone have over $900 million in Sales
• Nationally Recognized Top Producing Realtors
• Platinum Sales Production Award Winners

Selling a Bonita Shores lot or house? Call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072. Buying one? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873.

The Fee Stack in a Neighborhood With No Association

The Bonita Shores fee stack is the shortest in Southwest Florida: for a single-family parcel there is no master association fee, no sub-association fee, no CDD assessment, no club dues, and no capital contribution at closing. The only recurring obligations are county property taxes, utilities, insurance, and, if the owner chooses, $50 a year to a voluntary civic association.

A fee stack section is required on every community page we build, and it is required precisely because a neighborhood with no fees still owes buyers an itemized answer. Silence here reads as an omission. So here is every layer a Bonita Shores buyer will actually be billed, and every layer that does not exist.

Two layers whose amounts are not published, stated plainly

We will not estimate a number we cannot source, so here are the two gaps by name.

The boat ramp membership fee is not published anywhere. Three different annual figures circulate: $40 in dues plus a $60 key charge, $200 per year, and $250 per year. None of the three has first-party support. No fee schedule appears on any association publication, any corporate filing, or any county record we could reach. The finding is the absence: a buyer being sold on ramp access should get the current fee in writing from Bonita Shores Boating Area, Inc. before closing, because there is no published schedule to check it against.

The condominium fees inside the grid are a different regime entirely. Glen Manor, Shore Woods, and Hickory Harbour each have their own declaration, their own board, and their own assessment. Those are governed buildings inside an ungoverned grid, they are the exception rather than the rule, and a buyer looking at a unit in one of them should read that building’s declaration, budget, and reserve schedule rather than anything on this page about the single-family neighborhood. Their section is below.

The Improvement Association, and Why It Is Not an HOA

The Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association, Inc. is a Florida not-for-profit corporation, document number 700793, filed 1960-04-11, and still active. Membership is entirely voluntary. It has 160 members against 692 eligible parcels across two subdivisions, and dues of $50 per household per year on the first-party record. It is a civic club, not a homeowners association, and it has no authority over any Bonita Shores parcel.

We verified the voluntary character four separate ways from the association’s own publications, and we are stating it in these terms because it is the fact most often misrepresented about this neighborhood. Nobody in Bonita Shores can be assessed. Nobody can be lien-ed. No board approves a buyer. No estoppel letter is required at closing because there is no association with standing to issue one.

Zero association-owned land inside the plats

This is the finding we have not seen published anywhere, and it took a parcel-by-parcel ownership audit of all 531 records to establish.

There is zero association-owned land and zero common property inside the Bonita Shores plats. Not a tract, not a park parcel, not a drainage tract, not an amenity lot. The only non-private owner among the 531 parcels is North Collier Fire Rescue.

The clubhouse and the boat ramp, both of which people describe as Bonita Shores amenities, both sit on Little Hickory Shores legal descriptions: 315 and 319 West Avenue for the clubhouse, plus all three ramp parcels. They are in the adjoining subdivision, not in Bonita Shores.

We ran a positive control on this to make sure the zero was real rather than an artifact: the identical query over Little Hickory Shores returns six association-held parcels, and over Bonita Shores it returns zero. The query works. The answer is genuinely zero.

The practical consequence for a buyer is that there is nothing here that can generate a future special assessment, because there is no commonly-owned asset to maintain, repair, or replace. There is also nothing here that anyone is obligated to maintain, which is the same fact seen from the other side.

Two dated conflicts we publish rather than resolve

We found two dates where the association’s own history and the county assessment roll disagree, and we publish both attributions rather than picking the tidier one.

Neither disagreement is suspicious. Recollected community history and an assessment roll’s structure-year field are different instruments recording different things, and a clubhouse that opened in 1960 and was substantially rebuilt or first assessed in 1967 would produce exactly this pattern. We name both sources and let a reader weigh them.

What replaced the deed restrictions

The association’s own published history confirms that recorded deed restrictions once existed across these plats. Today no association owns anything here and no assessment vehicle exists. The correct legal frame for what survives is Florida’s Marketable Record Title Act, Chapter 712, including s. 712.12, which specifically addresses owners in communities with no homeowners association who wish to preserve or revive covenants.

Whether any specific restriction still binds a specific Bonita Shores parcel is a title question answered by that parcel’s chain and by any recorded s. 712.06 preservation notice. That research requires an in-person Collier Clerk session, it is an open item on our list, and we will publish what we find. In the meantime, the honest answer to “are there deed restrictions in Bonita Shores” is that historic restrictions existed, no association enforces anything today, and the survival question is parcel-specific and title-driven.

The association’s own site, theshoresclub.org, is a genuine primary source for its board, its history, its FAQ, and its rental information, and we cite it directly.

Selling a Bonita Shores house and wondering what a buyer will ask about the association? Call Jesse at (239) 898-6072. We have the answer sheet.

The Teardown Economy, in Numbers

In Bonita Shores, 393 of 460 single-family parcels, or 85.4 percent, carry land just value at or above the improvement just value of the house standing on them. Land is 63.7 percent of all just value in the neighborhood. On five out of every six houses here, the county’s own assessment says the dirt is worth at least as much as the structure.

That is the defining economic fact of this neighborhood, it drives the 2.3x price-per-square-foot spread in the MLS data, and it changes what a seller should do before listing. It is also, as far as we can find, published nowhere else.

⛔ One caution stated up front and repeated wherever we use these figures: assessed value is not market value. The certified roll is a mass-appraisal instrument built for taxation. It is excellent for measuring the relationship between land and improvement across 531 comparable parcels, which is what we are doing here, and it is not a substitute for a market valuation of your specific house.

The crossover year is 1990

Sort every single-family parcel by the decade its house was built, and ask what share carry land value at or above improvement value:

The denominators for that table are single-family parcels by decade of the largest habitable structure: 47 in the 1950s, 80 in the 1960s, 147 in the 1970s, 89 in the 1980s, 50 in the 1990s, 28 in the 2000s, 8 in the 2010s and 10 in the 2020s. Those are a different cut from the build-out counts above, which count any first structure on all 531 parcels, which is why the 1960s reads 82 there and 80 here.

The break is sharp and it lands at 1990. Every single one of the 80 single-family houses built in the 1960s in Bonita Shores is assessed with land worth at least as much as the structure. Not most. All of them. If your Bonita Shores house was built before 1990, the county already treats it as a lot with a building on it, and any listing strategy that ignores that is leaving the argument on the table.

The mechanism, which is published nowhere

Here is why the pattern is so clean, and it is the single most useful thing on this page for a Bonita Shores seller.

The 2025 Collier certified roll values Bonita Shores land at a flat $35.00 per square foot on 450 of 531 parcels. Not a range. A flat rate. The modal 7,800 square foot lot times $35.00 is exactly $273,000, which is why so many land values in the grid are identical to the dollar.

The five-year history of that rate:

That is a 2.2x increase from 2021 to 2025, with a peak in 2023 and two years of retreat since. A seller whose land value moved and who assumed it was about the house has the causation backwards.

⚠️ And the 2026 preliminary roll changes the method. For the first time, the preliminary roll breaks the flat rate apart by street: 1st and 3rd Streets at $35.60, Valley Drive at $19.72, 6th Street at $19.87. We label this preliminary every time we state it, because a preliminary roll is not certified and can move before it is. But the direction is important: the appraiser appears to be moving from one neighborhood-wide land rate to street-level differentiation, and if that survives certification it will re-sort the tax picture inside this grid in a way that the flat rate has been masking for years.

Fifty-five parcels have already done it

The roll records a parcel’s improvement history, and it shows the cycle in progress:

• 55 parcels show an improved-to-vacant transition, meaning a structure that once stood there no longer does.
• 9 of the 10 houses built in the 2020s stand on one of those 55 parcels. New construction here is almost entirely replacement, not infill.
• 41 of the 48 currently vacant parcels once carried a structure. The vacant land in Bonita Shores is mostly cleared teardown sites, not virgin lots.

Put that beside the build-out curve and the story is unambiguous. The 2010s produced 8 first structures. The 2020s has already produced 10 with the decade half over, and nine of them replaced something. The teardown cycle in Bonita Shores is not a forecast. It is the current, measured state of the neighborhood.

What this means if you are selling

If you own a pre-1990 house in Bonita Shores, the frame “should I renovate or sell as-is” is the wrong frame. The right frame is “renovate, sell to a retail buyer, or sell to a builder,” and the three produce genuinely different numbers. We run all three for a Bonita Shores seller before anyone spends money on pre-list work, because on this grid the pre-list renovation that pays for itself in Naples Park or Estero can be money set on fire.

There is also a tax sequencing move that most sellers have never heard of, and it is worth real money. It is in the tax section below, under demolish before you sell, not after.

Honors and recognition:

• Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008
• 5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 20 Straight Years. Only 5 out of 21k+ Licensees (Gulfshore Life Magazine)
• #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012
• McGreevy and Comisar and their Domain Realty Group team have sold over $2.5 Billion in Real Estate
• McGreevy and Comisar alone have over $900 million in Sales
• Nationally Recognized Top Producing Realtors
• Platinum Sales Production Award Winners

Is your Bonita Shores house worth more as a house or as a lot? That is a question with a real answer and we will run it for you. Call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072, or start with a free valuation at https://mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation.

The Plan That Was Proposed, and What Happened to It

Bonita Shores has no master plan because no developer ever wrote one past the four plats. What it does have is something stranger and more useful: a live, adopted county authorization to plan a redevelopment area here that the Board of County Commissioners has declined to exercise for 29 years, and a documented history of residents twice voting down the taxes that would have paid for improvements.

FLUE Policy 4.8(c): adopted, never initiated

Collier County’s Future Land Use Element, currently in force as amended by Ordinance 2024-46, adopted 2024-11-12, names as a candidate redevelopment area: “Bonita Beach Road between Vanderbilt Drive and the west end of Little Hickory Shores #1 Subdivision.” That is the frontage of this neighborhood.

The policy history is the finding:

• In 1997 it was item (g) of seven candidate areas.
• It survived every subsequent amendment and is today item (c) of three.
• It has never been initiated, never been funded, and never been studied.
• Its two current list-mates, Bayshore/Gateway Triangle and Immokalee, both got redevelopment plans adopted on 2000-06-13 by Resolution 2000-181.

So this is not a shelved plan or an expired one. It is a standing authorization, currently in an ordinance adopted in late 2024, that two of its three named areas acted on a quarter-century ago and this one never did. For a buyer, that is a genuine and honest read on the neighborhood’s civic trajectory: the county has kept the door open for 29 years and never walked through it.

The kill: the 1984 street lighting vote

The most direct evidence of why nothing has happened here is a county ordinance that repealed another county ordinance, and its language is unambiguous.

Ordinance 84-48, adopted 1984-07-24, created the Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Street Lighting Municipal Service Taxing Unit and called its own funding referendum for 1984-09-04 on a levy of 0.7 mills.

The repealing instrument, Ordinance 87-34, adopted 1987-05-12, records the outcome verbatim: “Qualified electors declined to approve a tax levy of 0.7 mills to fund the MSTU.” The MSTU was repealed entirely.

That is a first-party, recorded, verbatim account of residents voting down street lighting for their own neighborhood. It is the reason Bonita Shores is dark at night, and it is the reason there is no lighting district on the tax bill today.

It happened again. In 2014, county staff once more told residents that the path to pathway lighting was to form an MSTU. No MSTU was formed. Twice asked to tax themselves for lights, twice the answer was no.

Two more institutions that ended

• The Little Hickory and Bonita Shores Fire Control District was dissolved. The dissolution is recorded at document 91-375 in the Laws of Florida with a registry date of 1996-06-27, and the firehouse was returned to the civic association in 1992. Fire and EMS service today is North Collier Fire Control and Rescue District, which is one of the ten taxing authorities on the bill at 1.0000 mills.
• The county formally asked USPS to change these addresses. Resolution 93-102, adopted 1993-03-16, urged the Postal Service to move these addresses to a North Naples designation. USPS never did it. That single unexecuted resolution is why a Collier County neighborhood has carried a Bonita Springs mailing address for thirty-three years and counting.

Annexation into Bonita Springs is structurally barred

Buyers ask whether the City of Bonita Springs will eventually annex Bonita Shores. The answer is no, and it is not a matter of political will. A Florida municipality cannot span two counties. The City of Bonita Springs is a Lee County municipality. Bonita Shores is in Collier County. There is no annexation path that does not require the county line to move.

This is a durable, structural fact about the neighborhood, and it is one of the reasons the governance picture here is unusually stable: nothing is coming to govern it.

Drainage, and Why Is My Street Next Has an Answer

The question every owner in an older Southwest Florida grid asks is whether their street is next in line for a county drainage or utility renewal project. In Bonita Shores the answer is unusually definite: no street is. Zero Collier County wastewater or stormwater project polygons touch the Bonita Shores grid, negatively controlled against 56, 1, 14, and 36 active projects countywide across four separate program layers.

How Bonita Shores actually drains

The mechanism is minimal and it is worth stating precisely, because most people assume there is more infrastructure here than there is.

Two secondary ditches, 1,089 feet in total, cross private land inside the grid. They are county-owned and county-maintained, and they are part of the MCB-17 branch of the county’s secondary drainage system. Their dimensional attributes in the county’s own dataset are blank, and the records were last edited in 2013. That is the whole of the mapped county drainage asset inside Bonita Shores.

Everything else is sheet flow, swales, and the underlying dirt. Which, as the flood section shows, is the actual reason this neighborhood is mostly out of the Special Flood Hazard Area: the ground is high.

The comparison that makes the finding meaningful

A zero is only informative against a control, so here is the control. Naples Park, the near-twin platted grid six miles south, IS in a street-by-street renewal queue, with 103rd and 104th Avenue in design for 2026-27. Same county, same era of platting, same rectangular street grid, same absence of an association. One is in the queue and one is not.

Collier County’s only septic-to-sewer conversion program is in Golden Gate City, which is a different part of the county entirely and not relevant to Bonita Shores, where the sewer question is largely already answered.

The trap we fell into, and caught

We want to record this because it is exactly the error a careful reader could make from public sources. Collier County has a project called the “Vanderbilt Drive Stormwater Improvement Master Plan,” project 60122. Vanderbilt Drive runs along the eastern edge of Bonita Shores. It would be entirely reasonable to conclude that the project affects this neighborhood.

It does not. We pulled the project’s actual polygon geometry. It spans latitude 26.25302 to 26.27221, which is roughly four miles south of Bonita Shores. It shares a street name and nothing else. That error is invisible to anyone reading project titles rather than geometry, and we suspect it is circulating.

Street by Street: Water, Sewer, Trash, and Streetlights

Bonita Shores is served by Collier County Public Utilities for both water and sewer, in water service area D12 and the North wastewater service area. It is not served by Bonita Springs Utilities, which serves no part of the plat. 528 of the 702 parcel records in the utility datasets are known-sewer. That 702 is larger than the 531 platted parcels because the state and county utility files resolve the three condominiums into individual unit folios; measured against the platted single-family grid the sewer coverage is materially higher than 528 over 702 implies, and the two apparent gaps both resolve to single buildings, named below. The federal lead service line inventory records zero lead lines and zero unverified lines across roughly 523 Bonita Shores records.

This is the single most-corrected fact in our own research file, so it is worth explaining. An early measurement placed Bonita Shores outside the Collier water-sewer district with Bonita Springs Utilities providing sewer. That measurement used a test coordinate at latitude 26.3309, which sits 54 meters north of the county line at 26.33042, in Lee County, where the Collier district correctly returns empty. Re-run properly on a lattice of 100 points inside the plats: 100 of 100 inside the Collier County Water-Sewer District, 0 inside the Bonita Springs Utilities service area. The Bonita Springs Utilities franchise stops at unincorporated south Lee County.

Water service, street by street

Active Collier County water service records inside the grid:

Grid total: 524 active service records against 531 platted parcels. County water reaches essentially every buildable parcel in Bonita Shores. The seven-record residual is consistent with vacant lots carrying no meter.

The federal lead service line inventory, which is genuinely remarkable

Under the federal Lead and Copper Rule Revisions, every community water system had to inventory its service lines. We pulled that inventory for this area, and the result is striking enough that we ran controls on it.

598 records fall inside the Bonita Shores grid, roughly 523 of them on Bonita Shores streets. Every one carries a Collier County account number, a physical meter serial number, and Active status. The material classification: zero lead service lines and zero unverified service lines.

The control: the same query returns 0 records in downtown Bonita Springs, 0 in Lee County north of the line, 0 in Naples, and 0 in Fort Myers. Different utilities report on different schedules and in different formats, so those zeros are about data availability, not about those areas’ pipes. What they establish is that the Bonita Shores result is a real, populated, verified inventory rather than an artifact of a query that returns nothing everywhere.

For a buyer, this is a concrete answer to a question that usually gets a shrug: the service line to your Bonita Shores house has been inventoried by the utility, and it is not lead.

Sewer, street by street, read carefully

8th Street, Valley Drive, and Forest Avenue are 100 percent known-sewer with zero exceptions. Three of the four apparent anomalies in that table are artifacts, and here they are by name:

• The 62 “unknown” records on 3rd Street are one building, not 62 lots. They all carry the identical address 226 3rd Street with consecutive folios. It is Hickory Harbour, a single multi-unit property whose individual units the state inventory never resolved. ⚠️ Note that 62 is the upper of two disagreeing measurement routes for that building; the other returns 51, and we publish the range rather than pick one. See the condominium section below.
• The 64 “likely septic” flags on 4th Street are one building too, and they are wrong. They resolve to Shore Woods, where the state’s 2024 geocode attached to an expired swimming pool permit while the building itself holds an active 2-inch Collier County water meter. The same 4th Street block shows 106 known-sewer parcels sourced directly to Collier County Utilities.
• ⚠️ And we will not present the septic flags as settled, because we found they are not stable between two releases of the same state dataset. A flag that changes when the publisher reposts the file is not a fact about a pipe. We publish this table as the best available read with its instability named.

Exactly one parcel in the grid reads as likely on a well: 220 West Avenue. No street in Bonita Shores is on well water.

Streetlights, trash, and the small stuff

• Streetlights. Collier County does not light residential streets. With no association-owned property and no lighting MSTU, exterior lighting is a per-parcel FPL Outdoor Security Light arrangement. See the 1984 referendum above for why there is no district.
• Solid waste. Collier County District 1. Garbage Friday and Tuesday. Recycling, yard waste, and bulk on Friday.
• Interior street maintenance. The interior streets appear in Collier County’s Road Centerlines dataset with county centerline identifiers, 80 segments inside the grid. We have this as county-maintained by strong inference from that dataset rather than from a maintenance agreement we have read, and we flag it as such rather than asserting it.

Flood Zones Block by Block

79.85 percent of Bonita Shores parcels are dominant Zone X on the currently effective FIRM, covering 74.07 percent of the land area, and there are zero VE parcels on either map. On the preliminary map those figures rise to 84.18 percent of parcels and 78.03 percent of land area. Bonita Shores sits outside the Special Flood Hazard Area across most of the grid, two miles from the Gulf.

🔒 And it is simultaneously true that 100.00 percent of Bonita Shores sits in Hurricane Evacuation Zone A, Collier County’s first-evacuated zone. We never state the flood zone here without the evacuation zone, because they are different instruments answering different questions and buyers conflate them constantly. The flood zone tells you about insurance and construction elevation. The evacuation zone tells you when to leave. Both are true at once, and neither cancels the other.

The two maps

A preliminary FIRM exists for this neighborhood right now, its appeal window has already closed, and no Letter of Final Determination has been issued as of early August 2026. A news outlet has reported an expected fall 2026 effective date; we have not found that date in a federal instrument and we do not state it as one. What we can say is that the pending map moves Bonita Shores further out of the Special Flood Hazard Area, not further in, and that a buyer or seller transacting in this window should know the revision is live.

⛔ Zone X is not “no flood zone,” and it is not “minimal”

Two phrasings recur constantly on listings for this neighborhood and both are wrong.

“Not in a flood zone” is wrong. Zone X is a flood zone. It is a zone that sits outside the Special Flood Hazard Area, which means no federally mandated purchase requirement for a federally backed mortgage. It does not mean no flood risk, and it does not mean no water.

“Minimal flood hazard” is also wrong here, and this is the nuance nobody publishes. FEMA distinguishes Zone X shaded, the 0.2 percent annual chance floodplain, from Zone X unshaded, areas of minimal flood hazard. In Bonita Shores, 72.43 percent of parcel land is Zone X SHADED. Only 1.64 percent is unshaded. The correct sentence about most of this neighborhood is “outside the Special Flood Hazard Area,” and we will not write “minimal flood hazard” about a grid that is overwhelmingly in the 500-year floodplain.

One point that trips people up: the AH shallow-ponding zone is inside the Special Flood Hazard Area, the same as AE. It carries the mandatory purchase requirement. Only the X zones sit outside it.

The mechanism is dirt

Why is a neighborhood two miles from the Gulf mostly out of the Special Flood Hazard Area? Because the ground is high.

Sampled against USGS 3DEP bare-earth elevation, the median ground elevation across Bonita Shores is 12.12 feet NAVD88, against base flood elevations in the surrounding AE zones of 9 to 11 feet. Broken out: Zone X parcels have a median of 12.40 feet. AE parcels at BFE 10 have a median of 8.42 feet. The zone boundary is tracking a real four-foot difference in the dirt, not a cartographic accident.

Street by street, both maps

Zone X shaded is the 0.2 percent annual chance floodplain, outside the Special Flood Hazard Area. Zone X unshaded is minimal hazard. Elevation is median bare-earth ground for the street in feet NAVD88.

How to read that table

• Third Street is the safest street in the neighborhood. All 68 parcels are Zone X on both maps, eight of them unshaded minimal hazard, at a median 13.3 feet of ground elevation.
• Ninth Street becomes 100 percent Zone X on the preliminary map. Two AH parcels drop out.
• West Valley Drive is the outlier that a buyer must know about. Eighteen of its 25 parcels are dominant AE on the effective map and two more are AH, so 20 of 25 sit inside the Special Flood Hazard Area, at a median ground elevation of 9.3 feet, and it stays that way on the preliminary map. It is the street where the Special Flood Hazard Area is the rule rather than the exception, and the mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement for a federally backed mortgage bites hardest. It is not the only street with SFHA parcels: West Avenue is 4 of 6, East Lakeview Drive is 2 of 2, and AE or AH parcels appear on eleven more streets. The table above is parcel-level for a reason.
• Forest Avenue is the high ground at a 14.3-foot median, with three of its fourteen parcels carrying the unshaded minimal-hazard designation.
• The AH zone is shallow ponding, and it is not the ponds. A reasonable hypothesis is that the mid-grid AH pockets are the five interior ponds. We tested it and it is false: AH overlap is 0.0 percent on four of the ponds and 4.3 percent on the fifth, with the control passing at 32 polygons unfiltered. They are separate features and should not be conflated.
• The nearest VE polygon is 215 meters, about 707 feet, west of the grid, at a base flood elevation of 11 to 13 feet. Zero Bonita Shores parcels are in it on either map.

The repetitive-loss finding

FEMA tracks repetitive-loss properties, those with multiple paid flood claims. In the Collier County portion of ZIP 34134 there are 51 repetitive-loss properties. All 51 are in AE, VE, AH, or AHB. Zero are in Zone X.

That is about as direct a validation of the zone mapping as the federal data can provide: across half a century of claims in this ZIP code, the properties that flood repeatedly are the ones the maps say will.

Need the flood zone, base flood elevation, and ground elevation for one specific Bonita Shores address before you write an offer? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873. We pull it by folio.

Insurance Reality: What Bonita Shores Owners Actually Pay

In the census block group containing Bonita Shores, the median annual NFIP flood policy costs $793 in Zone X, $728 in Zone AH, and $1,937 in Zone AE. The AE parcel one street west pays roughly 2.4 times what the Zone X parcel pays. That gap is the financial expression of everything in the flood section above, and it is measured from 600 actual federal policy records, not estimated.

The number that changes the conversation

Today’s Zone X premium in Bonita Shores is not a plateau. It is a phase-in.

The median full-risk NFIP premium for Zone X properties in this block group is $4,345, against a median currently-paid premium of $793. That is a 5.5x gap, and under Risk Rating 2.0 premiums move toward full risk over time within statutory annual increase caps.

We publish this because it is the honest version of the Zone X advantage. It is real, it is large, and it is not permanent at today’s number. A buyer underwriting a Bonita Shores purchase on an $800 flood policy for the next twenty years is underwriting optimistically. A buyer who understands the glide path is making a fully informed decision, and the comparison against AE, where the same phase-in applies from a much higher starting point, still favors this neighborhood.

Community Rating System, and a conflict we publish

Collier County participates in FEMA’s Community Rating System, which discounts NFIP premiums community-wide based on floodplain management practices.

⚠️ The class is genuinely disputed in the federal data, so we publish both. The FEMA Community Status Book and Collier County’s own March 2026 flood protection newsletter both state Class 5. All 600 FEMA policy records for this block group code the CRS class as 6. We have no basis for choosing, so we name both sources.

What is not disputed: for properties outside the Special Flood Hazard Area, the CRS discount is 10 percent, regardless of whether the class is 5 or 6. The larger CRS discounts apply inside the SFHA. So the Zone X owner in Bonita Shores gets the 10 percent, and the difference between Class 5 and Class 6 does not change that number for them.

Hurricane Ian, measured

Bonita Shores was in the path. Here is what the federal record actually shows for this block group.

• Nearest USGS high water mark: 11.20 feet NAVD88, 31 meters west of the grid. Set that against the neighborhood’s 12.12-foot median ground elevation.
• Zero structures destroyed in the block group.
• 232 FEMA Individual Assistance registrations.
• Median verified flood damage: $16,739.
• 62.9 percent of registrants had no flood insurance.

That last figure is the one worth sitting with. Nearly two-thirds of the households that registered for federal assistance after Ian in this block group carried no flood policy, in a neighborhood where the Zone X policy runs about $793 a year. Being outside the mandatory purchase requirement is not the same as being outside the risk, and the Ian data in this block group is the clearest local proof of it.

A named resident’s public account of Ian in this neighborhood describes roughly two feet of water outside and into the garage, and about a foot inside the house. That is a single account, not a distribution, and we present it as such.

Citizens, and a deadline that is already here

Citizens Property Insurance, the state’s insurer of last resort, now requires flood coverage as a condition of a Citizens policy outside the Special Flood Hazard Area:

• From 2026-01-01 for dwellings with a coverage A value of $400,000 or more.
• From 2027-01-01 for all Citizens personal residential policies.

For Bonita Shores, where most of the grid is outside the SFHA and where median closed prices run $600,000, that is not a distant policy change. A Bonita Shores buyer using Citizens in 2026 with a dwelling value at or above $400,000 must carry flood insurance even though no lender requires it, and from January 2027 every Citizens policyholder here must, regardless of value.

Wind, elevation certificates, and the 50 percent rule

• Design wind speed for new construction here is 161 mph, Risk Category II, under the Florida Building Code 8th Edition (2023). Wind mitigation credits from a completed inspection are typically the largest single lever on a Bonita Shores wind premium, given the neighborhood’s building age profile.
• ⚠️ The Florida Building Code edition that applies to substantial improvement is itself inconsistent in the county’s own publications. Collier’s Substantial Improvement page cites the 6th Edition (2017), while the Building Codes and Fees page and the codified Chapter 22 cite the 8th Edition (2023). We publish both and recommend confirming with the building department on any substantial improvement project before design.
• Elevation certificates. In Zone X there is no base flood elevation, so an elevation certificate is not required for rating. It is still frequently the fastest way for a Bonita Shores seller to end an argument with a buyer’s insurance agent, and Collier County may already have one on file for the property from a prior permit. It is worth asking before paying a surveyor.

Insurance is where Bonita Shores deals go sideways. Call Jesse at (239) 898-6072 before you are under contract, not after.

What Gulf Access Actually Conveys

Bonita Shores has no Gulf, bay or canal frontage. Every mapped canal and the whole of Little Hickory Bay stop at West Avenue, and the community boat ramp sits on Little Hickory Shores legal descriptions next door. Bonita Shores is landlocked, with no boat access from any lot. An owner can buy a membership in a separate ramp-owning corporation, a contractual amenity rather than frontage.

This is the single most important correction on this page, and it is the reason the page exists. Buyers arrive at Bonita Shores convinced it is a boating neighborhood with canal lots, because that is what the market shows them. Here is exactly why, and exactly what is true.

The ramp is a separate 1972 corporation

The boat ramp belongs to BONITA SHORES BOATING AREA, INC., a Florida corporation, sunbiz document 723054, formed in 1972. It holds three parcels totalling 0.29 acres, all conveyed under OR 579 PG 454, on the 3rd Street West dog-leg.

It has separate membership and a separate key from the Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association. They are two different corporations, and the civic club’s own FAQ page answers the difference unprompted, which is what an organization does when it is asked something constantly.

⛔ A caution we take seriously: the deed runs to the corporation. We located no appurtenant instrument tying ramp rights to any Bonita Shores parcel. Until OR 579 PG 454 has been read in the Clerk’s office, we will not describe a buyer’s interest in the ramp as “deeded.” It is a membership in a corporation that owns land. That may or may not be conveyed with a house, and the answer for a specific transaction comes from the ramp corporation’s own governing documents, which is an open item on our list. If you are buying a Bonita Shores house on the strength of ramp access, get the transfer mechanics in writing before you close.

⛔ And the fee is unpublished. Three annual figures circulate: $40 dues plus $60 for a key, $200, and $250. None has first-party support and no fee schedule is published anywhere. The absence is the finding.

The MLS says it better than we can

The Southwest Florida MLS publishes its own field glossary, and that glossary defines Waterfront by direct abutment. It also provides Community Boat Ramp and Community Gulf Boat Access as separate amenity values, built for precisely this situation.

So we measured it. Across all 47 closed Bonita Shores sales in the trailing 730 days, with both fields fully populated and zero nulls:

Both sums land exactly on 47, which is the built-in control proving these are real values and not blanks read as “No.”

And here is the record that tells the whole story. 523 E Valley Dr carries Gulf Access: Yes. It then has to answer Gulf Access Type with “Other” and Waterfront Descrip. with “None/Other,” because there is no water to name. Its actual listed amenity is Community Boat Ramp.

The boolean is advertising the ramp membership, not frontage. That is the entire confusion, caught in one structured record, and it is why a buyer should never take “Gulf access” on a Bonita Shores listing at face value without asking what water and what route.

The other flagged record, 989 E Valley Dr, carries Waterfront Descrip.: Lake, and that one is correct. It has 390 square meters of interior pond inside its own lot lines. See the ponds section below.

⚠️ These figures are measured on closed sales. The eight current active listings were not re-read on these two fields, and we do not generalize the two-of-47 rate to current inventory.

Why the market gets this wrong at scale

The mechanism is worth stating because it is not obvious. The listing aggregators draw a “Bonita Shores” neighborhood polygon that swallows Little Hickory Shores waterfront product. We tested the strongest counterexample we could find: a listing presented as Bonita Shores waterfront with direct bridge-free Gulf access and a private dock. Its recorded legal description reads LITTLE HICKORY SHORES UNIT 2 BLK E LOT 12, confirmed identically on three independent feeds.

It is a genuine waterfront home. It is not a Bonita Shores parcel. Buyers arrive believing this neighborhood has canals because they have been shown the next subdivision’s canals inside a box labeled with this neighborhood’s name.

If you do have the ramp, what the run is actually like

For an owner who does hold a ramp membership, here is the honest navigational picture, and it is more constrained than “Gulf access” implies.

The binding constraint is not distance, it is depth. Charted soundings within a quarter mile of the ramp run 1 to 2 feet, with drying flats on every side, and the mean tidal range here is only 0.56 feet, so the tide gives you very little help. The NOAA Coast Pilot notes that the aids to navigation in this area are private and that “local knowledge is advised.”

Practically: this is a shallow-draft, skiff-and-bay-boat launch with a genuinely bridge-free route to the Gulf through Wiggins Pass for a boat that can run in two feet of water. It is not a deep-water dock, and a buyer with a 30-foot cruiser should understand that before they buy on the strength of the phrase “Gulf access.”

Two more regulatory facts an owner should know. Rule 68C-22.023 of the Florida Administrative Code uses the ramp peninsula itself as a boundary monument for manatee speed zones: SLOW SPEED northbound, 20 MPH southbound, year-round. And the receiving water is an Outstanding Florida Water, FDEP WBID 3259A, Class 2, currently impaired for Enterococci and Total Nitrogen.

⚠️ A recorded discrepancy worth naming: the speed-zone rule describes the peninsula containing Third Street West as being “in Bonita Shores.” The recorded plats put it in Little Hickory Shores. The rule is a regulatory description, not a boundary determination, and the plats govern.

What a seller may and may not advertise

This is a compliance question, not a marketing preference, and it matters. A Bonita Shores listing that states “Gulf access” as a property characteristic is making a claim the structured MLS field does not support, when the actual amenity is a membership in a ramp corporation in the adjoining subdivision.

What is accurate and still sells the neighborhood honestly: community boat ramp access available by separate membership, landlocked lot with no boat access from the property, about two miles from the Gulf beaches, and where applicable, interior pond frontage. We write listings this way for Bonita Shores sellers, and it has never cost a deal.

The Five Interior Ponds

Bonita Shores contains five unnamed interior freshwater ponds totalling about 2.34 acres, all of them east of West Avenue, tucked inside the block interiors along East and West Valley Drive, East and West Lakeview Drive, and between 1st and 2nd Streets. About thirty lots back directly onto them, with a further ten adjoining. They are not navigable, have no outlet, and provide no boat access.

We treat these accurately and without inflating them, because they are a genuine amenity for the thirty-odd lots that touch them and irrelevant to the other five hundred.

The five, by location

The finding that matters to an owner

100.0 percent of the mapped pond area falls inside private parcel geometry. There is no tract, no common area, and no separate water folio. The pond bottoms were platted into the lots.

That single fact resolves three separate puzzles at once. It is why the association owns nothing here even though there is water. It is why the interior lots on Valley Drive and Lakeview Drive measure larger than the modal 7,800 square feet: they extend into the water. And it is why there is no entity that maintains these ponds, because the owners collectively are the entity.

40 of 531 lots, or 7.53 percent, contain mapped water. We publish the frontage figure as about thirty lots backing directly onto the ponds with a further ten adjoining, because 30 of the 40 carry 100 square meters or more of water inside the lot lines and are unambiguous frontage while the remaining 10 sit within positional tolerance of the edge.

There is a federal document recording standing water on a Bonita Shores lot, and it has been on the record for years: FEMA Letter of Map Amendment 13-04-0128A, “BONITA SHORES UNIT NO. 4, LOT 19, 42 9TH STREET,” with the outcome recorded as “Structure removed, Property partially inundated.”

⛔ These ponds are not the FEMA AH zone. We tested that hypothesis directly and it failed: AH overlap is 0.0 percent on four ponds and 4.3 percent on the fifth, with the control passing at 32 polygons unfiltered. Shallow ponding zones and these ponds are separate features.

What pond frontage is actually worth here

Honestly: it is a view and a setting, not an access right. There is no dock, no outlet, no navigation, and no fishing rights beyond what an owner has on their own land. The MLS record 989 E Valley Dr carrying Waterfront Descrip.: Lake is correct and is the only closed sale in two years where that flag is properly supported by geometry.

If you own one of the thirty, it is a real differentiator that most listing copy for this neighborhood misses entirely, and it should be photographed and described. If you own one of the other five hundred, this section is not about your lot, and we would rather tell you that than sell you a neighborhood amenity you do not have.

Short-Term Rentals, From the Ordinance

There is no minimum rental duration in Bonita Shores. RSF-4 zoning contains zero duration language, the neighborhood sits under no overlay that would impose one, and Florida Statute 509.032(7)(b) preempts local duration and frequency regulation for ordinances that do not predate 2011-06-01. What is mandatory is registration with Collier County under Ordinance 2021-45, at $500 per violation per day, with guests citable as well as owners.

⛔ We write this section for owners deciding what they may lawfully do with property they own. It is not a rental-income pitch, and we do not present short-term rental as a reason to buy here.

Why there is no minimum stay, proven three ways

This is a question that gets answered wrongly all over the internet, so here is the chain.

1. Zoning. We searched LDC 2.03.02 (residential zoning districts), LDC 1.08.02 (definitions), and the whole of LDC Chapter 5 for any rental duration language attaching to RSF-4. There is none, positively controlled. The only zoning-tied minimum duration anywhere in the Collier LDC is a one-month floor in the Bayshore and Gateway Triangle overlays, and Bonita Shores has zero overlays.
2. State preemption. F.S. 509.032(7)(b) preempts local regulation of the duration or frequency of vacation rentals unless the local ordinance predates 2011-06-01. Collier’s ordinance does not.
3. The county’s own text. The preamble to Collier’s short-term rental ordinance states that it does not regulate duration or frequency. The county says so itself.

⚠️ The mismatch that produces most of the wrong answers

Two different thresholds are in play, they are different numbers, and conflating them is the single most common error in circulation about Collier short-term rentals.

⚠️ Note the second row carefully: the state test turns on ADVERTISING as much as on actual stays. An owner who lists a property for nightly stays and never books one can still fall inside the definition. That surprises people every year.

The compliance chain

Getting a Bonita Shores short-term rental fully legal is six steps across four agencies with two hard gates, meaning two steps that cannot proceed until an earlier one is complete:

1. DBPR vacation rental license (Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation).
2. Florida Department of Revenue sales and use tax registration.
3. Collier County Tax Collector tourist development tax account.
4. Collier County short-term vacation rental registration, which requires the DBPR license number, making step 1 a hard gate.
5. Collier County business tax receipt.
6. Ongoing monthly or quarterly remittance of both state and county transient taxes.

The tax rate, and the county line again

Transient rental tax on a Bonita Shores short-term rental totals 11.0 percent: 6.0 percent state sales tax, 0.0 percent county discretionary sales surtax, and 5.0 percent Collier tourist development tax.

⭐ The Lee County side of Bonita Springs is 11.5 percent. Same town by name, half a percentage point apart, because the county line runs across Bonita Beach Road. An owner using a Lee County rate on a Collier County property is remitting the wrong amount.

What has no bearing here at all

There is no association rule governing rentals on a Bonita Shores single-family parcel. No minimum lease term set by covenant, no board approval of tenants, no rental cap, no rental registry, and no rider. For an owner, the county ordinance and state law are the complete rule set.

The three condominiums inside the grid are the exception, and they are strict. Glen Manor requires a one-month minimum plus a one-month gap between leases. Shore Woods requires 30 consecutive days. Both cap leasing at three times per year. Their section is below.

Taxes, Save Our Homes, and the Teardown Trap

Every parcel in Bonita Shores sits in Collier millage area 90 at 9.5058 mills for 2025 across ten taxing authorities, with no MSTU, no CDD and no special district line. The median bill on a capped homesteaded single-family parcel here is about $2,171. The same parcel bought at full just value runs about $5,154 without homestead and $4,782 with it. Nearly all of that jump is the lost cap, not the lost exemption.

The 2025 certified stack

Five-year history for area 90, all ten authorities in every year:

That is a 1.4125-mill decline over five years, driven by the General Fund, the school state-law levy, the unincorporated MSTD, Conservation Collier and Mosquito Control. The North Collier Fire rate was exactly 1.0000 in all five years.

⭐ One correction to something a reader might assume: Bonita Shores (millage area 90) and Little Hickory Shores (millage area 170) carry identical authorities and identical totals. They are different area codes with the same stack. Nobody should be told that the clubhouse and the ramp sit on a different millage stack than the houses, because they do not.

Homestead and the shelter that has built up

253 of 531 parcels carry a homestead exemption, 47.6 percent, rising to 252 of 460 single-family parcels, 54.8 percent.

Under Save Our Homes, an assessed value on a homesteaded Florida property can rise no more than 3 percent or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is less, per year. Over two or three decades on a grid whose land value went up 2.2x in five years, that produces enormous accumulated shelter.

The median Save Our Homes shelter on a homesteaded Bonita Shores single-family parcel is $263,131, which is 56.3 percent of that parcel’s just value. Narrow it to the 231 parcels that still hold a live cap and the median rises to $278,119, or 59.1 percent. Across all 253 homesteaded parcels in the grid, total sheltered value is $91,351,475. Those are two different populations and both numbers are correct; the difference is that the second excludes homesteads whose cap has not yet accumulated.

Read that plainly. On the median capped homestead in Bonita Shores, the county is taxing about 41 percent of the property’s value, because the other 59 percent is behind the cap.

⭐⭐ The teardown trap, decomposed

Here is the calculation that matters most to a Bonita Shores seller and to their buyer, and the part almost everyone gets backwards.

When a Bonita Shores homesteaded property sells, the buyer’s first full tax year runs roughly $2,983 higher than the seller’s last one. Ask anyone what causes that and they will say the homestead exemption.

Of that roughly $2,983 increase, only about $373 is the lost exemption. About $2,610 is the accumulated Save Our Homes cap resetting to just value.

The cap does seven times the work of the exemption. The exemption is a rounding error in this calculation. What actually happens at closing is that decades of deferred assessment increase come due at once, and it happens whether or not the buyer files for homestead.

🔒 We state the homestead assumption every single time we quote one of these numbers, because the difference between the $5,154 figure and the $4,782 figure is entirely the buyer’s own filing decision, and quoting either one without the assumption produces a number that is wrong for half the audience.

Portability changes everything, and it is under-used

Look at the fourth row of that table again. A buyer who ports the Bonita Shores median Save Our Homes shelter into their purchase here pays about $2,138, which is within 1.6 percent of what the seller was actually paying. A buyer porting a full $500,000 cap pays about $164.

Portability under F.S. 193.155 requires a prior Florida homestead. So the practical market fact is: a Florida-to-Florida buyer of a Bonita Shores house can carry a fundamentally different cost of ownership than an out-of-state buyer of the identical house. That is a real, quantified, sourceable difference, and it belongs in every conversation about who the buyer pool for a given Bonita Shores listing actually is.

⭐⭐ Demolish before you sell, not after

This is the sequencing move, and it is worth thousands of dollars a year to the right owner. Under F.S. 193.155:

• Demolition, subsection (5): preserves the Save Our Homes cap. Removing a structure from a homesteaded parcel does not trigger reassessment to just value.
• A sale, subsection (3)(a): destroys the cap. Change of ownership resets assessed value to just value on January 1 following the sale.
• Renovation, subsection (4)(a): adds only the new work at just value. The existing capped base survives; the improvement is added on top.

For a Bonita Shores owner whose house is one of the 393 where land value already meets or exceeds improvement value, and who intends to demolish and rebuild on the same parcel: do the demolition while you still own it, not after you sell. The cap survives demolition and dies at the sale. Sequencing the two events in the wrong order is expensive and irreversible.

We are describing a statute here, not giving tax advice, and the specifics of any individual situation belong with a CPA or a property tax attorney. But a seller who has never heard of the distinction cannot even ask the question.

The 2026 ballot measure that would rewrite this section

Florida Amendment 3 is on the ballot 2026-11-03. As enrolled, it would create a non-school homestead exemption of $150,000 in 2027 rising to $250,000 in 2028, cut the non-homestead assessment cap from 10 percent to 5 percent effective 2027-01-01, and impose a five-year Florida residency waiting period for anyone establishing residency after 2027-01-01.

At Bonita Shores’ measured median assessed value, a $250,000 non-school exemption would zero out the non-school liability on roughly half the homesteaded houses in this neighborhood.

⚠️ The residency provision cuts the other way and is the sharper local consequence. A buyer taking title on or after 2027-01-01 who was not already a Florida resident on 2026-12-31 would receive $25,000 for school levies plus $50,000 non-school, stepping up to the full amount in the fifth year. Combined with portability, which already requires a prior Florida homestead, the amendment would widen an existing gap: Florida-to-Florida buyers of Bonita Shores houses would carry materially lower tax than out-of-state buyers of the identical house.

It is a ballot measure. It has not passed. We will update this section when the voters decide.

Honors and recognition:

• Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008
• 5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 20 Straight Years. Only 5 out of 21k+ Licensees (Gulfshore Life Magazine)
• #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012
• McGreevy and Comisar and their Domain Realty Group team have sold over $2.5 Billion in Real Estate
• McGreevy and Comisar alone have over $900 million in Sales
• Nationally Recognized Top Producing Realtors
• Platinum Sales Production Award Winners

Want the tax picture run for a specific Bonita Shores folio, with and without portability? Call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072.

The Three Condominiums Inside the Grid

Three condominium properties sit physically inside the Bonita Shores footprint and are governed completely differently from the surrounding single-family grid: Glen Manor at 76 4th Street with 60 units, Shore Woods at 64 4th Street with 64 units, and Hickory Harbour at 226 3rd Street. All three are zoned RMF-12, all three have recorded declarations, and all three require mandatory board approval of a buyer.

⛔ Never fold these into the no-association story. They are the exception that proves it. A buyer purchasing a unit in one of these three buildings is buying into a conventional Florida condominium regime with a declaration, a board, an assessment, a reserve obligation, and a leasing restriction, in the middle of a neighborhood that has none of those things.

Zero DBPR vacation rental licenses exist at either Glen Manor or Shore Woods, positively controlled. Their own leasing rules are stricter than anything Collier County imposes, and stricter than anything that applies to a single-family lot two hundred feet away.

Anyone considering a unit in one of these buildings should read that building’s declaration, current budget, reserve schedule, milestone inspection status where applicable, and the last twelve months of board minutes. Under Florida’s condominium statutes, those are the documents that tell you what you are actually buying. Nothing on this page about the no-association character of Bonita Shores applies to them.

Schools, Healthcare, and Drive Times

Bonita Shores addresses are zoned to Naples Park Elementary, North Naples Middle, and Aubrey Rogers High School, identically for 597 of 597 in-grid addresses across both the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years, with no pending rezone. The nearest emergency departments are 5.7, 6.2, and 6.4 miles away across two counties and two hospital systems, urgent care is 1.5 miles, and Bonita Beach Park is 1.8 miles, about 5 minutes.

Schools, and a correction

⛔ Bonita Shores is not zoned to Gulf Coast High School. Aubrey Rogers High School opened in August 2023 specifically to relieve Gulf Coast. Any page, listing, or relocation guide still assigning Bonita Shores addresses to Gulf Coast High is working from pre-2023 information. We verified the assignment against the district’s own zoning tool for both the current and the upcoming school year, across every address in the grid, and got the same three-school set 597 times out of 597.

⚠️ We are not publishing school letter grades, because we could not obtain them from a first-party source. The Florida Department of Education’s school grades workbook returned an HTTP 403 error on every route we tried. Rather than repeat a grade from an aggregator, we say plainly that we do not have it. The FLDOE school grades portal and the district’s own grades page are the places to look, and school attendance zones should always be verified for a specific address before closing.

Healthcare

The three-ED figure is worth a moment. Bonita Shores sits close enough to the county line that its nearest emergency care spans two counties and two hospital systems. In practice that is an advantage, since it means three independent options within seven miles, but it also means an owner should know which one their insurance network prefers before they need to know.

Drive times

All measured from 4th Street at East Valley Drive, the approximate geographic center of the grid. These are free-flow times with no traffic model. In season, Bonita Beach Road and US 41 both congest badly and real times run longer.

⚠️ Note that Barefoot Beach Preserve is only 3.4 miles but takes 12 minutes. That is not an error. The approach is a slow two-lane road through a residential corridor, and it is a good illustration of why distance is a poor proxy for time in this part of the county.

Walking and cycling, precisely

Sidewalk coverage in and around Bonita Shores is measured by FDOT segment rather than being uniform. The specific fact worth knowing: the Vanderbilt Drive bike lane terminates at latitude 26.32862, roughly at 2nd Street, one block short of Bonita Beach Road. A cyclist heading north out of the neighborhood loses the dedicated facility exactly where the traffic gets heaviest.

The Adjacent Civic Pipeline: What Is Actually Funded Near Bonita Shores

Nothing in Collier County’s capital pipeline touches the Bonita Shores grid. Zero county wastewater or stormwater project polygons intersect the neighborhood, tested against 56, 1, 14 and 36 projects countywide, and the standing FLUE redevelopment authorization for the Bonita Beach Road frontage has never been initiated in 29 years. What activity exists is regional and adjacent: dredging, beach renourishment, and county transportation planning.

Inside the grid: nothing

We want to be precise about what a zero means, because we found nine false zeros in the course of this research and treat every new one as suspect until controlled. This zero is controlled. The same queries that return nothing inside Bonita Shores return 56, 1, 14 and 36 project records elsewhere in Collier County. The layers work. There is genuinely nothing scheduled here.

For a buyer, that cuts two ways and both are worth saying. There is no assessment risk, no construction disruption scheduled, and no project-driven street closure coming. There is also no funded improvement coming, no sidewalk program, no drainage upgrade, and no lighting. The neighborhood as it stands today is the neighborhood, absent a change in county policy or a successful resident-initiated district that residents have twice declined to create.

Adjacent and regional activity

The projects that genuinely bear on this area are outside it:

• Wiggins Pass and Doctors Pass maintenance dredging, procured by Collier County and grant-funded for 2026. This is the pass that provides the only bridge-free run to the Gulf from the community ramp, and its controlling depth is the practical limit on what boat works out of that ramp.
• Beach renourishment on the Collier and Lee coasts, funded on both sides of the county line and covered by regional media.
• Collier MPO long-range transportation planning, including the 2050 Long Range Transportation Plan and the FY26-30 and FY27-31 Transportation Improvement Programs, plus the FDOT District One work program for Collier and Lee.
• Vanderbilt Drive corridor work. The bridges on Vanderbilt Drive south of the neighborhood were replaced in a project completed in 2018. The county’s Vanderbilt Drive bicycle and pedestrian safety study is a separate document from the Vanderbilt Drive Stormwater Improvement Master Plan, and as established above, the stormwater plan’s polygon sits four miles south of Bonita Shores.

We will keep this section current, and we will keep applying the same test: does the project’s geometry actually touch the grid, or does it merely share a street name?

Comparable Communities to Consider

If Bonita Shores fits, the honest comparison set is short: Naples Park, the near-twin platted grid six miles south in Collier County; Little Hickory Shores, the adjoining subdivision that holds the canal frontage and the boat ramp; and the governed communities on the Lee County side of Bonita Beach Road, which offer amenities and a fee stack that Bonita Shores does not have in either direction.

Bonita Shores versus Naples Park

This is the comparison a national aggregator asks in its own FAQ, and it is the one we can answer at parcel-census depth on both sides because we have built both neighborhoods.

The headline difference is the pipeline. Naples Park is getting county money street by street. Bonita Shores is not, and has twice voted against taxing itself for improvements. Which of those is preferable depends entirely on whether a buyer wants investment or wants to be left alone.

Little Hickory Shores, and a coming spoke

Little Hickory Shores is the adjoining subdivision immediately west and north of West Avenue. It holds the canal frontage, the bay frontage, the community clubhouse at 315 and 319 West Avenue, and all three boat ramp parcels. It is the neighborhood that the aggregators keep showing to people searching for Bonita Shores.

If you want a canal lot with a dock and a boat behind the house, Little Hickory Shores is the correct answer and Bonita Shores is not. If you want a larger buildable lot, better flood posture, and a materially lower entry price, that trade runs the other way.

Little Hickory Shores is a separate recorded subdivision with its own canal and bay frontage inventory, its own dock and seawall rules, and its own comps. If you are weighing the two, call us: we work both sides of West Avenue and the honest answer depends entirely on whether a boat behind the house is a requirement or a preference.

The broader Bonita Beach and North Naples comparison set

Buyers who look at Bonita Shores are usually also looking at Barefoot Beach, the only other Bonita-Springs-addressed neighborhood in Collier County, at a very different price point and with a gated, governed structure; at Vanderbilt Beach and the North Naples corridor, closer to Mercato and Waterside; and at the gated communities north of Bonita Beach Road in Lee County, which offer clubs and pools in exchange for dues, review boards, and a Lee County tax stack.

For the full picture of how these fit together, start at our Bonita Beach area hub.

Why Buy in Bonita Shores: Honest Pros and Cons

Bonita Shores suits a buyer who wants a fee-simple lot with no association, a large buildable envelope, better-than-expected flood posture, and Collier County schools and utilities, two miles from the Gulf. It does not suit a buyer who wants amenities, a boat behind the house, streetlights, or the assurance that a neighbor’s rebuild will look like anything in particular.

What is genuinely good here, with the evidence

• No mandatory association, verified. No assessment, no board approval, no estoppel letter, no transfer fee, no rental rider. 160 voluntary members against 692 eligible parcels across the two subdivisions the association serves.
• No association-owned property means no future special assessment, because there is no commonly-owned asset to fail.
• Better flood posture than a coastal address implies. 79.85 percent of parcels dominant Zone X on the effective map, rising to 84.18 percent on the preliminary, zero VE parcels, and a median ground elevation of 12.12 feet NAVD88 against surrounding BFEs of 9 to 11. This sits alongside, and does not cancel, the fact that 100 percent of the grid is in Hurricane Evacuation Zone A.
• Zero repetitive-loss properties in Zone X across the whole Collier portion of ZIP 34134.
• An unusually large buildable envelope. No lot coverage cap, no floor area ratio cap, and a sub-70-foot width nonconformity that costs the owner nothing.
• County water and sewer with a verified lead-free service line inventory, in a grid where the septic assumption would be the reasonable default and is wrong.
• Collier County Public Schools, zoned to Aubrey Rogers High, opened 2023.
• Real proximity. 1.8 miles to Bonita Beach Park, 3.4 to Barefoot Beach Preserve, 15.0 to downtown Naples, 21.1 to RSW.
• Entry price well below the gated product on either side of the county line, with a median closed price of $600,000 across the trailing 730 days.

What is genuinely difficult, stated plainly

• Landlocked, no boat access from any lot. The ramp is in the next subdivision, held by a separate corporation, with no published fee schedule and no located appurtenant instrument. Anyone buying for boating must verify their access in writing before closing.
• Nothing is governed, which includes your neighbor. There is no design review, no height uniformity beyond the 35-foot cap, and no mansionization rule anywhere in Collier for RSF single-family. A 7,200 square foot two-story rebuild can go up next door to a 1,100 square foot 1960s ranch, legally.
• The grid is dark. Collier does not light residential streets, there is no lighting district, and residents voted one down in 1984 and declined to form another in 2014.
• Nothing is funded here. Zero county stormwater or wastewater projects touch the grid, and the FLUE redevelopment authorization has sat unexercised for 29 years.
• 100 percent of the neighborhood is in Hurricane Evacuation Zone A, first-evacuated, regardless of flood zone.
• West Valley Drive is genuinely AE, at a 9.3-foot median ground elevation, with a mandatory purchase requirement for a federally backed mortgage. The neighborhood-wide Zone X story does not apply to that street.
• The Zone X flood premium is a phase-in, not a plateau: a $793 median paid premium against a $4,345 median full-risk premium in this census block group, a 5.5x gap.
• The tax reset on purchase is severe, roughly 2.2x to 2.37x the seller’s bill for a buyer who cannot port a cap.
• Bonita Beach Road frontage carries real road noise, and the neighborhood fronts it for its full width.
• A guest house is not permittable on any single-family lot here, on any parcel, at any price.

Who this neighborhood is actually right for

The rebuild buyer, the buyer who has been told no by an architectural review board somewhere else, the Florida-to-Florida buyer with a portable Save Our Homes cap, the owner who wants a beach two miles away without a bridge over their head, and the investor who wants a fee-simple lot on a grid with a live teardown economy and no covenant risk. If you are one of those, Bonita Shores is genuinely hard to beat in Collier County at this price.

If you want a pool you did not build, a gate, a clubhouse, and a dock, buy somewhere else, and we will happily show you those too.

Thinking of Selling Your Bonita Shores Home? List With the #1 Team in Southwest Florida Since 2012

If you are searching for the best Bonita Shores listing agent, or thinking “I need to sell my house in Bonita Shores,” McGreevy and Comisar have done the parcel-level work on this 531-lot grid. We know whether your house is worth more as a house or as a lot, which neighboring sales are real comps, and what your buyer’s tax bill will be, before we set a price.

What is different about selling here

Selling a Bonita Shores house is not the same job as selling a house in a gated community, and a listing agent who treats it the same way leaves money behind. Five things are genuinely different:

1. Land often carries the value. On 85.4 percent of the 460 single-family parcels here, the county assesses land at or above the improvement. The pre-list renovation calculus is completely different from a governed community, and the wrong renovation is money set on fire.
2. Your buyer pool includes builders. Nine of the ten houses built in the 2020s stand on a parcel that previously held a structure. Marketing to retail buyers only, on a grid with a live teardown economy, is marketing to half the demand.
3. There is no estoppel letter, no association approval, and no transfer fee. That is a genuine closing-speed advantage over every governed community your buyer is also considering, and it should be in the marketing, not discovered at title.
4. Zone X is a selling point that has to be documented, not asserted. “Not in a flood zone” is wrong and a good buyer’s agent will catch it. “Outside the Special Flood Hazard Area on FIRM panel 12021C0179J, with the preliminary map keeping it there,” is right, and it is worth real money. Pair it with the evacuation zone every time: the whole grid is Hurricane Evacuation Zone A.
5. “Gulf access” is a compliance question here. We will not put a claim in your listing that the structured MLS field does not support, and we will tell you exactly what you can say instead that sells the same benefit accurately.

Our credentials as your listing agent

• Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008
• 5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 20 Straight Years. Only 5 out of 21k+ Licensees (Gulfshore Life Magazine)
• #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012
• McGreevy and Comisar and their Domain Realty Group team have sold over $2.5 Billion in Real Estate
• McGreevy and Comisar alone have over $900 million in Sales
• Nationally Recognized Top Producing Realtors
• Platinum Sales Production Award Winners

The Bonita Shores selling data, current

In the last 12 months we tracked 25 Bonita Shores closings, and across the full trailing 730 days there were 47, at a median of $600,000, median $414 per square foot, median 83 days on market, and a median sale-to-list ratio of 95.0 percent. The highest close in the window was $1,100,000 at 198 2nd Street. The fastest was 3 days at 60 9th Street. Current supply stands at 8 active listings, about 4.1 months. ⚠️ These figures cover the platted single-family grid only; the three condominiums inside the footprint carry their own MLS sub names and are excluded.

That 95.0 percent median sale-to-list ratio is the number a Bonita Shores seller should study hardest. It says the market here does not pay list price, and that the sellers who priced to the data closed in 83 days while the current actives sit at a 99.5-day median. Pricing discipline is worth more on this grid than any staging decision.

How we market a Bonita Shores listing

Cinematic video and drone, professional photography, a qualified-buyer database built over eighteen years and $900 million in personal sales, and discretion with genuine off-market capability when a seller needs it. Then, specific to this neighborhood:

• A land-versus-improvement analysis from the certified roll before we set the price, so you know which buyer we are marketing to.
• A documented flood package: FIRM panel, effective and preliminary zone, ground elevation, and the elevation certificate if the county already has one on file.
• The tax story for your buyer, including the portability scenario, because a Florida-to-Florida buyer with a portable cap can pay meaningfully more for your house than an out-of-state buyer and still have a lower carrying cost.
• Builder outreach where the numbers support it, run in parallel with the retail campaign rather than instead of it.
• Listing language that survives scrutiny, on Gulf access, flood zone, association status, and lot conformity.

What is your Bonita Shores home worth? Get a free valuation in 60 seconds

Start here: https://mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation

Then call Jesse McGreevy direct at (239) 898-6072, text or call. Confidential conversations welcome, and if the answer is that you should wait, we will tell you that.

Seller mini-FAQ

Should I renovate before selling, or sell as-is? On a grid where 85.4 percent of the 460 single-family parcels are land-dominant, the real choice is renovate, sell retail as-is, or sell to a builder. We run all three before you spend a dollar.

Do I have to give my buyer an estoppel letter? No. There is no mandatory association in Bonita Shores with standing to issue one. That removes a cost and typically several days from your closing.

Will my buyer’s taxes jump, and will that kill my deal? Yes, roughly 2.2x to 2.37x for a buyer who cannot port a Save Our Homes cap. A buyer who can port pays close to what you pay. Knowing which buyer you have changes the negotiation.

Should I sell before the new flood maps take effect? The preliminary map moves more of Bonita Shores out of the Special Flood Hazard Area, not further in. For most of this grid that argues for patience, not panic. For a West Valley Drive parcel the analysis is different.

Should I get an elevation certificate before I list? Ask Collier County first, since one may already exist from a prior permit. In Zone X it is not required for rating, but it ends arguments with a buyer’s insurance agent quickly.

Can I advertise “Gulf access”? Not accurately on a Bonita Shores parcel. We will show you what you can say that sells the same benefit and survives scrutiny.

★★★★★ “After my father’s unexpected passing, my family faced the difficult task of selling my mom’s home in Bonita Springs. We were fortunate to work with Marc Comisar.” K. D. Wessel, Bonita Springs seller, verified Google review

What Our Clients Say

McGreevy and Comisar are a top-reviewed Bonita Shores, Bonita Springs and Collier County real estate team, and the quotes below are verified Google reviews reproduced verbatim from clients on both sides of the transaction. We do not paraphrase reviews and we do not write them. A fourth review, from a Bonita Springs seller, appears in the seller section above.

★★★★★ “Working with Marc Comisar at Domain Realty Group was the best decision we made. He helped us purchase in Corkscrew Shores in Estero and clearly explained pricing and market trends. His insight into nearby Bonita Springs gave us total confidence. Professional, responsive, and genuinely invested, we highly recommend Marc!” Reece Attwood, buyer, verified Google review

★★★★★ “I have had 13 real estate transactions and this is the most professional and helpful agency that I have ever worked with. Marc actually called me with a response to my questions and concerns on a Sunday evening. The resources that this agency has access to goes above and beyond any other I have ever worked with. The professional process that they use to present your home for sale goes beyond anything I have ever experienced. If any one is thinking about selling, Domain Realty should be the only agency that you should use to represent you and your home. You will not be disappointed.” Candy Gody, verified Google review

★★★★★ “No one knows real estate, especially Florida real estate like Marc and Jesse. Smart and savvy. They also have a great team that is knowledgeable and professional.” Christian Schnabel, verified Google review

Your Local Real Estate Experts

McGreevy and Comisar are the best realtor for Bonita Shores because we treat a 531-lot neighborhood in unincorporated Collier County with the same research discipline most teams reserve for a $10 million listing. Jesse McGreevy and Marc Comisar lead Domain Realty Group, the #1 real estate team in Southwest Florida since 2012, from an office 3.5 miles from this grid.

Honors and recognition:

• Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008
• 5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 20 Straight Years. Only 5 out of 21k+ Licensees (Gulfshore Life Magazine)
• #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012
• McGreevy and Comisar and their Domain Realty Group team have sold over $2.5 Billion in Real Estate
• McGreevy and Comisar alone have over $900 million in Sales
• Nationally Recognized Top Producing Realtors
• Platinum Sales Production Award Winners

Why the depth on this page exists

Two reasons, and we will state both.

The first is that this neighborhood is systematically misdescribed, and correcting that is genuinely useful to the people who live here and the people considering it. A live page currently tells buyers Bonita Shores is “a boating and fisherman’s paradise being just steps from the Gulf of Mexico.” It is landlocked with no boat access from any lot, the ramp is in the next subdivision, and the Gulf is two miles away by road. Getting that right matters more than getting it flattering.

The second is that we want your listing. We think the way to earn it is to demonstrate, before you ever call, that we know your parcel’s land-to-improvement ratio, your street’s flood zone on both maps, your lot’s setback envelope, and what your buyer’s tax bill will be. As the leaders of Domain Realty Group our team has closed over $2.5 billion in real estate, and this is how we did it.

Contact

• Jesse McGreevy: (239) 898-6072 · [email protected]
• Marc Comisar: (239) 287-5873
• Office: 24031 S Tamiami Trl #101, Bonita Springs, FL 34134

Jesse McGreevy (Sales Associate) and Marc Comisar (Broker Associate) are licensed Florida REALTORS® with Domain Realty; Florida real estate licensure is regulated by the Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC).

McGreevy and Comisar lead Domain Realty Group, a full-service Southwest Florida real estate team. Learn more about our team at DomainRealtyGroup.com, and read the full background on how we work at About McGreevy and Comisar.

Selling your Bonita Shores home? Free valuation at https://mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation or call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072. Buying in Bonita Shores? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873.

Frequently Asked Questions, Buyer Edition

These are the questions buyers actually ask about Bonita Shores, harvested from live search autocomplete, aggregator FAQ blocks, community forums, and the civic association’s own published FAQ, then answered from primary sources. Where we do not have an answer, we say so.

Is Bonita Shores in Collier County or Lee County?

Collier County. Bonita Shores is in unincorporated Collier County with a Bonita Springs mailing address. The Collier and Lee county line runs at latitude 26.33042 along the neighborhood’s northern edge, which is why the confusion is so persistent: the pavement of Bonita Beach Road in front of the neighborhood is in Lee County while the parcels behind it are in Collier.

Is Bonita Shores inside the City of Bonita Springs?

No. The City of Bonita Springs is a Lee County municipality. Bonita Shores is in unincorporated Collier County and always has been. City of Bonita Springs flood maps, building rules, and code ordinances do not apply to any Bonita Shores parcel. Annexation is structurally impossible, because a Florida city cannot span two counties.

What is the ZIP code for Bonita Shores?

34134, for 528 of the 531 parcels. Exactly three parcels carry 34110. Any source telling you Bonita Shores spans eight ZIP codes is describing a search radius, not a neighborhood.

Which Bonita Springs neighborhoods are actually in Collier County?

Two: Bonita Shores and Barefoot Beach. Everything else with a Bonita Springs mailing address is in Lee County, either inside the City of Bonita Springs or in unincorporated south Lee.

Why does my Bonita Springs address get a Collier County tax bill?

Because the mailing address and the taxing jurisdiction are different things. USPS delivers to Bonita Springs 34134; Collier County assesses and taxes the parcel. In 1993 the county formally asked USPS by resolution to change these addresses to a North Naples designation. USPS never did it, and the mismatch has persisted for over thirty years.

Do I call the City of Bonita Springs or Collier County for a permit?

Collier County. All permitting, zoning, setback, and code enforcement authority for Bonita Shores sits with Collier County Growth Management under the Collier Land Development Code. The City of Bonita Springs has no jurisdiction over any parcel here.

Where exactly is Bonita Shores?

South of Bonita Beach Road and east of West Avenue, extending south to roughly 9th Street, in Section 5, Township 48 South, Range 25 East. It fronts Bonita Beach Road on the north and Vanderbilt Drive on the east. 188.0 gross platted acres, 128.89 taxable parcel acres, 531 parcels.

When was Bonita Shores built?

Units 1 through 3 were platted in 1953 and Unit 4 later. On the first house there are two records and we publish both: the civic association’s own history says 1956; the Collier assessment roll carries three structures dated 1952 and three dated 1953. On the clubhouse, the association says 1960 and the roll says 1967. We name both sources rather than pick one.

Does Bonita Shores have an HOA?

No. There is no mandatory association of any kind in Bonita Shores. There is a voluntary civic association, the Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association, which is a not-for-profit corporation with no authority over any parcel, no assessment power, and no lien rights.

Is membership in the improvement association mandatory?

No, and this is verified four ways from the association’s own publications. Membership is entirely voluntary, currently 160 members against 692 eligible parcels across the two subdivisions it serves. Nobody in Bonita Shores can be compelled to join or to pay.

What are the annual dues, if I choose to join?

$50 per household per year on the association’s own record, from its 2022 renewal letter. A $200 figure circulates on third-party marketing pages and has no first-party support, so we do not publish it as a fact. Confirm the current amount with the association directly.

Does the association own any common property in Bonita Shores?

Zero. No tract, no park, no drainage parcel, no amenity lot. The clubhouse at 315 and 319 West Avenue and all three boat ramp parcels sit on Little Hickory Shores legal descriptions, in the adjoining subdivision. The only non-private owner among the 531 Bonita Shores parcels is North Collier Fire Rescue.

Are there deed restrictions in Bonita Shores?

Historic restrictions existed, confirmed by the association’s own published history. Today no association enforces anything and no assessment vehicle exists. Whether a specific restriction still binds a specific parcel is a title question under Florida’s Marketable Record Title Act, Chapter 712. The recorded instruments remain an open research item requiring an in-person Clerk session.

Who enforces anything if there is no association?

Collier County Code Enforcement, under Ordinance 2010-04 and F.S. Chapter 162, and it is complaint-driven. There is no board, no architectural review committee, and no covenant letter. Vegetation over 18 inches, boats stored outside the rear yard, and unpermitted structures are county cases, not association matters.

Is the Bonita Shores Club the same thing as the boat ramp association?

No. They are two separate corporations with separate membership and separate keys. The Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association, document 700793, was filed in 1960. Bonita Shores Boating Area, Inc., document 723054, was formed in 1972 and owns the three ramp parcels. The civic club’s own FAQ answers this question unprompted, which suggests it is asked constantly.

Are there community events at the Bonita Shores Club?

Yes. The association runs civic programming and rents its clubhouse, and publishes its board, its FAQ, its history, and its rental information at theshoresclub.org. Note again that the clubhouse itself sits on a Little Hickory Shores legal description rather than inside the Bonita Shores plats.

How do I contact a board member or get involved?

Through the association’s own site, theshoresclub.org, which publishes its board and its contact process. It is a voluntary civic organization, so participation is entirely optional and open.

Does Bonita Shores have lots on the water?

Bonita Shores is landlocked, with no boat access from any lot. There is no Gulf, bay or canal frontage: every mapped canal and the whole of Little Hickory Bay stop at West Avenue. What the neighborhood does have is five interior freshwater ponds totalling about 2.3 acres, with roughly thirty lots backing directly onto them and about ten more adjoining. Those ponds are not navigable and have no outlet.

Does “Gulf access” on a Bonita Shores listing mean the lot is on the water?

No. We read the structured MLS field on all 47 closed Bonita Shores sales in the trailing 730 days. One carried Gulf Access: Yes, and that same record answers Gulf Access Type with “Other” and Waterfront Descrip. with “None/Other,” because there is no water to name. Its actual amenity is a Community Boat Ramp. The boolean is advertising a ramp membership, not frontage.

What is the difference between direct and indirect Gulf access?

Direct Gulf access normally means a waterway from your own dock to the Gulf with no fixed bridge low enough to stop your boat. No Bonita Shores lot has any dock or any water access, so neither term applies to a parcel here. What applies is ramp access by separate membership, and the run from that ramp to Wiggins Pass is bridge-free.

How long is the run from the ramp to the Gulf?

Wiggins Pass is 2.97 nautical miles with no bridge at all. Big Hickory Pass is 3.07 nautical miles under a 10-foot fixed bridge. New Pass is 5.11 nautical miles. The binding constraint is depth, not distance: charted soundings run 1 to 2 feet within a quarter mile of the ramp, with drying flats around it and a mean tidal range of only 0.56 feet.

What bridge clearances do I need to know about?

For the Big Hickory route, a 10-foot fixed bridge. For New Pass, clearance is reported as 29.9 feet on the NOAA electronic chart and 30.8 feet in the National Bridge Inventory, and we publish both because they disagree. The Wiggins Pass route has no bridge. Note that the NOAA Coast Pilot describes the aids to navigation here as private and advises local knowledge.

Is the boat ramp key transferable when the house sells?

We do not know, and we will not guess. The deed for the ramp parcels runs to the corporation, and we located no appurtenant instrument tying ramp rights to any Bonita Shores parcel. Until OR 579 PG 454 has been read in the Clerk’s office, we will not describe a buyer’s interest as deeded. If ramp access matters to your purchase, get the transfer mechanics in writing from the ramp corporation before you close.

How much does the Bonita Shores boat ramp membership cost?

There is no published fee schedule anywhere, and that absence is the finding. Three different annual figures circulate on third-party pages, $40 in dues plus a $60 key charge, $200 a year, and $250 a year. None of the three has first-party support, and none appears in any association publication, corporate filing, or county record we could reach. ⛔ We will not publish a number we cannot source. Get the current fee in writing from Bonita Shores Boating Area, Inc. before you close.

Can I keep a boat on my Bonita Shores lot?

Yes, in the rear yard. Collier Ordinance 10-26 permits boat and RV storage in the rear yard only, with a six-hour window in the driveway for loading and unloading. That is county code enforced by complaint, not a covenant, and it applies equally to every parcel here.

Where can I launch a kayak or a boat near Bonita Shores?

The community ramp on the 3rd Street West dog-leg, by separate membership in Bonita Shores Boating Area, Inc. Publicly, Cocohatchee River Park to the south is the nearest county boat park. Bonita Beach Park and Barefoot Beach Preserve provide beach access at 1.8 and 3.4 miles respectively.

What beaches are closest to Bonita Shores?

Bonita Beach Park at 1.8 miles, about 5 minutes. Barefoot Beach Preserve at 3.4 miles, about 12 minutes on a slow two-lane approach. Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park at 4.8 miles. The Gulf itself is roughly two miles west of the grid.

Is Bonita Shores in a flood zone?

Most of it is in Zone X, which is a flood zone that sits outside the Special Flood Hazard Area. 79.85 percent of parcels are dominant Zone X on the effective map, rising to 84.18 percent on the preliminary map, with zero VE parcels on either. “Not in a flood zone” is a wrong description that appears constantly on listings here. 🔒 And it is simultaneously true that 100.00 percent of Bonita Shores is in Hurricane Evacuation Zone A, Collier County’s first-evacuated zone. The flood zone governs insurance and construction elevation; the evacuation zone governs when you leave. Both are true at once.

Which Bonita Shores streets are Zone X and which are AE?

See the full street table above. The short version: 3rd Street is entirely outside the Special Flood Hazard Area on both maps, 9th Street becomes 100 percent Zone X on the preliminary map, Forest Avenue is the high ground at a 14.3-foot median elevation, and West Valley Drive is the outlier, with 18 of its 25 parcels dominant AE and two more AH, so 20 of 25 are inside the Special Flood Hazard Area, at a 9.3-foot median elevation.

Is flood insurance required in Bonita Shores?

It depends on the parcel, not the neighborhood. For a federally backed mortgage the mandatory purchase requirement applies anywhere inside the Special Flood Hazard Area, and the SFHA here includes both the AE zones and the AH shallow-ponding zones. On the effective map that is West Valley Drive (20 of 25 parcels), West Avenue (4 of 6), East Lakeview Drive (2 of 2), and scattered AE or AH parcels on 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, Forest, East Valley, Vanderbilt and Bonita Beach Road, roughly 20 percent of the 531 parcels in total. For the 79.85 percent of parcels that are dominant Zone X, no federal purchase requirement applies. Citizens Property Insurance now requires flood coverage anyway outside the SFHA at $400,000 of dwelling value from 2026-01-01, and for all policies from 2027-01-01. Check the folio, not the street name.

What does Zone X500 mean?

It is legacy terminology for what is now labeled Zone X shaded, the 0.2 percent annual chance floodplain, sometimes called the 500-year floodplain. It is outside the Special Flood Hazard Area. In Bonita Shores, 72.43 percent of parcel land is X shaded and only 1.64 percent is unshaded minimal hazard, which is why we never describe this neighborhood as “minimal flood hazard.”

Is Bonita Shores in hurricane evacuation Zone A?

Yes. 100.00 percent of Bonita Shores is in Hurricane Evacuation Zone A, Collier County’s first-evacuated zone. This is a different instrument from the FEMA flood zone and both are true at once. Being in Zone X does not change when you are told to leave.

How deep did the water get in Bonita Shores during Ian?

The nearest USGS high water mark is 11.20 feet NAVD88, 31 meters west of the grid, against a neighborhood median ground elevation of 12.12 feet. In the census block group: zero structures destroyed, 232 FEMA registrations, median verified flood damage $16,739, and 62.9 percent of registrants carried no flood insurance. A named resident’s public account describes about two feet of water outside and into the garage, and about a foot inside the house.

Do I need an elevation certificate to buy in Bonita Shores?

Not for rating in Zone X, where there is no base flood elevation. It is still worth asking Collier County whether one already exists for the property from a prior permit, because it settles insurance questions quickly. In the AE parcels on West Valley Drive and West Avenue, an elevation certificate is materially more useful.

What is the base flood elevation in Bonita Shores?

There is no base flood elevation in Zone X. In the AE parcels, BFEs run 9 to 11 feet. Separately, Collier County sets a floor even where FEMA does not: Sec. 62-126(16) requires the lowest floor to be the highest of the FIRM elevation, 18 inches above the crown of the nearest paved street, 24 inches above an unpaved crown, and never below 5.7 feet NAVD88.

When do the new Collier flood maps take effect?

A preliminary FIRM exists now, panels 12021C0179K and 12021C0183K, preliminary 2025-03-20, with the appeal period closed 2026-03-18 and no Letter of Final Determination through the 2026-08-06 Federal Register. A news outlet reported an expected fall 2026 effective date; we have not found that in a federal instrument and do not state it as one. The pending map moves more of Bonita Shores out of the Special Flood Hazard Area.

What is Collier County’s CRS class and what discount does it give me?

⚠️ The class is disputed in the federal data and we publish both: the FEMA Community Status Book and the county’s own March 2026 newsletter say Class 5, while all 600 FEMA policy records for this block group code it as 6. Either way, the discount for properties outside the Special Flood Hazard Area is 10 percent. Note also that Bonita Shores rates under NFIP community 120067 Collier County, not 120680 City of Bonita Springs.

How much does flood insurance actually cost in Bonita Shores?

Measured from 600 federal policy records in this block group: median $793 a year in Zone X, $728 in Zone AH, and $1,937 in Zone AE. But the median full-risk premium in Zone X is $4,345, a 5.5x gap, so today’s number is a phase-in rather than a plateau. Budget accordingly.

Can you build a new house in Bonita Shores?

Yes, and people are. Ten houses were built here in the 2020s, already more than the entire 2010s, and nine of the ten stand on a parcel that previously held a structure. Permits go through Collier County Growth Management under RSF-4 zoning, with a design wind speed of 161 mph, Risk Category II.

How tall can I build, and is 35 feet two stories or three?

The RSF-4 height limit is 35 feet. In practice that is comfortably two stories and not three for a conventionally framed house with normal floor-to-floor heights, especially once the required finished floor elevation eats into the budget. Two floors under 35 feet on the modal lot works out to roughly 7,200 square feet of gross area.

My lot is only 60 feet wide but the code says 70. Is it buildable?

Yes. 283 of 531 Bonita Shores lots (53.3 percent) are narrower than the 70-foot minimum width, but only 9 of 531 (1.7 percent) are below the minimum lot area. The nonconformity is width, not area, and under LDC 9.03.03 A.1 governing nonconforming lots of record, that width shortfall costs the owner nothing in setbacks. No variance, no hearing, same 7.5-foot sides.

What is the actual buildable footprint on a typical Bonita Shores lot?

On the modal 60 by 130 foot, 7,800 square foot lot: front setback 25 feet, rear 25 feet, sides 7.5 feet each, leaving 45 by 80 feet, which is 3,600 square feet, or 46.2 percent of the lot. There is no lot coverage cap and no floor area ratio cap in RSF-4, and no mansionization ordinance anywhere in Collier for RSF single-family.

Can I put a guest house on my Bonita Shores lot?

No. LDC 5.03.03 D requires 43,560 square feet and 105 feet of width for a guest house. Zero of the 491 RSF-4 parcels in Bonita Shores qualify, and the largest is 29,435 square feet. Separately, the county’s own guidance is that guest houses may not be leased or rented at all.

Can I put in a pool?

Yes, subject to the standard setbacks, the pool barrier requirements of the Florida Building Code, and a Collier County permit. There is no association review, no architectural committee, and no aesthetic approval requirement, which is one of the more practical advantages of buying here.

Is it cheaper to tear down or renovate in Bonita Shores?

It depends on the parcel, and the county’s own numbers are the starting point. On 393 of 460 single-family parcels, 85.4 percent, land just value already meets or exceeds improvement just value. For a pre-1990 house on this grid, the honest comparison is renovate, buy retail as-is, or buy for the lot, and the three produce very different numbers.

What lot sizes are in Bonita Shores?

Modal 7,800 square feet, roughly 60 by 130. Median 8,400. Range 3,859 to 56,323. 51.2 percent of all lots fall in the 7,000 to 8,999 square foot bucket, and 41.2 percent sit at exactly 7,800. The larger interior lots along Valley Drive and Lakeview Drive are large in part because their lot lines extend into the interior ponds.

What types of homes are found in Bonita Shores?

Predominantly one-story and two-story single-family houses across seven decades of construction. By decade of first structure: 1950s 48, 1960s 82, 1970s 155, 1980s 96, 1990s 56, 2000s 28, 2010s 8, 2020s 10. Median living area among recent sales is 1,556 square feet, with recent rebuilds running to 3,100 square feet and beyond.

Should I buy new construction or an existing home in Bonita Shores?

Both routes are live here, and the price per square foot spread of $243 to $569 across the last two years tells you the market prices them very differently. An older house on this grid is frequently priced as land with a structure on it. A recent rebuild is priced as a house. Which is right for you depends on whether you want to run a construction project.

Is my street on septic or sewer?

528 of the 702 parcel records in the utility datasets are known-sewer, and that 702 is larger than the 531 platted parcels because condominium units carry individual unit folios. 8th Street, Valley Drive and Forest Avenue are 100 percent known-sewer with zero exceptions. The apparent septic clusters on 4th Street and the unknowns on 3rd Street both resolve to single multi-unit buildings rather than to individual lots. ⚠️ We flag that the state’s septic flags are not stable between releases of the same dataset, so verify for a specific folio.

Who provides water and sewer in Bonita Shores?

Collier County Public Utilities, water service area D12 and the North wastewater service area. Not Bonita Springs Utilities, which serves no part of the plat and whose franchise stops at unincorporated south Lee County. We tested this on a lattice of 100 points inside the plats: 100 of 100 inside the Collier district, 0 inside the Bonita Springs Utilities area.

Are there lead service lines in Bonita Shores?

No. The federal lead service line inventory carries 598 records inside the grid, roughly 523 of them on Bonita Shores streets, every one with a Collier County account number, a physical meter serial, and Active status. The material classification result: zero lead service lines and zero unverified service lines.

Are there streetlights in Bonita Shores?

Essentially no. Collier County does not light residential streets, and with no association property and no lighting district, exterior lighting is a per-parcel FPL Outdoor Security Light matter. Residents voted down a 0.7-mill street lighting MSTU in September 1984, and declined to form another in 2014. The neighborhood is genuinely dark at night.

When is trash collected in Bonita Shores?

Collier County solid waste District 1. Garbage on Friday and Tuesday. Recycling, yard waste, and bulk pickup on Friday.

What schools serve Bonita Shores?

Naples Park Elementary, North Naples Middle, and Aubrey Rogers High School, identically for 597 of 597 in-grid addresses across both the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years, with no pending rezone. Always verify for a specific address with the district’s own zoning tool before closing.

Is Bonita Shores zoned to Gulf Coast High School?

No. Aubrey Rogers High School opened in August 2023 specifically to relieve Gulf Coast High, and Bonita Shores addresses are zoned to Aubrey Rogers. Any listing, guide, or relocation page still assigning this neighborhood to Gulf Coast is working from pre-2023 information.

Are the schools good? What are the letter grades?

⚠️ We do not publish letter grades for these schools because we could not obtain them from a first-party source. The Florida Department of Education school grades workbook returned an HTTP 403 error on every route we tried. Rather than repeat a number from an aggregator, we point you to the FLDOE school grades portal and the district’s own grades page.

Is Bonita Shores walkable?

Within the grid, yes: flat, quiet, low traffic, and pleasant. Beyond it, less so. The Vanderbilt Drive bike lane terminates at latitude 26.32862, roughly at 2nd Street, one block short of Bonita Beach Road, and sidewalk coverage varies by FDOT segment. Bonita Beach Road is a four-lane arterial and an evacuation route, and crossing it on foot is a genuine consideration.

How far is Bonita Shores from the airport and from downtown Naples?

RSW is 21.1 miles, about 31 minutes free-flow. Downtown Naples is 15.0 miles, about 27 minutes. Mercato is 6.9 miles, Waterside Shops 9.9, Publix 1.4. In season, add materially to all of these.

Is Bonita Shores a good place to live?

For the right buyer, yes, and the profile is specific: someone who wants a fee-simple lot with no association, a large buildable envelope, county water and sewer, Collier schools, and beaches two miles away, and who is comfortable with an unmanaged neighborhood where a neighbor may build something very different next door. 252 of 460 single-family parcels here, 54.8 percent, carry a homestead exemption, which tells you most of the houses are somebody’s permanent home rather than a rental.

Is Bonita Shores safe?

We do not publish crime statistics we cannot source to a primary agency at neighborhood resolution, and neighborhood-level crime data is routinely misrepresented by aggregators using ZIP-level or block-group-level estimates. The honest answer is that this is an established, majority owner-occupied residential grid served by the Collier County Sheriff’s Office and North Collier Fire Rescue, and that you should ask the Sheriff’s Office directly for a call history if it matters to your decision.

What is the median home price in Bonita Shores?

$600,000 across the trailing 730 days, on 47 closed sales, with a range of $300,000 to $1,100,000 and a median of $414 per square foot. Current active list prices run from $595,000 to $1,295,000. ⚠️ These figures cover the platted single-family grid only. The three condominiums inside the footprint, Glen Manor, Shore Woods and Hickory Harbour, carry their own MLS sub names and are excluded, and they trade at a different price point entirely.

Are home prices dropping in Bonita Shores?

We will not answer that from this sample, and we want to explain why. The trailing 730-day window contains two partial calendar years, 2024 at n=6 and 2026 at n=18. Three non-comparable periods do not make a trend. What is defensible is the full-window median of $600,000, the median $414 per square foot, and the 2.3x spread in price per square foot.

How does Bonita Shores compare to Naples Park?

They are close cousins: both unincorporated Collier platted grids with no mandatory association and a live teardown economy. The sharpest difference is the county pipeline. Naples Park is in a street-by-street renewal queue, with 103rd and 104th Avenue in design for 2026-27. Zero county stormwater or wastewater projects touch Bonita Shores. Naples Park is getting investment. Bonita Shores is being left alone.

What is the difference between Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores?

Little Hickory Shores is the adjoining subdivision west and north of West Avenue, and it holds the canal frontage, the bay frontage, the clubhouse, and all three boat ramp parcels. Bonita Shores is the landlocked grid east of West Avenue. The aggregators routinely draw a “Bonita Shores” polygon that swallows Little Hickory Shores waterfront listings, which is the single largest source of confusion about this neighborhood.

Which Bonita Springs neighborhoods are close to the beach without being beachfront?

Bonita Shores is close to the textbook answer: about two miles from the Gulf by road, 1.8 miles from Bonita Beach Park, outside the Special Flood Hazard Area across most of the grid, with zero VE parcels, and the nearest coastal construction control line is 0.88 miles west. That combination is genuinely rare this close to the water. One thing that combination does not change: 100 percent of the neighborhood is in Hurricane Evacuation Zone A and evacuates first.

Are there condominiums in Bonita Shores?

Yes, three, and they are governed completely differently from the surrounding grid: Glen Manor at 76 4th Street (60 units), Shore Woods at 64 4th Street (64 units), and Hickory Harbour at 226 3rd Street (between 51 and 62 parcels, depending on the counting route). All are RMF-12 with recorded declarations and mandatory board approval of buyers, and both Glen Manor and Shore Woods restrict leasing more tightly than county code does.

Can I short-term rent a house in Bonita Shores?

There is no minimum rental duration in Bonita Shores from zoning, and no association rule, because there is no association. What is mandatory is Collier County registration under Ordinance 2021-45 for terms of six months or less, at $500 per violation per day, with guests citable as well as owners. You will also need a DBPR license, a Florida Department of Revenue account, a tourist tax account, and a business tax receipt.

What is the minimum rental period in Bonita Shores?

There is no zoning minimum. The thresholds that matter are administrative: county registration is triggered by terms of six months or less, with rentals of at least 30 consecutive days exempt from registration, while state public lodging licensure is triggered by renting more than three times a year for periods under 30 days, or by advertising as such. ⚠️ Those are different numbers and conflating them is the most common error in circulation.

What taxes apply to a short-term rental here?

11.0 percent total: 6.0 percent state sales tax, 0.0 percent county discretionary surtax, and 5.0 percent Collier tourist development tax. ⭐ The Lee County side of Bonita Springs is 11.5 percent, so an owner using the Lee rate on a Collier property is remitting the wrong amount.

What will my property taxes be in Bonita Shores?

Millage area 90, 9.5058 mills for 2025 across ten authorities, with no district or MSTU line. A buyer at full just value pays roughly $5,154 without homestead or $4,782 with it, against a median capped homesteaded seller bill of about $2,171. A buyer who can port a Save Our Homes cap pays far less, about $2,138 at the neighborhood median shelter.

Can I port my Save Our Homes cap into a Bonita Shores purchase?

If you have a prior Florida homestead, yes, under F.S. 193.155. It is the single largest lever on your carrying cost here. Porting the neighborhood median shelter lands a buyer at about $2,138 a year, within 1.6 percent of what the seller was paying, and a full $500,000 port lands at about $164. An out-of-state buyer has no cap to port, which is why the Florida-to-Florida buyer can pay more for the same house and still spend less.

Still have a question about Bonita Shores? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873 and ask it. If we do not know, we will tell you that too.

Frequently Asked Questions, Seller Edition

If you own in Bonita Shores and are thinking about selling, these are the questions that actually decide your outcome. Several of them have answers specific to this grid that do not apply anywhere else in Southwest Florida.

Who is the best listing agent for Bonita Shores?

McGreevy and Comisar. We lead Domain Realty Group, the #1 team in Southwest Florida since 2012, Top 1% Nationally since 2008, with over $900 million in personal sales, from an office 3.5 miles from this grid. More to the point for a Bonita Shores seller: we have read the four plats, the certified roll, the flood panels, and every closed sale in the last two years for this specific neighborhood. Call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072.

What is my Bonita Shores home worth?

Start with a free valuation at https://mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation, then call us, because on this grid the automated number is more likely to be wrong than usual. The median closed price over the trailing 730 days is $600,000 at $414 per square foot, with a 2.3x spread in price per square foot, and where your house falls in that spread depends on whether a buyer is paying for the house or for the lot. ⚠️ These figures cover the platted single-family grid only; the three condominiums inside the footprint carry their own MLS sub names and are excluded.

Is my house worth more as a house or as a lot?

This is the most valuable question a Bonita Shores seller can ask, and it has a real answer. On 393 of 460 single-family parcels here, 85.4 percent, the county assesses land at or above the improvement. If your house predates 1990, the odds are overwhelming: 95.7 percent for 1950s houses, 100.0 percent for 1960s houses, all 80 of them, 96.6 percent for the 1970s, 93.3 percent for the 1980s. We run your specific parcel before we price it.

Should I renovate before selling, or sell as-is?

On a land-dominant grid, that framing is incomplete. The real options are renovate, sell retail as-is, or sell to a builder, and we model all three before you spend anything. A kitchen that returns its cost in a governed community with covenant-protected values can return very little on a parcel where the buyer intends to remove the kitchen.

How many Bonita Shores houses have actually been torn down and rebuilt?

Enough to call it the market rather than an exception. 55 parcels show an improved-to-vacant transition in the roll history, 9 of the 10 houses built in the 2020s stand on one of them, and 41 of the 48 currently vacant parcels once carried a structure. The 2020s has already produced more first structures than the entire 2010s.

Will a builder buy my lot directly?

Frequently, and on this grid we market to builders in parallel with the retail campaign when the land-to-improvement numbers support it. The cheapest sale in the last two years was a 660 square foot house that sold for $300,000, which is $455 per square foot, above the neighborhood median. That buyer was not paying for 660 square feet.

Should I sell to an investor or list it?

List it, with a builder track running alongside. Cash wholesalers actively prospect this neighborhood precisely because the older, unrenovated house on a land-dominant parcel is their ideal target, and their offer is priced on the assumption that you do not know your land value. You do now.

⭐ Should I demolish before I sell?

If you intend to demolish anyway, the sequencing matters enormously. Under F.S. 193.155: demolition, subsection (5), preserves your Save Our Homes cap. A sale, subsection (3)(a), destroys it. Renovation, subsection (4)(a), adds only the new work at just value. Tear down before you sell, not after. This is a statute, not tax advice, and your specific situation belongs with a CPA, but a seller who has never heard of the distinction cannot even ask the question.

Does my buyer’s tax bill jump after closing, and by how much?

Yes, roughly $2,983 a year at the neighborhood median, from about $2,171 on the median capped homestead to about $5,154 without homestead or $4,782 with it. We state the homestead assumption every time because the two figures differ only by the buyer’s own filing decision.

What does my buyer lose in Save Our Homes when they buy my house?

Almost everything, and here is the part everyone gets backwards. Of the roughly $2,983 increase, only about $373 is the lost exemption. About $2,610 is the accumulated Save Our Homes cap resetting. The cap does seven times the work of the exemption. The median shelter on a homesteaded single-family parcel here is $263,131, or 56.3 percent of just value, and $278,119, 59.1 percent, among the 231 parcels holding a live cap.

Can my buyer port a cap, and does that help me?

Yes and yes. A buyer with a prior Florida homestead can port their accumulated shelter. A buyer porting the neighborhood median lands at about $2,138 a year, essentially what you are paying now. That means a Florida-to-Florida buyer can bid higher on your house than an out-of-state buyer and still have a lower carrying cost. Knowing which buyer you have in front of you is worth real money in a negotiation.

Does selling without a mandatory association give me an advantage?

A concrete one. No estoppel letter, no association approval of your buyer, no transfer fee, no capital contribution, and no rental restriction rider. Every one of those is a cost or a delay in a governed community, and every one of them is absent here. That is a genuine closing-speed argument and it belongs in the marketing rather than being discovered at title.

Do I have to give my buyer an estoppel letter?

No. There is no mandatory association in Bonita Shores with standing to issue one. Every standard Florida seller checklist assumes an association exists; on this grid the standard checklist is simply wrong.

Is my membership in the improvement association transferable?

The association is voluntary and its membership is a personal, annual civic membership rather than a property right. We have not located a first-party transfer provision, and we will not assert one. If your buyer wants to join, they can, directly. Confirm the mechanics with the association.

Does my buyer get the boat ramp membership automatically?

We do not know, and neither does anyone else publishing on this neighborhood. The ramp is held by a separate 1972 corporation and we located no appurtenant instrument conveying rights to any Bonita Shores parcel. This is the highest-value open question on the whole page. If a buyer asks you at a showing, the honest answer is that the transfer must be confirmed with Bonita Shores Boating Area, Inc. in writing.

Can I advertise “Gulf access” in my Bonita Shores listing?

Not accurately, and this is a compliance question rather than a marketing preference. The structured MLS field for Gulf access on this neighborhood’s one flagged sale answers Gulf Access Type: Other and Waterfront Descrip.: None/Other, because there is no water to name. What you can say accurately: community boat ramp access available by separate membership, about two miles from the Gulf beaches, and if it applies, interior pond frontage.

Can I advertise “walk to the beach” or “boating community”?

“Walk to the beach” is not supportable at roughly two miles with a four-lane arterial crossing. “Boating community” is defensible only if it is clearly tied to the community ramp membership rather than implying frontage or a dock. We will write the version that sells the benefit and survives a buyer’s agent reading it closely.

Should I disclose that most of the grid is Zone X?

Yes, and it is an asset to disclose rather than a risk. Document it properly: FIRM panel number, effective zone, preliminary zone, and ground elevation. What you should not write is “not in a flood zone,” which is false, or “minimal flood hazard,” which is false for 72.43 percent of the parcel land here.

How do I prove to a buyer that my street is not in the Special Flood Hazard Area?

With the FIRM panel and the parcel’s dominant zone on both the effective and preliminary maps, plus the ground elevation. We assemble that package as part of the listing prep. For most Bonita Shores streets it is a strong document. For a West Valley Drive parcel it will show AE, and pretending otherwise ends badly at the appraisal.

Do I have to disclose that my house flooded during Ian?

Florida law has moved toward affirmative flood-history disclosure for residential sales, and separately, a known material defect affecting value has always been disclosable in Florida. Disclose it. In this block group, 232 households registered for federal assistance after Ian with a median verified flood damage of $16,739, so it is common, buyers expect the question, and concealment is the only version of this that creates liability.

Do I have to disclose past storm repairs?

Yes, and buyers here specifically ask about roof age, hurricane repairs, and any post-Ian remediation. On a grid where 285 of the 531 parcels carry a first structure dated before 1980, roof and opening protection history is one of the first things a buyer’s insurance agent will want.

Should I pull permits for unpermitted work before I list?

Usually yes, and it is sharply relevant here. 48 of the 531 parcels carry a first structure dated to the 1950s and there has never been an architectural review board, so decades of owner-built additions, enclosures, and accessory structures exist across this grid. Unpermitted square footage discovered during a buyer’s due diligence is a renegotiation. Discovered by you first, it is a project with a schedule.

Is my lot legal nonconforming, and does that hurt my sale?

Probably nonconforming on width, and no, it does not hurt. 283 of 531 Bonita Shores lots (53.3 percent) are narrower than the 70-foot minimum width, but only 9 of 531 (1.7 percent) are below the minimum lot area, and under LDC 9.03.03 A.1 a nonconforming lot of record builds to the same setbacks. If your buyer’s builder raises it as a problem, it is not one. If you own a pre-1982 corner lot, you may actually have 1,219 square feet more buildable area than your neighbor.

Can my buyer put in a pool, and does that affect what I can ask?

Yes they can, with a county permit and no association review. On a grid with no architectural committee and no lot coverage cap, the buildability of the rest of the lot is part of what you are selling, and it should be shown, not assumed.

Will my buyer be able to get insurance?

Generally yes, and the Zone X position helps materially. Two things to prepare for: Citizens now requires flood coverage outside the Special Flood Hazard Area at $400,000 of dwelling value from 2026-01-01 and for all policies from 2027-01-01, and wind mitigation credits are the largest lever on a wind premium for a house of this age. A completed wind mitigation inspection before listing is often the cheapest thing a Bonita Shores seller can do.

Should I sell before the new flood maps take effect?

For most of this grid, no. The preliminary map moves more of Bonita Shores out of the Special Flood Hazard Area, not further in, taking parcels from 79.85 percent dominant Zone X to 84.18 percent. 9th Street goes to 100 percent Zone X. If you are on West Valley Drive, the analysis is different and worth a specific conversation.

Will the 2026 flood map revision change what my house is worth?

Possibly, and mostly in your favor. A parcel that moves out of the Special Flood Hazard Area loses the mandatory purchase requirement for a federally backed mortgage, which widens the buyer pool and lowers the carrying cost. We track the Letter of Final Determination and will tell our Bonita Shores sellers when it lands.

When is the best time to sell in Bonita Shores?

We will not give you a seasonality claim we cannot support from this sample. What we can support is that the median closed sale took 83 days at 95.0 percent of list, while current actives sit at a 99.5-day median, which says pricing discipline matters more than timing on this grid. If you need a season-by-season read, we will pull a longer window rather than guess.

How long will it take to sell my Bonita Shores home?

Median 83 days on market across the last 47 closings, with a maximum of 342. The fastest in the window was 3 days. The distribution is wide, and where you land in it is mostly a function of the initial price against the land-versus-house question.

How much commission do agents charge in Bonita Shores?

Commission is negotiable in Florida and always has been, and following the 2024 changes to how buyer-side compensation is handled, the conversation looks different than it did. We will walk you through your options, what is competitive in this market, and what each choice does to your net, in plain numbers, before you sign anything.

How much will I net, and what are the closing costs?

We build a seller net sheet before listing: documentary stamps on the deed, title and settlement charges depending on who pays what in the contract, prorated taxes, any payoff, and commission. On this grid, the estoppel line and the association transfer fee are both zero, which is a smaller saving than the tax picture but a real one.

What paperwork do I need to sell a Florida home?

Deed and title information, survey if you have one, permits and any open-permit resolution, elevation certificate if one exists, insurance history, the seller’s property disclosure including flood history, and any warranty documentation. There is no estoppel certificate and no association document package here, which shortens the list compared with a governed community.

Do I need a survey to sell?

Not legally, but on this grid it is often worth having. Lot lines that extend into the interior ponds, decades of owner-built fences and accessory structures, and a grid where more than half the lots are nonconforming on width all produce boundary questions. A current survey resolves them before they become a renegotiation.

How do I sell a vacant lot in Bonita Shores?

Actively, and to a different audience than a house. 41 of the 48 currently vacant parcels once carried a structure, so vacant land here is a known product with a known buyer: the builder and the owner-builder. The pricing input is the land rate, currently a flat $35.00 per square foot on 450 of 531 parcels in the 2025 certified roll, with the caveat that assessed value is not market value.

How do I compete with the new builds on my street?

Not on finishes. If a 3,100 square foot 2024 rebuild is listed down the block at $1,249,000 and you have a 1,600 square foot 1972 house, you are not in the same product category and pricing as if you are will cost you the first sixty days. You compete on land, on the buildable envelope, and on price per square foot at the bottom of the range, which is where the builder buyer lives.

Why is my Bonita Shores house worth more than a comparable Naples Park house?

Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not, and we own the parcel-level data on both neighborhoods, so we can answer it specifically rather than generically. The structural differences that move value: Bonita Shores has zero county capital projects scheduled inside the grid while Naples Park is in a street-by-street renewal queue, and the two carry different flood profiles and different distances to the Gulf.

What did the house down the street actually sell for?

We will pull it from the Southwest Florida MLS Matrix, verified, with the caveats. One example of why the caveat matters: 47 7th Street appears twice in the last two years, at $440,000 in September 2024 and $572,500 in November 2025 on identical 1,807 square feet. That row needs checking before anyone uses it as a comp, and a good listing agent checks it.

How do I sell my house fast for cash in Bonita Shores?

You will not lack for offers, because cash wholesalers work this neighborhood hard. The question is what the speed costs you. Before you accept one, get the land-versus-improvement number and a real days-on-market expectation, because on a grid where the median closed sale took 83 days, “fast” and “cheap” are frequently the same decision wearing different words.

Ready to talk about selling in Bonita Shores? Call Jesse McGreevy direct at (239) 898-6072, text or call, or start with a free valuation at https://mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation. Confidential conversations welcome.

Sources and Authoritative References

Every factual claim about Bonita Shores on this page traces to one of the sources below. They are government, county, state, federal, and civic primary sources. There are no realtor sites, no listing aggregators, and no lead-generation pages in this list, by design. Where two authoritative sources disagree, we have said so on the page and cited both.

Collier County: zoning, land development, and code

1. Collier County Land Development Code, full text
2. LDC 2.03.02, Residential Zoning Districts (RSF-4)
3. LDC 1.08.02, Definitions
4. LDC 4.02.03, Specific Standards for Location of Accessory Buildings and Structures
5. LDC 4.03.04, Lot Line Adjustments and Lot Splits
6. LDC 5.03.00, Accessory Uses and Structures
7. LDC 5.03.03, Guest Houses
8. LDC 9.03.03, Types of Nonconformities
9. Collier County Code of Ordinances, full text
10. Code of Ordinances Ch. 22, Buildings and Building Regulations, Art. VI, Property Maintenance Code
11. Code of Ordinances Ch. 26, Art. X, Short-Term Rentals
12. Code of Ordinances Ch. 62, Floods
13. Code of Ordinances Sec. 62-51, Flood Damage Prevention, Definitions
14. Code of Ordinances Ch. 122, Special Districts
15. Code of Ordinances Sec. 126-127, Housing and Lodging, Ch. 509 F.S. cross-reference
16. Code of Ordinances Sec. 134-174, Water and Wastewater District Rates
17. Collier County Land Development Code landing page
18. Collier County Building Review and Permitting
19. Collier County Building Codes and Fees
20. Collier County Code Enforcement, Common Code Violations
21. Collier County, Report a Code Violation
22. Collier County Right-of-Way Permitting
23. Collier County Right-of-Way Permitting and Inspection Handbook (PDF)
24. Collier County Right-of-Way Permit Application (PDF)
25. Collier County Building Block A-133, Compliance with ASCE 24-14 (PDF)
26. Collier County, Certain Qualifying Work Under $7,500 (PDF)
27. Collier County CityView permitting portal
28. Collier County CityView planning application locator
29. Collier County zoning map sheet 8505N (PDF)
30. Collier County zoning map sheet 8505S (PDF)

Collier County: growth management, planning, and civic pipeline

31. Future Land Use Element as amended by Ordinance 2024-46 (PDF)
32. Conservation and Coastal Management Element as amended by Ordinance 2022-35B (PDF)
33. Coastal High Hazard Area comparison map, Ordinance 2013-14 (PDF)
34. Collier County Community Planning and Resiliency
35. Collier County 2025 Annual Update and Inventory Report (PDF)
36. Collier County Transportation Planning Studies
37. Collier County Transportation Engineering Projects
38. Vanderbilt Drive Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Study (PDF)
39. Collier County FY27 Tentative Budget Book (PDF)
40. Collier County Board minutes and records, LaserFiche public access
41. Collier County Clerk of Courts, records search
42. Collier County Clerk, Official Records public access
43. Collier County Clerk, Corporate and Official Records portal
44. Collier County Clerk, Value Adjustment Board
45. Collier MPO, 2050 Long Range Transportation Plan (PDF)
46. Collier MPO, FY27-31 Transportation Improvement Program (PDF)
47. FDOT District One Work Program, Collier County FY26-30 (PDF)
48. FDOT District One Work Program, Lee County FY26-30 (PDF)
49. Collier County Clerk, Wiggins Pass and Doctors Pass maintenance dredging notice
50. Collier County procurement calendar, Wiggins Pass dredging bid opening

Collier County: assessment roll, taxes, and utilities

51. Collier County Property Appraiser
52. Collier County Property Appraiser, property record search
53. Collier County Property Appraiser, taxing authorities and millage areas
54. Collier County Property Appraiser, tax estimator
55. Collier County Property Appraiser, data downloads
56. Collier County Property Appraiser, file layouts
57. Collier County Property Appraiser, homestead exemption
58. Collier County Property Appraiser, Save Our Homes and portability
59. Collier County Property Appraiser, portability FAQ
60. Collier County Property Appraiser, portability calculation examples
61. Collier County Property Appraiser, 2025 Homestead Brochure (PDF)
62. Collier County Property Appraiser, loss of homestead and rental fraud
63. Collier County Tax Collector, tourist development tax
64. Collier County Tax Collector, taxable accommodations
65. Collier County Tax Collector, tourist tax enforcement procedures
66. Collier County Tax Collector, business tax receipts
67. Collier County property tax payment portal
68. Collier County Potable Water Service Area Map (PDF)
69. Collier County Wastewater Service Area Map (PDF)
70. Collier County 10-Year Water Supply Facilities Work Plan (PDF)
71. Collier County Residential Collections Services
72. Collier County Solid Waste FY26 Rate Resolution (PDF)
73. Collier County Recycling Guidebook (PDF)
74. Collier County 311 knowledge base, residential street lighting
75. Collier County 311 knowledge base

Flood, storm, insurance, and elevation

76. Collier County Floodplain Management
77. Collier County Floodproofing and permitting resources
78. Collier County 2026 Flood Protection Newsletter (PDF)
79. Collier County elevation certificate archive
80. FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer map service
81. FEMA preliminary FIRM download portal
82. FEMA Map Service Center, Collier County unincorporated areas
83. FEMA OpenFEMA, NFIP Community Status Book
84. FEMA OpenFEMA, NFIP Multiple Loss Properties
85. FEMA OpenFEMA, NFIP Policies
86. FEMA OpenFEMA, FIMA NFIP Claims
87. FEMA OpenFEMA, Individuals and Households Program valid registrations
88. Federal Register, Proposed Flood Hazard Determinations
89. USGS Short-Term Network, Hurricane Ian high water marks
90. National Hurricane Center, Tropical Cyclone Report, Hurricane Ian (PDF)
91. National Hurricane Center, Tropical Cyclone Report, Hurricane Irma (PDF)
92. Citizens Property Insurance, flood insurance requirement
93. Citizens Property Insurance, wind inspection
94. Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, wind mitigation resources
95. Florida Statute 627.351, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation
96. Collier County alert and emergency notification system

Water, navigation, and environment

97. NOAA Coast Pilot 5, Chapter 4 (PDF)
98. NOAA Tides and Currents, station 8725259 benchmarks
99. Florida Administrative Code Rule 68C-22.023, Collier County manatee protection zones
100. Cornell Legal Information Institute, Fla. Admin. Code R. 68C-22.023
101. Florida FWC, Collier County manatee protection zone notice (PDF)
102. Florida DEP, Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve
103. Florida DEP, Wiggins Pass Inlet Management Plan
104. Florida DEP, Wiggins Pass Inlet Management Plan (PDF)
105. Florida DEP, Cocohatchee River TMDL (PDF)
106. Florida DEP, 2024 hurricane season, Florida’s southwest Gulf coast
107. Florida FWC, red tide status
108. Coastal and Heartland National Estuary Partnership, Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve Management Plan (PDF)
109. Collier County Parks, Cocohatchee River Park boat park
110. Florida Department of Health, statewide wastewater and septic inventory map service

Florida statutes, state agencies, and corporate filings

111. Florida Statute 193.155, Homestead assessments
112. Florida Statute 193.1554, Assessment of nonhomestead residential property
113. Florida Statute 193.1555, Assessment of certain residential and nonresidential real property
114. Florida Statute 196.031, Homestead exemption
115. Florida Statute 192.001, Definitions
116. Florida Statute 212.03, Transient rentals tax
117. Florida Statute 125.0104, Tourist Development Tax
118. Florida Statute 509.013, Public lodging definitions
119. Florida Statute 509.032, Duties and preemption of vacation rental regulation
120. Florida Statute 509.241, Licenses required
121. Florida Statute 718.112, Condominium bylaws
122. Florida Statutes Chapter 712, Marketable Record Title Act
123. Florida Administrative Code Rule 12D-8.008, assessment of homestead property
124. Florida Department of Revenue, discretionary sales surtax rates (PDF)
125. Florida Department of Revenue, transient rental tax rates (PDF)
126. Florida Department of Revenue, business tax application DR-1 (PDF)
127. Florida Department of Revenue, homestead exemption application DR-501 (PDF)
128. Florida Department of Revenue, portability transfer form DR-501T (PDF)
129. Florida Department of Revenue, property tax data portal
130. Florida Department of Revenue, tax registration
131. Florida DBPR, vacation rental licensing
132. Florida DBPR, vacation rental license application (PDF)
133. Florida DBPR, lodging fees
134. Florida Division of Corporations, Sunbiz entity search
135. Sunbiz record, Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association, Inc., doc 700793
136. Sunbiz record, Bonita Shores Boating Area, Inc., doc 723054
137. Sunbiz record, Bonita Shores, Inc., the developer corporation
138. Florida Special District Accountability Program, dissolved district list
139. Florida Department of State, constitutional amendments and initiatives
140. Florida Senate, 2026 special session bill 1F, enrolled text (PDF)
141. Florida Senate, Index to Special and Local Laws 1845-1970 (PDF)

Schools, health, fire, and civic

142. Collier County Public Schools, school directory
143. Collier County Public Schools, attendance boundaries
144. Collier County Public Schools, interactive school zone locator
145. Collier County Public Schools, 2027 zone map application
146. Collier County Public Schools, attendance boundary modification proposal, December 2022 (PDF)
147. Collier County Public Schools, district and school grades
148. Florida Department of Education, school grades
149. Naples Park Elementary School
150. North Collier Fire Control and Rescue District, fire stations
151. North Collier Fire Control and Rescue District, annual budgets
152. NCH Healthcare, Bonita Springs freestanding emergency department
153. Lee Health, Convenient Care Bonita
154. Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association, official site
155. Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association, history
156. Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association, FAQ
157. Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association, board
158. Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association, clubhouse rentals
159. Bonita Shores and Little Hickory Shores Improvement Association, membership drive
160. City of Bonita Springs, official site
161. Bonita Springs Utilities, service area
162. Bonita Springs Utilities, service area boundary map (PDF)

Market data and regional reporting

163. Southwest Florida MLS Matrix, matrix.swflamls.com. All active and closed sale statistics on this page were pulled 2026-08-12 from the Southwest Florida MLS Matrix, Residential class, filtered on both Sub/Condo Name and Development Name, with the result counter verified live in both directions and the row count reconciled against the Matrix header.
164. Naples Area Board of REALTORS, Southwest Florida MLS residential field glossary (PDF)
165. Naples Area Board of REALTORS, MLS input form (PDF)
166. Naples Daily News, Collier County short-term rental registration requirements
167. Naples Daily News, Vanderbilt Drive bridge replacement
168. Naples Daily News, ribbon cutting for new Vanderbilt Drive bridges
169. Naples Daily News archive, address says Bonita Springs but residents say Naples
170. Naples Daily News archive, Brent Batten on the Vanderbilt Drive sidewalk question
171. WINK News, Collier County flood map update
172. WINK News, Barefoot Beach Preserve reopening
173. Gulfshore Business, Collier beach renourishment funding
174. Naples Press, no change to Collier County millage rate for the 2026-27 budget
175. WGCU, Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park mangrove restoration
176. Spikowski Planning Associates, Collier County Community Character Plan
177. Spikowski Planning Associates, Naples Park planning study
178. Dover Kohl and Partners, Collier County planning work
179. University of Hawaii, Collier County land use element case study (PDF)
180. Collier County short-term vacation rental registration

Downloadable Documents

Every document governing Bonita Shores below is linked to its official primary-source authority URL, not to a copy we host. That is deliberate: a county ordinance should be read from the county, and a federal map should be read from FEMA.

⬜ Still open, and we will publish them when we have them. The four recorded plat images and their recording dates, OR 579 PG 454 (the granting clause for the three boat ramp parcels), the 1952 articles of incorporation for Bonita Shores, Inc., and any recorded restriction or s. 712.06 preservation notice. All four require an in-person session at the Collier County Clerk’s office, and we would rather tell you they are pending than publish a summary of a document we have not read.

Updated August 2026 · Jesse McGreevy and Marc Comisar, Domain Realty

Jesse McGreevy: (239) 898-6072 · [email protected] · Marc Comisar: (239) 287-5873 · Office: 24031 S Tamiami Trl #101, Bonita Springs, FL 34134 · DomainRealtyGroup.com