Key Marco
Key Marco in Marco Island: a gated island of 134 homesites with a private marina, a debt-free CDD at $1,700 a year, $7,000 association dues, flood zones by street and five sales in five years. Sell or buy with McGreevy and Comisar.
Key Marco in Marco Island: a gated island of 134 homesites with a private marina, a debt-free CDD at $1,700 a year, $7,000 association dues, flood zones by street and five sales in five years. Sell or buy with McGreevy and Comisar.
Updated October 2026 · Jesse McGreevy and Marc Comisar, Domain Realty
If you own a home or a homesite on Key Marco and are weighing a sale, Jesse McGreevy and Marc Comisar of Domain Realty are the team to call first. Key Marco is a gated, bridge-access community of 134 single-family homesites on Horr’s Island, inside the City of Marco Island, Florida. It sells rarely, about one home a year over the last five years, which is exactly why pricing, marketing and the Key Marco Community Development District disclosure have to be handled by a team that knows the island’s records cold. McGreevy and Comisar are the #5 real estate team in Florida (RealTrends 2026), McGreevy and Comisar alone have over $900 million in sales, and we built this guide from the district’s own audits, the 1992 engineer’s report, the Collier County roll and the Southwest Florida MLS.
Key Marco is a private island community in Marco Island, Florida, reached from San Marco Road over a district-owned bridge across Blue Hill Creek. The recorded plat name is HORR’S ISLAND AKA KEY MARCO, the ZIP is 34145, and Collier County’s own City Limits map layer places the community inside the City of Marco Island. Two streets, Blue Hill Creek Drive and Whiskey Creek Drive, carry every homesite. Sellers can start with a free Key Marco home valuation or call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072; buyers can call Marc at (239) 287-5873.
If you’re searching for the best realtor for Key Marco, whether you’re ready to sell your Key Marco home or buy your next one, McGreevy and Comisar is the team that delivers. We lead Domain Realty Group, the #1 real estate team in Southwest Florida since 2012, Top 1% Nationally since 2008, with over $2.5 billion sold as a team with Domain Realty Group and $900 million in personal sales between Jesse and Marc. McGreevy and Comisar are the #5 real estate team in Florida (RealTrends 2026), and as the leaders of Domain Realty Group our team has closed over $2.5 billion in real estate.
What we tracked in Key Marco: In the last 12 months we tracked one Key Marco closing on the Southwest Florida MLS, at $2,100,000, 402 days on market and 90.3% of final list price. Across 60 months we tracked five closings and $20,550,000 in volume, the highest at $7,500,000 and the fastest in 12 days (Southwest Florida MLS, to 2026-10-07). In a community that trades about once a year, the pricing call is the whole game, and we make it from the parcel, the elevation and the deed record.
For luxury Key Marco sellers: Premium marketing, cinematic video, drone, professional photography, qualified-buyer database, discretion and off-market capability when needed.
Honors and recognition:
For how we rank against every other agent on the island, see our guide to the best real estate agents in Marco Island.
Selling your Key Marco home? Get a free home valuation at mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation OR call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072 (confidential conversations welcome for luxury listings).
Buying a home in Key Marco? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873 for a personalized buyer consultation.
Key Marco is the smallest and most private gated address on Marco Island: 134 single-family homesites on a 174-acre development district, a guarded gate, a private marina and no short-term rentals. These eight facts, each sourced below, decide most Key Marco decisions for buyers and sellers in 2026.
Jump to any section of this Key Marco guide:
Living in Key Marco means a gated, low-density island neighborhood of large custom homes set into preserved native habitat, with a guardhouse, a community center with a fitness room, tennis courts and a private marina, all within roughly seven minutes of the Gulf beaches of Marco Island. It suits buyers who want privacy and boating more than a club calendar.
Every trip into Key Marco starts at the gatehouse off San Marco Road and crosses the bridge over Blue Hill Creek. The Key Marco Community Development District owns and maintains both the roads and that bridge and staffs the access-control gate, according to the district’s own website. The association publishes guardhouse hours of 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM on weekdays and 6:30 AM to 4:30 PM on weekends, and residents manage guest and vendor lists through a resident app or by calling the guardhouse.
The homes are custom, one-of-a-kind residences on large lots. The county roll shows a median heated area of 3,073 square feet among the 40 improved parcels and years built from 1995 to 2025, with a median year built of 2013.5 and 10 homes built in 2023 or later (Collier County roll, data dated 2026-08-29). Lots are big by island standards: the tree build’s GIS work computed a median lot of 0.62 acre for Key Marco against 0.254 acre for the island as a whole.
Water comes from Collier County Utilities, electricity from LCEC, and sewer from the City of Marco Island, according to the association’s FAQ. Trash pickup is Monday and Thursday, with curbside recycling on Thursday. The CDD supplies irrigation water to district-controlled grounds from its own well field, retention pond and pump station.
We queried Collier County Public Schools’ own address lookup for the 2026 to 2027 school year at two Key Marco addresses, 888 Whiskey Creek Drive and 1230 Blue Hill Creek Drive. Both returned Tommie Barfield Elementary School (101 Kirkwood Street, Marco Island), Manatee Middle School (1920 Manatee Road, Naples) and Lely High School (1 Lely High School Boulevard, Naples). The association notes that Marco Island Academy, a public charter high school, sits next door to Key Marco, and that Marco Island Charter Middle School is on the island; charter enrollment is by application, not by zone.
Key Marco suits owners who want a quiet, gated street with no vacation renters, a deep-water slip without a long run under bridges, and a lot large enough for a custom home of real scale. It is not a club community: there is no golf course, no beachfront and no dining room inside the gate. Buyers who want those should compare it with Hideaway Beach and Cape Marco, covered side by side later in this guide.
Key Marco has 97 vacant homesites and only 40 built homes on the county roll, so choosing between a resale and a build is the first decision most buyers face here. For a private tour of the island and a walk through the CDD and association numbers, call Marc at (239) 287-5873, or read how we represent buyers on our buying page. Selling? Start with a free Key Marco home valuation or call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072.
Key Marco recorded five MLS home closings in the 60 months to 2026-10-07, from $2,100,000 to $7,500,000, with $20,550,000 in total volume (Southwest Florida MLS). Because no window from 12 to 60 months reaches 10 closings, this guide lists every sale instead of a median, and we read the county deed record beside the MLS.
Data updated: October 2026. MLS figures: Southwest Florida MLS (Matrix), ZIP 34145, Sub Condo Name or Development KEY MARCO, closed sales including Sold Data Entry, pulled 2026-10-07. County figures: Collier County Property Appraiser data files dated 2026-08-29 (recorded sales through 2026-08-24), subdivision HORR’S ISLAND AKA KEY MARCO, qualified improved sales.
We tested every standard window. The 12-month and 24-month windows each hold one closing; the 36-month window holds two; the 60-month window holds five. None of the five is a Sold Data Entry row. Under our rule, a window with fewer than 10 closings gets a list of sales, never a median, so the table below is the whole five-year record.
| Closed (MLS) | Address | Sold price | Final list price | Sale-to-list | MLS living area | MLS $ per sq ft | Days on market |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 03/03/2026 | 1149 Blue Hill Creek Dr | $2,100,000 | $2,325,000 | 90.3% | 3,200 sq ft | $656 | 402 |
| 04/05/2024 | 1078 Blue Hill Creek Dr | $2,750,000 | $2,995,000 | 91.8% | 6,516 sq ft | $422 | 97 |
| 06/01/2023 | 1230 Blue Hill Creek Dr | $7,500,000 | $7,500,000 | 100.0% | 6,310 sq ft | $1,189 | 12 |
| 05/10/2022 | 1143 Blue Hill Creek Dr | $4,800,000 | $5,200,000 | 92.3% | 4,150 sq ft | $1,157 | 17 |
| 03/14/2022 | 888 Whiskey Creek Dr | $3,400,000 | $3,450,000 | 98.6% | 3,519 sq ft | $966 | 94 |
Source: Southwest Florida MLS, closings 10/07/2021 to 10/07/2026, pulled 2026-10-07. Sale-to-list is sold price divided by final list price; $ per sq ft is sold price divided by the MLS living area, rounded to the dollar. One listing (1078 Blue Hill Creek Dr) carries the MLS Development value MARCO ISLAND but the Sub Condo Name KEY MARCO and the county subdivision HORR’S ISLAND AKA KEY MARCO, so it is counted here.
The range is wide because the product is wide. The $7,500,000 sale at 1230 Blue Hill Creek Drive sold at its full list price in 12 days; the $2,100,000 sale at 1149 Blue Hill Creek Drive took 402 days and closed at 90.3% of its final list price. In a community this small, one well-priced home and one overpriced home can sit on the same street in the same year. That spread is the case for pricing from parcel-level comparables, lot position and water frontage rather than from an island-wide average.
The Collier County roll records 33 qualified improved sales in HORR’S ISLAND AKA KEY MARCO since 1994, and the same five sales appear in its 60-month window (to 2026-08-24). Where the two records differ, the deed governs the sale price and the MLS governs the listing history. On 1149 Blue Hill Creek Drive the deed price ($2,100,000) matches the MLS, but the deed is dated 2026-02-27 against an MLS closing date of 03/03/2026; the difference is recording and reporting timing, not a second sale.
The county and the MLS use different denominators, and in Key Marco the gap is large. The roll shows 1,760 heated square feet for 1149 Blue Hill Creek Drive against 3,200 square feet of living area in the MLS, and 1,371 heated square feet for 1143 Blue Hill Creek Drive against 4,150 in the MLS. Treat any price per square foot as tied to its own record. We quote MLS living area above because it is the figure a buyer sees on a listing.
One home shows how values have moved. The county records three sales of 1143 Blue Hill Creek Drive (year built 2015 on the roll) after it was built: $2,000,000 on 2018-05-31, $3,450,000 on 2021-05-26 and $4,800,000 on 2022-05-10. From 2018 to 2022 that is $4,800,000 divided by $2,000,000, or 2.4 times the 2018 price. One house is an anecdote, not an index, and the 2022 sale fell at the peak of the post-2020 run.
The county flags a sale as “improved” by the parcel’s current use, so a sale recorded before a later house was built was usually a lot sale. 888 Whiskey Creek Drive, for example, shows an $89,000 transfer on 2014-02-10 and a year built of 2017, then a $3,400,000 sale on 2022-03-03. Read older Key Marco prices on the roll with the year built beside them.
On 2026-10-07 the MLS showed three active Key Marco listings and no pendings, asking from $2,590,000 to $6,900,000, with listed living areas from 3,005 to 5,644 square feet. At the five-year pace of one closing a year (five closings in 60 months), three listings equal about 36 months of supply: 3 divided by (5 divided by 60). That is a buyer’s market by any standard measure, and it rewards sellers who price to the record rather than to the most hopeful neighbor.
Vacant homesites are the majority of Key Marco parcels (97 of 137 on the roll), so lot sales and new construction shape the community as much as resales. The node data behind this page counts improved sales only; a lot-by-lot vacant-land record is a gap we disclose (see the data notes below) rather than estimate.
Key Marco is the modern name for Horr’s Island, a 546-acre island off Marco Island’s east side that charts still label Horr’s Island. People lived there thousands of years before Marco Island was platted, and a large salvage excavation of its shell mounds preceded the roads. The name Key Marco itself was borrowed from a different, famous 1896 dig.
The island’s archaeology is older than the Calusa. Published summaries of the excavations describe a Late Archaic village with four mounds and a horseshoe-shaped shell ring about 160 by 100 meters, with the ring dated 4,800 to 4,200 years before present and a mound burial dated to about 3,400 years before present, described as one of the oldest known mound burials in the eastern United States; more than 600 postholes were recorded. The Key Marco Community Association’s own history page says burial grounds on the island date back about 5,000 years and were excavated extensively in the 1990s, before any roads were built, in what it calls one of the largest salvage excavations in Florida’s history. The district’s 1992 engineer’s report backs that up in dollars: its acquisition-cost table lists a University of Florida archaeological study at $117,292.16 among the costs the district took on.
The National Park Service’s historic context for the Archaic shell rings of the southeastern United States, a National Register multiple property documentation form prepared by its Southeast Archeological Center, treats Horr’s Island as one of the best-studied ring sites in Florida. It identifies the shell ring as Florida Master Site File number 8CR209 and the four associated mounds as 8CR206, 8CR207, 8CR208 and 8CR211, and it records these points about the site that now sits inside Key Marco:
Material excavated on the island is still held in a museum collection. The Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida has posted a notice covering archaeological materials it holds on loan from several Collier County properties; its entry for “Site 1: Horr’s Island” lists accession numbers in the museum’s 1989 series and states that the material was recovered in the late 1980s from Blue Hill Creek Drive. The notice proposes ending the loan effective May 1, 2026 and directs any owner or claimant to the museum’s repatriation office. For a buyer the practical point is the same one the shell mounds make: parts of Key Marco are protected archaeological ground, and the association’s archaeological easements keep them that way.
That history is still on the ground. The association says the Native Americans of Barfield Bay left prominent shell mounds that remain preserved on the island, and it lists archaeological easements among the common areas it owns and maintains. For a buyer, that means some land inside the gate is permanently set aside, and a lot that borders a preserve or easement will stay that way.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the island was a sea captain’s vacation retreat and then a working pineapple and citrus plantation with a packing plant; the association records that the property sold in 1923 for $10,000 and stayed largely uninhabited until Key Marco was developed. The ruins of the captain’s house survive on the north side of Whiskey Creek Drive and are listed in the National Register of Historic Places (National Park Service NRIS record 97001215). The National Park Service lists it as a site, under the sea captain’s name, for its significance in exploration and settlement and in architecture, with significant years of 1877 and 1923 and periods of significance from 1875 to 1899 and 1900 to 1924. The pineapple is still the community’s emblem.
The association states that the community was named for the historic 1896 archaeological excavation. That excavation did not happen on Horr’s Island. The Marco Island Historical Society places the 1896 site, known to archaeologists as Key Marco, at Marco, the small village at the north end of Marco Island, where a Smithsonian-sponsored expedition dug a muck-filled pond from February 26 to April 19, 1896. Calling the island Key Marco tied a new community to the most famous name in Southwest Florida archaeology; it did not move the site.
The Key Marco Cat is a six-inch wooden carving of a part-feline, part-human figure, made between 500 and 1,500 years ago by a Muspa or Calusa artisan and recovered on March 5, 1896, at the north-end Key Marco site, according to the Marco Island Historical Society. It belongs to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (catalog A-240915). It came home to Collier County on loan in 1996, 1999 and 2018, and the Historical Society lists its latest exhibition at the Marco Island Historical Museum as running from 2018 to April 18, 2026, after which it returned to the Smithsonian. The museum at 180 South Heathwood Drive still tells the Key Marco story with other loaned and replica artifacts.
Key Marco exists because of a settlement. The 1992 engineer’s report states that the project is part of a larger area defined in a Settlement Agreement between the Deltona Corporation and federal, state and county authorities and various conservation groups, and that the agreement provides for development of areas that include Horr’s Island. The association dates the developers’ vision to the late 1980s and the start of development to 1990.
Key Marco was planned as a 173.9-acre single-family district with 134 lots on 103.8 acres, 43.2 acres of native park and 26.9 acres of roads and easements, reached by one bridge over Blue Hill Creek, according to the Key Marco Community Development District engineer’s report dated July 30, 1992. The rest of the 546-acre island sits outside that development footprint.
The engineer’s report bounds the district by “SR 92” (San Marco Road, as the 1992 report labels it) on the north, Caxambas Pass on the south, Barfield Bay on the west and Blue Hill Creek on the east. The establishing ordinance describes two parcels, one of 142.74 acres and one of 31.145 acres, for 173.885 acres in total; the ordinance describes the smaller parcel as part of a replat of Marco Beach Unit Fifteen. Collier County’s CDD map layer draws the district at about 167 acres (7,282,606 square feet in the layer’s own area field, divided by 43,560); the small difference from the ordinance is a mapping tolerance, and the ordinance governs.
| Land use (1992 engineer’s report, Table 1) | Acres |
|---|---|
| Development area (134 single-family lots) | 103.8 |
| Native park | 43.2 |
| Other (roads, easements and similar) | 26.9 |
| Total district | 173.9 |
Source: Key Marco CDD Engineer’s Report, Wilson, Miller, Barton and Peek, Inc., July 30, 1992, posted on keymarcocdd.com.
Key Marco is not flat. The engineer’s report describes rolling terrain with elevations inside the district from 3 to 38 feet (NGVD). That relief, unusual in Southwest Florida, is why some homesites sit well above the surrounding flood zone and others do not; the flood section below shows the difference street by street.
The report lists what the district would build and own: a water management system of roadside swales draining to tidal water (no lakes), the roads with drainage, landscaping and lighting, water, sewer and irrigation lines, and the bridge. Its preliminary cost opinion totaled $12,680,000, including $2,063,000 for the bridge, $1,420,000 for paving and roadway and $355,000 for the front entry statement. The potable water system was to be dedicated to Collier County. Sewer was planned as a low-pressure grinder-pump system, a detail that still matters to anyone buying an older Key Marco home: ask about the age of the grinder pump.
The engineer considered acreage and front-footage methods and chose to assess each homesite equally, reasoning that every lot benefits equally from one bridge, one road network, one water system and one drainage system. That is still how the district bills: one equal operating assessment per unit, regardless of lot size or house size.
Key Marco is governed by two bodies sharing one manager: the Key Marco Community Development District, a local special-purpose government that owns the roads, bridge and gate, and the Key Marco Community Association, Inc., a private nonprofit that owns the clubhouse, marina docks, tennis courts and preserves and enforces the covenants.
| Key Marco Community Development District | Key Marco Community Association, Inc. | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Local special-purpose government under Chapter 190, Florida Statutes | Private, not-for-profit homeowners’ association (Florida Division of Corporations document N40091, status Active) |
| Created by | Collier County Ordinance No. 92-45 | Articles filed with the Florida Department of State |
| Board | Five supervisors elected by Key Marco landowners in staggered terms | Five directors elected by Key Marco landowners |
| Owns and runs | Roads and rights of way, the bridge, sidewalks and signage, the gatehouse and access control, street lighting, landscaping, water management system, irrigation well field and pump station | Clubhouse (community center), marina docks, tennis courts, native habitat parks, recreational parcels, archaeological easements |
| How it bills | One non ad valorem assessment per unit on the Collier County property tax bill | Annual dues invoiced January 1, due January 31 |
| 2026 amount | $1,700 (fiscal 2025 to 2026) | $7,000 (2026) |
Sources: keymarcocdd.com and keymarco.net (the district’s and the association’s own websites); Florida Division of Corporations entity search; district audits filed with the Florida Auditor General.
Yes. Collier County’s GIS City Limits layer, queried on 2026-10-21 at four Key Marco locations (1269 and 1299 Blue Hill Creek Drive, 505 and 888 Whiskey Creek Drive), returns the City of Marco Island at every point. City codes, city building permits and the city’s ad valorem millage therefore apply on Key Marco, alongside the CDD and the association. The community’s sewer service comes from the City of Marco Island; its water comes from Collier County Utilities.
Since November 2019 the district has contracted with the association for district management: the association’s manager provides district management services and reports to both boards, according to the district’s audited financial statements. The audits record that the management fee was amended on June 10, 2020, to $10 a year effective October 1, 2020. The same office at 505 Whiskey Creek Drive handles gate access, marina slips, clubhouse access and CDD estoppel requests.
The Key Marco Community Development District is a Florida special district established by Collier County Ordinance No. 92-45 in 1992 to build and maintain Key Marco’s bridge, roads, gate, drainage, irrigation and landscaping. In fiscal 2025 to 2026 it levies one $1,700 operating assessment per unit, collected on the Collier County tax bill, and its audits report no outstanding bonds.
The district’s website states that the Collier County Board of County Commissioners established it on June 30, 1992, by adopting Ordinance No. 92-45, and a later county ordinance adopted October 27, 1992, added the special powers for parks and recreation facilities, security (guardhouses, fences and gates, but not police power) and mosquito control. The district’s audited financial statements give the creation date as July 7, 1992; the establishing ordinance took effect on filing with the Florida Secretary of State, which explains the week between the two dates. The petitioner named in the ordinance was Key Marco Developments.
The association’s FAQ states that when the district was established it issued approximately $14.6 million in tax-exempt bonds to build the entry and gatehouse, the bridge and more than three miles of roads and utilities, and that the bonds were fully paid off in December 2013. The district’s audits for fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2023 report no bonds, loans or long-term debt, and the fiscal 2023 data elements list debt service as not applicable. For a buyer today, that means the Key Marco CDD line on the tax bill is an operating assessment only, with no debt-service component.
| Fiscal year (Oct 1 to Sep 30) | Operating assessment per unit | Total levied (134 units) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 to 2022 | $1,900 | $254,600 collected | FY2022 audit, Florida Auditor General filing |
| 2022 to 2023 | $1,600 | $214,400 levied; $209,800 collected | FY2023 audit, Florida Auditor General filing |
| 2024 to 2025 | $1,700 | $227,800 gross levy | FY2025 to 2026 budget, adopted FY2024 to 2025 column, keymarcocdd.com |
| 2025 to 2026 | $1,700 | $227,800 gross levy | keymarcocdd.com; FY2025 to 2026 budget |
| 2026 to 2027 | $1,700 | $227,800 gross levy | Adopted FY2026 to 2027 budget, keymarcocdd.com |
Arithmetic: $1,900 x 134 = $254,600, which matches the fiscal 2022 collections exactly; $1,600 x 134 = $214,400 against $209,800 collected (the gap is consistent with the early-payment discounts Florida tax bills allow, which the audit notes); $1,700 x 134 = $227,800, the gross levy printed in the district’s budgets for fiscal 2024 to 2025, 2025 to 2026 and 2026 to 2027. Each of those budgets also carries a 4% allowance for early-payment discounts, which is why collections run below the gross levy. The district’s budget for fiscal 2023 to 2024 was not read for this guide, so that year is not shown.
The district’s site lists six service lines: the water management system and wetland areas, street lighting and holiday lighting, landscaping and tree work, staffing and operating the access-control gates, repair and maintenance of roadways, sidewalks, signage and the bridge, and irrigation from the district’s well field, retention pond and pump station. The fiscal 2023 audit shows $229,001 in revenue against $239,160 in fund expenditures, a fund balance of $866,505 at year end, and capital assets of $3,187,089 net of depreciation. In fiscal 2022 the district’s capital assets at cost were $9,630,805, of which $6,511,876 was infrastructure.
The Key Marco CDD posts its audits and budgets on its own website, and the three most recent audits tell a steady story: about a quarter of a million dollars of revenue a year, a growing cash cushion and infrastructure that is slowly being depreciated.
| Fiscal year ended September 30 | Total revenues | Ending fund balance | Total net position | Capital assets, net of depreciation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $229,001 | $866,505 | $4,053,594 | $3,187,089 |
| 2024 | $235,938 | $943,030 | $3,893,976 | $2,950,946 |
| 2025 | $245,953 | $1,035,748 | $3,754,159 | $2,718,411 |
Source: Key Marco CDD audited financial reports for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2024 and 2025 (each showing the prior year beside it), posted on keymarcocdd.com.
Net position falls each year because depreciation on the bridge, roads and other infrastructure runs ahead of what the district adds. At September 30, 2025 the district carried $9,630,805 of capital assets at cost and $6,912,394 of accumulated depreciation, a net book value of $2,718,411; the depreciation taken during fiscal 2025 alone was $6,912,394 minus $6,679,859, or $232,535. The fiscal 2024 audit attributes the drop in expenses from fiscal 2023 mainly to hurricane damages in that earlier year. The fund balance moved the other way, rising to $1,035,748, which the fiscal 2025 audit reports as unassigned and available at the board’s discretion. Spread across the district’s 134 units, that is $1,035,748 divided by 134, or about $7,729 per homesite.
The adopted budget for fiscal 2026 to 2027 holds the assessment at $1,700 for each of the 134 units ($227,800 gross) and sets aside $120,000 in reserves: $25,000 for bridge inspection and maintenance, $45,000 for roads, $20,000 for the gatehouse, $10,000 for irrigation infrastructure and $20,000 as a hurricane contingency. Its largest administrative line is general liability insurance at $57,000, and it budgets $12,000 for a gatehouse security systems upgrade. Budgeted revenue is $235,700 against $228,615 of expenditures. The board meets at 8:30 AM on third Wednesdays at the community clubhouse, 505 Whiskey Creek Drive, on the dates the district posts; the posted schedule includes the annual landowners’ meeting and election on November 18, 2026 and a budget hearing on June 16, 2027.
The assessment appears as a non ad valorem line on the annual Collier County property tax bill, so it is paid with property taxes, not to the association. Florida Statutes section 190.048 requires a bold CDD disclosure, stating that the district may impose and levy taxes or assessments, in the contract for the initial sale of a parcel in a district. That statutory form is written for initial sales, but every resale should still disclose the district and the current assessment so the buyer sees the full cost. The district manager issues estoppel information on the district account at (239) 394-4346. Buyers should read the current-year tax bill for the parcel and ask for the district’s adopted budget for the next fiscal year, because the board sets the assessment every year.
The Key Marco CDD is smaller and simpler than most Southwest Florida CDDs: no bond debt, one equal share per lot, and a narrow job list. The trade-off is that the bridge, the gate and three-plus miles of road are maintained by 134 owners rather than by the city or county, so a major bridge or road repair is funded by Key Marco alone. The district’s audited fund balance ($1,035,748 at September 30, 2025) is the first cushion against that.
Owning a Key Marco home carries two community charges, a $1,700 CDD assessment and $7,000 in association dues for 2026, plus property tax, insurance and a one-time transfer fee. The association describes the CDD and the HOA as Key Marco’s only two recurring fees; there is no master club, no golf membership and no condominium layer.
| Layer | Amount | Period | What it covers | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key Marco CDD operating assessment | $1,700 | Fiscal 2025 to 2026, on the tax bill | Bridge, roads, gate staffing, lighting, landscaping, drainage, irrigation | keymarcocdd.com |
| Key Marco Community Association dues | $7,000 | Calendar 2026, due January 31 | Clubhouse, marina docks, tennis, preserves, covenant enforcement, management | keymarco.net FAQ |
| Association transfer fee | $6,800 on the 2026 closing and one 2026 listing; $4,000 on a 2022 listing | One-time, at purchase | Not stated in a public document | Southwest Florida MLS listing-entered fee fields, pulled 2026-10-07 |
| Application fee | $150 | One-time | Not stated in a public document | Southwest Florida MLS listing-entered fee fields, pulled 2026-10-07 |
| City and county property tax | 8.9535 mills confirmed for a standard city parcel (tax year 2025), before the Collier Mosquito Control District levy | Annual | City of Marco Island and Collier County ad valorem levies | City of Marco Island FY2026 adopted budget; Collier County, school district and SFWMD adopted rates (tree research, Agent A) |
| Insurance (wind, flood) | Varies by house, elevation and zone | Annual | Not a community charge | See the insurance section |
The transfer and application fees are as entered by listing agents in the MLS, not published by the association; confirm the current figures with the association’s estoppel certificate before closing.
The MLS fee fields show the association dues rising from $4,750 a year on the two 2022 closings to $6,200 on the 2023 and 2024 closings, $6,800 on the March 2026 closing and $7,000 on the current listings, matching the association’s own $7,000 figure for 2026. From $4,750 to $7,000 is an increase of $2,250, or 47.4% over about four years.
For one Key Marco home in 2026, the community charges alone are $1,700 (CDD) plus $7,000 (association), or $8,700 a year, about $725 a month. Add property tax: the confirmed 2025 millage components for a standard City of Marco Island parcel total 8.9535 mills (county 3.2449, schools 4.2490, water management 0.1926, city operating 1.2670), before the Collier Mosquito Control District levy, whose 2025 rate was not confirmed (its 2024 to 2025 rate was 0.1349 mills). As an illustration only, on a taxable value of $2,100,000, the price of the most recent Key Marco sale, 8.9535 mills is $2,100,000 x 8.9535 / 1,000 = $18,802.35. Community charges plus that tax come to $27,502.35 a year, about $2,292 a month, before insurance and before any mosquito-district line. A real bill depends on the county’s assessed value, homestead status and the final 2026 rates, so read the parcel’s own tax bill.
Key Marco runs under recorded covenants enforced by the association and published development standards reviewed by an Architectural Review Committee. The association’s FAQ summarizes the basics: homes of at least 3,000 square feet of air-conditioned space, a 55-foot height cap, generous setbacks, limits on clearing native vegetation, ARC approval for any exterior change, and no short-term rentals.
The association publishes these minimums for a new home, from its Development Standards and Architectural Review Requirements:
New construction needs preliminary and final ARC approval before work starts; the committee meets the first Friday of each month at 10:00 AM at the Key Marco Community Center, 505 Whiskey Creek Drive. Any change to a home’s exterior, and every marina improvement including a boat lift, also needs ARC approval. City of Marco Island building permits and floodplain rules apply on top of the association’s standards.
The association states plainly that no short-term rentals are allowed. Any longer lease is governed by the recorded covenants, which are posted only in the members’ document library; a buyer who plans to lease should request the covenants and any leasing rules before going under contract.
The association’s public pages do not publish pet, parking or vehicle rules. Those live in the recorded Declaration and rules, which govern; request them from the association with the estoppel package.
Key Marco has no sub-villages, condominiums or separate neighborhood associations: every homesite sits on one of two streets, Blue Hill Creek Drive and Whiskey Creek Drive, under one district and one association. The county roll groups all 137 residential parcels in the single subdivision HORR’S ISLAND AKA KEY MARCO.
Blue Hill Creek Drive carries 82 of the 137 residential parcels on the county roll and all four of the Blue Hill Creek Drive sales in the five-year MLS record. The three Blue Hill Creek Drive points we tested against FEMA’s maps (1065, 1149 and 1230) all fall in Zone X, consistent with the higher ground the 1992 engineer’s report describes.
Whiskey Creek Drive carries 52 parcels and the community center, marina office and clubhouse at 505 Whiskey Creek Drive. It also passes the National Register-listed house ruin on its north side. The three Whiskey Creek Drive points we tested (505, 791 and 888) fall in FEMA Zone AE, with a base flood elevation of 10 or 11 feet.
We tested Key Marco for sub-communities the way we test every community: recorded plats, Florida corporations, the county subdivision and use codes, and the MLS subdivision field. Every test returns one entity. There is one plat name, one association, one district, and no condominium or sub-association on either street. A buyer moving from Blue Hill Creek Drive to Whiskey Creek Drive changes flood zone and view, not association, assessment or rules, so this guide treats Key Marco as one community and covers both streets here, with no separate street-level guide planned.
| Measure (Collier County roll, data dated 2026-08-29) | Key Marco |
|---|---|
| Residential parcels | 137 |
| Built homes (use code 1) | 40 |
| Vacant residential lots (use code 0) | 97 |
| Median heated area, built homes | 3,073 sq ft |
| Heated area range | 1,371 to 8,025 sq ft |
| Year built range | 1995 to 2025 |
| Median year built | 2013.5 |
| Homes built 2023 or later | 10 |
The 1992 plan called for 134 single-family lots; the roll counts 137 residential parcels, a small difference that reflects how parcels are split or combined on the roll over time, not new lots in the plan.
Key Marco’s amenities are owned by the Key Marco Community Association and sized for 134 households: a private marina with a slip program for every lot, a community center with a fitness center, great room, catering kitchen and screened porch, private tennis courts, and preserved native parks. There is no golf course, beach club or restaurant inside the gate.
The marina is the community’s signature amenity. According to the association, each lot is assigned a boat slip based on vessel size at the private marina at the end of the island, and owners have direct access to the Gulf of Mexico and the Ten Thousand Islands with no bridges in the way. Homeowners receive slip assignments first-come, first-served and do not need to own a boat to receive one. Owners of vacant lots must own a Florida-registered, insured boat in good running condition that they intend to keep at the marina; a lot owner who goes a full year without mooring a qualifying boat forfeits the slip back to the association. Lot owners may request a second slip on a temporary basis, revocable on 90 days’ notice. Boat lifts and other marina improvements need ARC approval. The nearest Gulf outlet, Caxambas Pass at the south end of Marco Island, is described in NOAA’s U.S. Coast Pilot as subject to continual change, with mariners told to seek local knowledge before transiting, so new boaters should learn the channel before running it at night.
Key Marco’s water is protected water, and three sets of rules apply before the first run out of the marina. First, Florida’s manatee protection rule for Collier County, Rule 68C-22.023 of the Florida Administrative Code (Collier County Zones, last amended effective February 19, 2018), sets speed zones that apply all year in the waters around Horr’s Island. It makes all waters of Barfield Bay, Blue Hill Creek and associated waters north of Horr’s Island a 20 mph zone, sets slow speed zones in Caxambas Pass, Caxambas Bay and associated waters, allows 30 mph in a marked east-west channel in the Caxambas Pass area, and ends several idle and slow speed zone lines at points on the Horr’s Island shoreline. The posted signs and the rule’s own maps govern, not this summary.
Second, Key Marco sits inside the mapped boundary of the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, which NOAA describes as 110,000 acres of open water, mangroves, marshes and uplands, designated in 1978 and managed day to day by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. A query of the reserve’s published boundary layer (polygon dated April 9, 2002) at the Key Marco Community Center returned the reserve, while points in the middle of Marco Island’s main residential grid did not. A mapped boundary does not turn a private homesite into reserve land; it does mean the bays, creeks and mangrove shorelines around Key Marco are part of a protected state and federal estuary.
Third, the bridge is part of the boating picture: the district budgeted $10,000 in fiscal 2025 to 2026 for solar navigation lighting on its bridge, which spans Blue Hill Creek, a reminder that boats pass under the community’s only road link.
The Key Marco Community Center at 505 Whiskey Creek Drive houses the fitness center with showers, a great room, a kitchen and a screened-in porch that residents can reserve for events, and the association’s office. Private tennis courts sit beside it. Residents receive clubhouse access by key card or fob through the community manager.
Preserved native habitat is the rest of the amenity list. The 1992 plan set aside 43.2 acres as native park, and the association describes nesting osprey, roseate spoonbills, storks, owls and gopher tortoises among the wildlife residents see. The development standards that cap clearing at half of a lot’s upland vegetation keep the canopy in place as the island builds out.
Key Marco has no golf course, no beach frontage, no dining room or club restaurant and no equity club membership. Residents reach the Gulf beaches of Marco Island, which the association puts about seven minutes away, and the island’s restaurants, golf clubs and shopping by car or boat. Buyers who want golf and a beach club inside their gate should look at Hideaway Beach.
Key Marco’s flood exposure depends on the street and the ground under the house. On FEMA maps effective February 8, 2024, the three Blue Hill Creek Drive points we tested sit in Zone X (minimal flood hazard) and the three Whiskey Creek Drive points sit in Zone AE with base flood elevations of 10 or 11 feet.
| Address (geocoded street location) | FEMA zone | Base flood elevation | FIRM panel | Effective |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 505 Whiskey Creek Dr | AE (coastal floodplain) | 10 ft | 12021C0841J | 2024-02-08 |
| 791 Whiskey Creek Dr | AE (coastal floodplain) | 11 ft | 12021C0841J | 2024-02-08 |
| 888 Whiskey Creek Dr | AE (coastal floodplain) | 11 ft | 12021C0841J | 2024-02-08 |
| 1065 Blue Hill Creek Dr | X (minimal flood hazard) | None published | 12021C0841J | 2024-02-08 |
| 1149 Blue Hill Creek Dr | X (minimal flood hazard) | None published | 12021C0841J | 2024-02-08 |
| 1230 Blue Hill Creek Dr | X (minimal flood hazard) | None published | 12021C0845J | 2024-02-08 |
Method: each address geocoded with the U.S. Census Bureau geocoder and queried against FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer on 2026-10-21. A geocoded point is an approximation of the street location, not a survey of the house pad. The tree’s earlier FEMA pass (2026-10-07) found Zone X at 1269 Blue Hill Creek Drive with ground at 13.6 feet NAVD88, and Zone AE (base flood elevation 11 feet) at points near 1299 Blue Hill Creek Drive where ground read 6.7 to 7.5 feet NAVD88, with Zone VE mapped within 150 meters of those points.
A Zone X lot is not required by FEMA to carry flood insurance for a federally backed mortgage, while a Zone AE home with a mortgage is. Zone X is not a promise of a dry lot: the shoreline zones sit close by, and private flood coverage in Zone X is usually inexpensive enough to keep. Every Key Marco buyer should get the home’s elevation certificate; the City of Marco Island posts elevation certificates on its website, organized by street name.
Because Key Marco is inside the City of Marco Island, city floodplain rules govern substantial improvement: an improvement or repair costing 50% or more of the structure’s market value triggers full compliance with current flood elevation rules. On a Zone AE lot that can mean elevating or rebuilding an older home; on a Zone X lot the trigger matters far less. Price an older Whiskey Creek Drive home with that in mind.
City of Marco Island Code section 26-90 sets the lowest floor of a new or substantially improved home at the highest of several tests: the base flood elevation plus 1 foot, 18 inches above the crown of the road, 24 inches above an ungraded road, or the level the Florida Building Code requires; in Zone X the lowest floor must sit 18 inches above the road crown. Apply that to two Key Marco locations from the tree’s FEMA pass of 2026-10-07, which read USGS ground elevations in NAVD88, the datum of the current flood maps:
| Location (FEMA pass, 2026-10-07) | Zone and base flood elevation | Ground (NAVD88) | Minimum lowest floor from the flood test | Height above ground |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points near 1299 Blue Hill Creek Dr | AE, 11 ft | 6.7 to 7.5 ft | 11 + 1 = 12 ft | 12 minus 7.5 = 4.5 ft, up to 12 minus 6.7 = 5.3 ft |
| 1269 Blue Hill Creek Dr | X, none published | 13.6 ft | No base flood test; 18 inches above the road crown | Set by the road crown, not the flood map |
On the low ground, the pad or foundation must lift the lowest floor about 4.5 to 5.3 feet above grade before any road-crown test, which drives stem-wall or elevated designs, driveway ramps and the cost of a rebuild under the 50 percent rule. On the high ground, the Zone X lot already sits 13.6 minus 11, or 2.6 feet, above the nearby 11-foot base flood elevation. These are geocoded points read from public elevation data; a surveyed elevation certificate for the actual house pad governs every real decision.
Key Marco shares Marco Island’s storm record. The National Hurricane Center’s report on Hurricane Irma records its final landfall near Marco Island at 3:30 PM EDT on September 10, 2017, as a Category 3, with a spotter on Marco Island reporting 97-knot sustained winds and a 112-knot gust. For Hurricane Ian on September 28, 2022, the NHC reports 4 to 6 feet of inundation above ground from Marco Island through Everglades City and a maximum high water mark of 4.7 feet above ground on Marco Island. Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 brought 2 to 4 feet and 3 to 5 feet of surge to the stretch that includes Marco Island. Those are island-wide figures: no published source breaks out storm damage for Key Marco’s 40 homes, and the ground under each house, from about 3 to 38 feet per the engineer’s report, decides how much water reaches it.
Insurance on a Key Marco home is a single-family policy (wind and hazard) plus flood coverage that is required for a federally backed mortgage in Zone AE and strongly advised in Zone X. Premiums turn on elevation, construction year, roof and opening protection, so two homes on one street can price very differently.
Florida law (section 627.0629) requires insurers to offer discounts or credits for verified wind-loss mitigation such as roof-to-wall connections, roof covering and opening protection, documented on the state’s uniform mitigation verification inspection form. With homes built from 1995 to 2025 on the roll, Key Marco has both older homes that may benefit from a fresh inspection and newer homes built to recent codes.
FEMA’s FloodSmart site lists NFIP coverage limits for a home of $250,000 for the building and $100,000 for contents. Key Marco’s standards require at least 3,000 square feet of air-conditioned space, and the most recent sale closed at $2,100,000; the NFIP building limit is $250,000 divided by $2,100,000, or about 11.9% of that price. A sale price includes land, which flood insurance never covers, so the real test is the home’s replacement cost as the insurer estimates it. Where that replacement cost is above $250,000, an NFIP building policy alone leaves a gap, and owners close it with excess or private flood coverage. Two more rules shape the choice: Citizens requires flood coverage on personal residential policies with a replacement cost of $400,000 or more in 2026 and on all remaining policies from January 1, 2027, and the city’s CRS discount applies only to NFIP policies. Ask for NFIP, excess and private quotes during the inspection period, with the elevation certificate in hand.
Order a four-point and wind mitigation inspection, the elevation certificate, and a flood quote before the inspection period ends. Ask the seller for the flood disclosure required by section 689.302, Florida Statutes, which asks whether the seller knows of flooding that damaged the property, filed a flood claim or received flood assistance.
Key Marco is a short drive from Marco Island’s urgent care and shops. The tree’s routing estimates, from the Marco Island end of the Jolley Bridge at free-flow speeds, put Southwest Florida International Airport about 47.2 miles and 63 minutes away and Fifth Avenue South in Naples about 15.7 miles and 27 minutes away; peak-season traffic is slower.
| Destination | Miles (est.) | Minutes (est.) |
|---|---|---|
| Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) | 47.2 | 63 |
| Fifth Avenue South, Naples | 15.7 | 27 |
| Marco Island Executive Airport (MKY) | 4.5 | 12 |
| Physicians Regional Medical Center, Collier Boulevard (emergency department) | 10.6 | 18 |
| NCH Baker Hospital, Naples | 16.5 | 29 |
| Everglades City | 34.0 | 48 |
Method: OSRM public router, origin 1402 N Collier Blvd (Marco Island end of the Jolley Bridge), free-flow, rounded, computed 2026-10-07. Key Marco’s gate on San Marco Road sits on the island’s east side, so actual times from a Key Marco driveway differ by a few minutes. The association itself puts Naples about 20 miles away.
NCH’s Marco Island urgent care at 40 S Heathwood Drive is open 8 AM to 7:30 PM daily with CT and X-ray, and the NCH Marco Health Center at the same address hosts family and internal medicine, lab and rehab services; NCH’s directory lists no emergency department on Marco Island. The nearest emergency department is at Physicians Regional Medical Center, Collier Boulevard, 8300 Collier Boulevard, Naples.
Trash pickup is Monday and Thursday and recycling Thursday; guests and vendors are cleared through the guardhouse or the resident app; marina, clubhouse and gate credentials come from the community manager; and every exterior change goes through the ARC. Mail and package delivery arrangements, pet rules and EV charging policy are not published on the association’s public pages; ask the community manager.
Marco Island voters approved a $23 million general obligation bond in the August 18, 2026 primary, by 2,259 votes to 2,258, to replace the Caxambas and Goldenrod bridges, repair three other bridges and repave about 30 miles of streets, according to WGCU. Those are city bridges and streets; Key Marco’s own bridge and roads belong to the CDD and are funded by the Key Marco assessment, while Key Marco owners pay the city’s ad valorem levies like every other city parcel. A full permit and rezoning scan within one mile of Key Marco was not part of this build and is listed as a data gap below.
Key Marco and Hideaway Beach are Marco Island’s two private gated enclaves, and they suit different buyers: Hideaway Beach is a club community with nine-hole golf, Gulf beachfront and condominiums, trading about two dozen times a year; Key Marco is a single-family island of large lots and lot-assigned slips with no club layer, trading about once a year.
| Key Marco | Hideaway Beach | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Horr’s Island, east side of Marco Island, bridge over Blue Hill Creek | North-west tip of Marco Island |
| Product | Single-family homes and homesites only | Single-family homes, villas, condominiums and homesites |
| Residential parcels on the county roll | 137 (40 homes, 97 vacant lots) | 256 single-family and vacant parcels, plus condominiums |
| Median lot (computed from county GIS) | 0.62 acre | 0.295 acre |
| MLS closings, last 12 months (to 2026-10-07) | 1, at $2,100,000 | 25, median $1,805,000, range $875,000 to $4,600,000 (all property types) |
| MLS closings, last 60 months | 5 | 134 |
| Golf | None | Nine-hole course (club) |
| Beach | None inside the gate | Gulf beachfront the club describes as about two and a half miles |
| Marina | Private marina, slip assigned to each lot | See the Hideaway Beach guide |
| Special district | Key Marco CDD, $1,700 a year (non ad valorem) | Hideaway Beach Tax District, 1.6000 mills (ad valorem, tax year 2025) |
| Short-term rentals | Not allowed (association) | Governed by the club and association documents |
Sources: Southwest Florida MLS, pulled 2026-10-07; Collier County roll data dated 2026-08-29 and the tree’s GIS lot computation; Hideaway Beach Club website; City of Marco Island FY2026 adopted budget; keymarcocdd.com; keymarco.net.
Choose Key Marco if your priorities are a large private lot, a slip outside your door, quiet streets without vacation renters, and a custom home built to your plan. Choose Hideaway Beach if you want golf, a beach club and a social calendar inside the gate, a deeper resale market, or a condominium instead of a house. Hideaway’s much larger sales record also makes it easier to price; Key Marco’s thin record rewards patient sellers and well-informed buyers.
Buyers who shortlist Key Marco usually also look at Cape Marco’s gated Gulf-front towers, the large-lot Estates section at the south end of the island, the Caxambas canal neighborhood and Hideaway Beach. Each answers a different question: Gulf views from a tower, a big waterfront lot without a gate, a canal home near the pass, or a club community.
Cape Marco is a gated enclave of high-rise condominium towers at the south-west corner of the island, with a master property owners association, a fishing pier, a promenade and tennis. It suits buyers who want Gulf views and a lock-and-leave condominium rather than a house and a dock.
The Estates on Marco Island on Marco Island’s south end has the island’s biggest single-family lots outside Key Marco, a computed median of 0.507 acre with a median heated area of 3,670 square feet on the county roll, and most homes on canals or bays. It has no gate and no CDD, so buyers trade privacy for the absence of a community fee.
Caxambas and the South End is the southern tip of Marco Island, a canal-laced grid of single-family homes and small condominium buildings around Caxambas Pass, the same pass that bounds Key Marco’s district on the south, and the county’s Caxambas Park boat ramp. It is not a gated community and not one development, so it suits boaters who want a short run to the Gulf and a deeper resale market than Key Marco’s, without a gate or a homesite to build on.
Key Marco, Hideaway Beach and The Estates are the three Marco Island communities most often weighed against each other for a large home near the water, and the records show three very different markets.
| Measure | Key Marco | Hideaway Beach | The Estates |
|---|---|---|---|
| MLS closings, 12 months to 2026-10-07 | 1, at $2,100,000 | 25 | 35 |
| Median sold price, 12 months | Not quoted (one sale) | $1,805,000 | $3,000,000 |
| Median sold price per sq ft, 12 months | Not quoted (one sale) | $640 | $862 |
| Median days on market, 12 months | 402 (one sale) | 103 (22 sales with a DOM) | 71.5 (34 sales with a DOM) |
| MLS closings, 60 months | 5 | 134 | 175 |
| Median sold price, 60 months | Not quoted (five sales, listed above) | $1,900,000 | $2,850,000 |
| Residential parcels, county roll | 137 (40 homes, 97 vacant lots) | 617 (360 condominium, 180 single-family, 77 vacant) | 708 (602 homes, 106 vacant lots) |
| Median year built, county roll | 2013.5 | 1995 | 2017 |
| Homes built 2023 or later | 10 | 32 | 131 |
| Staffed gate | Yes | Yes | No |
Sources: Southwest Florida MLS, closed sales including Sold Data Entry, pulled 2026-10-07 (Hideaway Beach counts every property type, condominiums included); Collier County roll data dated 2026-08-29. Days on market exclude Sold Data Entry rows, so the count used is shown beside each median.
Choose Key Marco for a gated large lot, a slip outside the door and a custom build; choose Hideaway Beach for club golf, a beach and the widest mix of homes and condominiums; choose The Estates for big waterfront lots, the deepest single-family resale market of the three and the newest housing stock, without a gate or a CDD.
The island-wide picture, from canal homes to Gulf-front condominiums, is on our Marco Island guide, and our Naples vs Marco Island comparison covers the trade-offs of island life against the mainland. For county-wide context see our Collier County guide, and for things to do see things to do in Collier County.
Key Marco’s strengths are privacy, large lots, a marina slip for every homesite, no short-term rentals and a debt-free district; its weaknesses are a very thin sales record, no golf or beach inside the gate, a large stock of vacant lots competing with resales, and community-funded upkeep of a private bridge and road network.
Selling a Key Marco home means selling into a market that closes about one home a year, against three active listings and 97 vacant homesites, with a CDD disclosure, an association estoppel and a flood story that changes by street. We price from the parcel record so the first price is the right one.
If you’re searching for the best Key Marco listing agent, or thinking, ‘I need to sell my house in Key Marco…’, start with the numbers that decide your outcome. We tracked five Key Marco closings in the 60 months to 2026-10-07, from $2,100,000 to $7,500,000; the two homes priced closest to the market sold in 12 and 17 days, and the slowest took 402 days. Our job is to put your home in the first group.
Key Marco sold-market stats we tracked (Southwest Florida MLS, to 2026-10-07): 12 months, one closing at $2,100,000; 36 months, two closings at $2,100,000 and $2,750,000; 60 months, five closings totaling $20,550,000, from $2,100,000 to $7,500,000, at 90.3% to 100% of final list price. Fewer than 10 closings in every window, so no median is quoted.
Request a free Key Marco home valuation and we will build it from your parcel’s elevation, frontage, slip, house size on both the MLS and county records, and every Key Marco sale back through the deed record.
Call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072, text or call. Confidential conversations welcome.
Cinematic video and drone footage that shows the island, the bridge and the marina; professional photography; outreach to our qualified-buyer database; and discreet or off-market marketing when a seller prefers privacy. We lead with the documents a Key Marco buyer asks for: the CDD’s audits, the elevation certificate, the slip assignment and the ARC approvals.
Plan for the listing commission you negotiate, documentary stamp tax on the deed, your share of prorated taxes and the CDD line, and any association estoppel and transfer items the contract assigns to you. In Collier County the buyer customarily pays the owner’s title policy and chooses the closing agent; the contract controls.
Yes. Many Key Marco owners value privacy, and we can market a home quietly to qualified buyers before, or instead of, a public MLS launch, while explaining the trade-off in exposure.
We believe it is the team that knows Key Marco’s records and has sold at the top of Southwest Florida for years: Jesse McGreevy and Marc Comisar of Domain Realty, Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008. Call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072.
A buyer’s market by supply: three active listings on 2026-10-07 against a five-year pace of one closing a year, about 36 months of supply. Sellers who price to the record still sell; the 2023 sale at 1230 Blue Hill Creek Drive went at full list price in 12 days.
Jesse McGreevy and Marc Comisar are the Southwest Florida real estate team behind this guide, licensed with Domain Realty, recognized as Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008 and the #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012. They help sellers and buyers across Collier, Lee and Charlotte counties, including Marco Island’s gated communities.
Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008
5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 21 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
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).
Jesse McGreevy is a top-reviewed Key Marco realtor; read our reviews on Google.
★★★★★ “Jesse was accommodating and very informative … we can always depend on him if ever we have questions at any time, even Sundays. He is the best realtor we ever dealt with.” Verified Google review
★★★★★ “Marc has been a great help in securing a great price for our home during its build phase. Negotiated a much better deal from the builder.” Verified Google review
★★★★★ “Highly recommend Marc as a realtor. His devotion to finding you the perfect house is obvious and a breath of fresh air at such a stressful time.” Verified Google review
See the McGreevy and Comisar team story for how we work.
McGreevy and Comisar lead Domain Realty Group, a full-service Southwest Florida real estate team. Learn more about our team at DomainRealtyGroup.com.
These are the questions Key Marco buyers ask most, answered from the district’s and association’s own records, the Collier County roll, FEMA’s maps and the Southwest Florida MLS. Each answer stands alone; the sections above carry the full sourcing and the arithmetic.
Key Marco is a gated community of 134 single-family homesites on Horr’s Island, inside the City of Marco Island, Florida, reached by a private bridge over Blue Hill Creek from San Marco Road. The county records its plat as HORR’S ISLAND AKA KEY MARCO.
Key Marco is part of the City of Marco Island but sits on its own island east of Marco’s main island, behind its own gate and bridge, with its own community development district and association. Marco Island’s main island holds most of the city’s canal homes, condominiums and Gulf beaches.
Yes. The CDD staffs and operates the access-control gate, and the association publishes guardhouse hours of 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM on weekdays and 6:30 AM to 4:30 PM on weekends, with guest lists managed by app or by calling the guardhouse.
Yes. Collier County’s City Limits map layer places every Key Marco point we tested inside the City of Marco Island, so city permits, codes and the city millage apply.
The 1992 plan provides for 134 single-family lots. The Collier County roll (data dated 2026-08-29) shows 137 residential parcels, of which 40 have homes and 97 are vacant.
The Key Marco Community Association’s 2026 annual assessment is $7,000, invoiced January 1 and due by January 31, according to the association’s FAQ.
The Key Marco Community Development District’s operating assessment for fiscal 2025 to 2026 is $1,700 per unit, collected as a non ad valorem line on the Collier County property tax bill.
No. The association reports that the roughly $14.6 million in original bonds was paid off in December 2013, and the district’s audited fiscal 2022 and 2023 statements report no outstanding bonds.
The bridge, roads, sidewalks and signage, the access-control gate and its staffing, street lighting, landscaping, the water management system and the irrigation well field, pond and pump station, per the district’s website.
For 2026, $1,700 (CDD) plus $7,000 (association) equals $8,700 a year, before property tax and insurance. The association says these are Key Marco’s only two recurring fees.
Listing agents entered a $6,800 transfer fee and a $150 application fee in the MLS on the March 2026 closing and a current listing; an earlier 2022 listing showed $4,000. Confirm the current amounts on the association’s estoppel certificate.
No. The association states that no short-term rentals are allowed. Longer leases are governed by the recorded covenants, which buyers should request before contracting.
At least 3,000 square feet of heated and air-conditioned space, under the association’s development standards.
The association’s standards set a maximum building height of 55 feet.
No more than 50% of the lot’s upland vegetation, and never more than 15,000 square feet, under the association’s standards.
Front 40 feet, rear 20 feet, sides totaling 40 feet with at least 15 feet on one side, plus an additional 5-foot building setback for principal and accessory structures, per the association.
The association says each lot is assigned a slip by vessel size at the private marina. Homeowners do not need a boat to receive a slip; owners of vacant lots must own a registered, insured boat they intend to moor there.
The association states there are no bridges between the Key Marco marina and the Gulf, so boat height is not limited by bridge clearances on the way out.
It varies. On FEMA maps effective February 8, 2024, the Blue Hill Creek Drive points we tested are Zone X and the Whiskey Creek Drive points are Zone AE with base flood elevations of 10 to 11 feet.
In Zone AE a federally backed mortgage requires flood insurance; in Zone X it is optional but advisable. Order the home’s elevation certificate before you price insurance.
Collier County Public Schools’ 2026 to 2027 address lookup assigns Key Marco addresses to Tommie Barfield Elementary, Manatee Middle and Lely High School. Marco Island Academy, a public charter high school, is next door.
Water: Collier County Utilities. Sewer: the City of Marco Island. Electricity: LCEC. Source: the association’s FAQ.
No. Key Marco has no golf course and no beach frontage inside the gate. The Gulf beaches of Marco Island are about seven minutes away, per the association.
A private marina, a community center with a fitness center, great room, catering kitchen and screened porch, private tennis courts and native preserves, all owned by the association.
The county roll shows years built from 1995 to 2025, a median of 2013.5, and 10 homes built in 2023 or later.
Five MLS closings in the 60 months to 2026-10-07 ranged from $2,100,000 to $7,500,000 (Southwest Florida MLS). With fewer than 10 sales, we list each sale rather than quote a median.
No. The Cat came from the 1896 Key Marco site at the north end of Marco Island, according to the Marco Island Historical Society. The community on Horr’s Island was named for that excavation.
The Marco Island Historical Society lists its exhibition at the Marco Island Historical Museum as running from 2018 to April 18, 2026, after which it returned to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
Yes. Horr’s Island holds Late Archaic shell mounds and a shell ring thousands of years old, excavated before development, and the association owns archaeological easements as common areas.
Yes. The house ruin on the north side of Whiskey Creek Drive is listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRIS 97001215).
The association puts Naples about 20 miles away; the tree’s routing estimate from the Marco Island end of the Jolley Bridge to Fifth Avenue South is about 15.7 miles and 27 minutes at free-flow speeds, and Southwest Florida International Airport is about 47.2 miles and 63 minutes.
Usually, yes. Florida caps assessment growth at 3% a year for a homestead (section 193.155) and 10% a year for non-homestead residential property (section 193.1554), but the cap resets at a sale, so the new owner’s assessed value moves toward market value. A full-time resident who files for the homestead exemption (section 196.031) gets the exemption and the 3% cap going forward.
With 97 vacant lots on the roll and only 40 homes, both paths are open. A resale saves the ARC and permitting timeline; a build lets you place the home on the lot’s best elevation. Call Marc at (239) 287-5873 to compare the two on real parcels.
Key Marco sits on bay and creek water, not on a Gulf beach. The district’s 1992 engineer’s report bounds it by San Marco Road on the north, Caxambas Pass on the south, Barfield Bay on the west and Blue Hill Creek on the east. Boaters reach the Gulf through Caxambas Pass, and Marco Island’s Gulf beaches are a short drive away.
Horr’s Island is the island’s historic name, and the association notes that navigational charts still use it. The recorded plat name keeps both: HORR’S ISLAND AKA KEY MARCO. The name Key Marco was borrowed from the famous 1896 Key Marco excavation at the north end of Marco Island.
Florida’s manatee protection rule for Collier County, Rule 68C-22.023, makes Barfield Bay, Blue Hill Creek and associated waters north of Horr’s Island a year-round 20 mph zone and sets slow speed zones in Caxambas Pass and Caxambas Bay, with a 30 mph marked channel in the Caxambas Pass area. The posted signs and the rule’s maps govern.
Key Marco falls inside the mapped boundary of the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, based on our query of the reserve’s published boundary layer at the community center. Private homesites remain private property; the reserve matters most for the surrounding bays, creeks and mangrove shorelines.
The district posts meetings at 8:30 AM on third Wednesdays at the community clubhouse, 505 Whiskey Creek Drive, including the annual landowners’ meeting and election on November 18, 2026 and a budget hearing on June 16, 2027.
These are the questions Key Marco sellers ask before they list, answered from the five-year MLS record, the county deed record, the CDD’s audits and Florida law. For a parcel-level answer, request a free valuation or call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072.
It depends on the lot, the elevation, the water view and the house, because the last five sales ran from $2,100,000 to $7,500,000. Start with a free Key Marco home valuation or call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072 for a parcel-level opinion.
Five MLS closings in the 60 months to 2026-10-07, one in the last 12 months (Southwest Florida MLS).
Across the five sales, days on market ran from 12 to 402. The two fastest sales (12 and 17 days) were in 2022 and 2023; the 2026 sale took 402 days.
The five sales closed at 90.3% to 100% of final list price. The 2026 sale closed at 90.3%, the 2023 sale at 100%.
On 2026-10-07 there were three active Key Marco listings, from $2,590,000 to $6,900,000. At one closing a year, that is about 36 months of supply.
Yes. The roll shows 97 vacant homesites. A buyer can always weigh your home against a lot plus construction, so your pricing has to show what a finished, permitted home saves them.
Florida Statutes section 190.048 sets the bold CDD disclosure for initial sales in a district. For a resale, disclose the Key Marco CDD and its current $1,700 assessment so the buyer sees it before the tax bill does.
The assessment runs with the parcel and is billed on the property tax bill, so it is handled with property taxes at closing. The contract controls the proration.
The district’s audits show no bonds outstanding, so there is no bond payoff. Ask the association’s estoppel certificate to confirm no association special assessment is pending at your closing.
Not in the coming year. The district’s adopted budget for fiscal 2026 to 2027 holds the operating assessment at $1,700 per unit, the same figure billed in fiscal 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026, and the district reported $1,035,748 in its fund balance at September 30, 2025. The board sets the assessment each year, so the next budget hearing decides fiscal 2027 to 2028.
The contract controls. Recent MLS entries show a $6,800 transfer fee and a $150 application fee; confirm the amounts and the payer on the estoppel certificate.
In Collier County the buyer customarily pays the owner’s title policy and chooses the closing agent; the contract controls.
Yes. Buyers price insurance and rebuild rules into their offers, and Key Marco’s zones differ by street, from Zone X on Blue Hill Creek Drive to Zone AE on Whiskey Creek Drive in our tests. Have your elevation certificate ready before you list.
Yes. Check the City of Marco Island’s online elevation-certificate library first; if none is on file, order one so buyers can quote flood insurance on day one.
Generally, yes, and the roll shows 10 homes built in 2023 or later. But the 2026 sale of a 2023-built home closed at 90.3% of list after 402 days, so age alone does not set price; lot, view and pricing matter as much.
Rarely a full renovation. Fix what an inspection will flag, refresh paint and landscaping, and document roof, windows and grinder-pump age. Larger projects need ARC approval and may trigger city floodplain rules.
The association assigns slips to lots and administers them through the community manager. Confirm with the manager how your slip assignment carries to the buyer and include it in the listing.
Yes. Lots trade alongside homes; under the association rules, a lot buyer who wants a slip must own a qualifying boat.
On MLS living area, the five recent sales ran from $422 to $1,189 per square foot. County heated area uses a different denominator and can be far smaller, so never mix the two.
List so the home is photographed, priced and on the market before the winter season, when seasonal buyers tour Marco Island. With one sale a year, a well-timed launch matters more than in a busy community.
Use the five Key Marco sales, the county deed record back to 1994, lot position and elevation, and sales in comparable gated Marco Island communities. That is the analysis we prepare in a valuation.
The shell mounds, the National Register-listed house ruin and the island’s link to the Key Marco name are real, sourced selling points, and we tell that story with the documents behind it.
No ARC approval is needed to sell. The association issues an estoppel certificate, and the buyer completes any application the association requires; budget for the $150 application fee entered in recent MLS records.
Not short term. The association states that no short-term rentals are allowed, which narrows the investor pool but reassures owner-occupants.
Re-price to the record, refresh photography and lead with the lot’s elevation and slip. The 2026 sale closed after 402 days at 90.3% of its final list price, so an early, accurate price usually nets more than a long run of reductions.
You can, but with one sale a year and a CDD disclosure, buyers expect professional pricing and documentation. Call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072 to talk through the trade-offs confidentially.
Hideaway Beach trades far more often and offers golf and Gulf beach inside its gate; Key Marco offers larger lots, a slip for every lot and no club layer. See the comparison table earlier in this guide.
At $1,700 a year with no bond debt, the Key Marco CDD is modest, and it pays for the gate, bridge and roads buyers value. Present it as what it buys.
Dues rose from $4,750 (2022) to $7,000 (2026) in MLS fee fields. Buyers compare total carrying cost, so show the full $8,700 community figure up front.
The current tax bill showing the CDD line, the association dues statement, the elevation certificate, permits and ARC approvals for improvements, the slip assignment, and roof, window and grinder-pump records.
Yes. Section 689.302, Florida Statutes, requires a seller of residential property to complete a flood disclosure at or before the time the contract is signed, stating whether the seller knows of flooding that damaged the property, filed a flood claim, or received flood assistance during ownership.
At 2026 rates the community charges alone are $8,700 a year ($1,700 CDD plus $7,000 association dues), about $725 a month, before property tax, insurance, utilities and upkeep. With a five-year pace of one sale a year, carrying cost is a real argument for pricing right on day one.
We believe it is a team that knows Key Marco’s records and has sold at the top of Southwest Florida for years: McGreevy and Comisar, Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008. Call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072.
These are the Key Marco facts this guide could not confirm from a public record as of October 2026, listed so that no reader mistakes a gap for a fact. Each line names what is missing and where a buyer or seller can get it before going under contract.
Every fact on this page comes from a primary record, a government source or the community’s own governing bodies, read in October 2026; market figures come from the Southwest Florida MLS (pulled 2026-10-07) and the Collier County roll (data dated 2026-08-29). We cite no brokerage, agent or listing portal.
Each Key Marco document below links to its official source, and we host no copies. Together they are the public record behind the Key Marco Community Development District, its 1992 land plan, its audited finances, its flood maps, its storm history and the city millage that applies to every Key Marco parcel.
| Document | Issuer | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinance No. 92-45 establishing the Key Marco CDD, with the October 27, 1992 amendment | Collier County Board of County Commissioners, posted by the district | Key Marco CDD establishment ordinance (PDF) |
| Key Marco CDD Engineer’s Report, July 30, 1992 | Key Marco CDD | 1992 engineer’s report (PDF) |
| Key Marco CDD location map | Key Marco CDD | District location map (PDF) |
| Key Marco CDD audited financial report, FY ended 9/30/2022 | Florida Auditor General filing | FY2022 audit (PDF) |
| Key Marco CDD audited financial report, FY ended 9/30/2023 | Florida Auditor General filing | FY2023 audit (PDF) |
| Key Marco CDD audited financial report, FY ended 9/30/2024 | Key Marco CDD | FY2024 audit (PDF) |
| Key Marco CDD audited financial report, FY ended 9/30/2025 | Key Marco CDD | FY2025 audit (PDF) |
| Key Marco CDD adopted budget, fiscal 2026 to 2027 | Key Marco CDD | FY2026 to 2027 budget (PDF) |
| Archaic Shell Rings of the Southeast U.S. historic context (Horr’s Island sites 8CR206 to 8CR211) | National Park Service | Shell rings historic context (PDF) |
| National Register of Historic Places record, NRIS 97001215 | National Park Service | NPGallery record |
| FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps, panels 12021C0841J and 12021C0845J | FEMA | FEMA Flood Map Service Center |
| Hurricane Irma Tropical Cyclone Report (landfall near Marco Island) | National Hurricane Center | Irma TCR (PDF) |
| Hurricane Ian Tropical Cyclone Report | National Hurricane Center | Ian TCR (PDF) |
| City of Marco Island FY2026 adopted budget (millage) | City of Marco Island | FY2026 adopted budget (PDF) |
The association’s covenants, development standards and dock rules sit in its members-only document library and are not linked here; request them with the estoppel package.
Thinking about buying or selling in Southwest Florida? Tell us what you are trying to do and we will tell you honestly what it will take. McGreevy and Comisar, Domain Realty Group.
