My buyers are mostly second-home buyers and relocating executives. Southwest Florida adds a layer of its own: water, wind, elevation, insurance and associations. None of it shows up in the listing photos. All of it shows up in what you pay to own the home and what it is worth when you sell.

“Did this home get water?”

My buyers ask this directly. You find out from three places, and you want all three: the seller, in writing; the public record; and the house itself.

What Florida law requires the seller to tell you

Florida now has a specific flood disclosure for residential sales. Section 689.302, Florida Statutes, says a seller “must complete and provide a flood disclosure to a purchaser of residential real property at or before the time the sales contract is executed.” The law was created in 2024 (chapter 2024-215, effective October 1, 2024) and amended in 2025 (chapter 2025-166, effective October 1, 2025). The current form asks the seller to check a box on each of three points:

• Whether the seller has knowledge of any flooding that has damaged the property during the seller’s ownership.
• Whether the seller has filed a claim with an insurance provider relating to flood damage, including a claim with the National Flood Insurance Program.
• Whether the seller has received assistance for flood damage, including assistance from FEMA.

The form defines flooding broadly, including sustained standing water from rainfall, and it opens with a line every buyer should read twice: “Homeowners’ insurance policies do not include coverage for damage resulting from floods.”

Where to verify it

Water damage leaves a paper trail when it is repaired properly. Remediation, drywall replacement, electrical work and new air conditioning equipment after a flood usually mean permits. Inside the City of Naples, the City’s Building Department runs its permit records through the City of Naples CityView public portal. In unincorporated Collier County, the County’s permit history and permit search page shows where records sit by date: its CityView portal for 2011 to the present and CDPlus for 1989 to 2011. Search by address or parcel and read the history with the storm years in mind. A cluster of drywall, electrical and mechanical permits after a named storm tells a story. So does obvious work with no permits at all.

Then there is the house. A good inspector knows what to look for at baseboards, door frames, the lower drywall and the air handler.

“What is the first floor elevation of this home?”

In Naples, first floor elevation shapes flood insurance, what you can do to the house later, and how the next buyer sees it. I cover it in depth in First Floor Elevation, Flood Zones and Insurance for Naples Homes, so here is the short version.

• Ask the seller for the elevation certificate if one exists. A licensed surveyor, engineer or architect prepares it, and it shows how high the building sits compared with how high local floodwaters are expected to get. FEMA’s FloodSmart site says it does not set your rate but can identify discounts.
• Look up the flood zone yourself on the FEMA Flood Map Service Center. A map tells you the mapped risk category. It is not a guarantee either way.
• Pull the parcel on the Collier County Property Appraiser site for year built, improvements and sales history.

No one can tell you a home will or will not flood. Have the elevation, flood zone and insurance quote in hand before you commit.

“Are insurance costs still rising?”

Insurance was a major concern in 2024, and the picture has changed. In a press release dated March 4, 2026, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation said its homeowners multiperil policyholders would see rates reduced by an average of 8.8 percent in 2026, under rates set by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, with every Citizens personal lines policyholder seeing a cut of at least 2 percent and wind-only policyholders an average 5.5 percent reduction. Citizens said the rates take effect July 1 for new policyholders and apply to existing policies at renewal. A Citizens release dated June 23, 2026 put its policy count at approximately 274,000, down from 1.4 million in late 2023, and credited legislative reforms, reduced litigation and a resurgent private market.

Those are statewide averages. They tell you the direction of the market, not the premium on a particular house. What moves the number on a specific Naples home is the house itself: roof age and type, wind mitigation features, flood zone, elevation and construction. Get a written quote on the specific address, ideally before you write the offer.

Wind mitigation and four-point inspections

Two inspections matter for insurance on a Naples purchase.

• Four-point inspection. Citizens describes it as a check of the home’s electrical system, plumbing, heating and cooling system and roof, reporting their age, type and condition. Citizens requires one for homeowners applications on properties more than 20 years old. Citizens also requires roofs over 25 years old (shingle and similar) or 50 years old (tile, slate, clay, concrete or metal) to be documented with at least five years of remaining useful life.
• Wind mitigation inspection. This documents features that help a home resist hurricane wind, recorded on the Office of Insurance Regulation’s Uniform Mitigation Verification Inspection Form (OIR-B1-1802), which OIR revised effective April 1, 2026. The form covers building code compliance, roof covering, roof deck attachment, roof-to-wall attachment, roof geometry, secondary water resistance and opening protection. Documented features may qualify the policy for premium discounts, and OIR states the form is valid for up to five years provided no material changes are made to the structure or inaccuracies are found. Citizens requires the revised form for inspections on or after April 1, 2026, and still accepts the prior version if it was completed within five years before that date and the structure has not changed.

Ask the seller for their most recent wind mitigation form and any four-point report. A current form gives your insurance agent something concrete to quote from on day one.

“Does the home have a generator?”

My buyers ask this too. Four follow-up questions settle it:

• Whole-house standby or portable? A permanently installed standby unit with an automatic transfer switch starts on its own when the power drops. A portable unit needs someone at the house to run it.
• What does it actually power? Some systems carry the whole house, including the air conditioning. Others carry a few essential circuits. Ask which.
• What fuel, and where is it stored? Natural gas, or a propane tank on the property, and whether the tank is owned or leased.
• Was it permitted, and has it been serviced? Look for the installation on the permit record, and ask for the maintenance history.

A home without a generator is not a problem in itself. It is a line item to price in before you offer.

“Can you tell me about the financial health of this association?” and “Are there any special assessments planned?”

Not every single-family home west of 41 has a mandatory association. Where there is one, its finances are part of what you are buying. An association that has deferred work tends to catch up through special assessments, and those land on whoever owns the home at the time.

Homeowners’ associations: Chapter 720

Two documents under Chapter 720, Florida Statutes, do most of the work.

• The disclosure summary (s. 720.401). A prospective buyer in a community with a mandatory homeowners’ association must be given a disclosure summary before signing the contract. It states that you will be obligated to be a member, to pay assessments and any special assessments the association imposes, and that failure to pay can result in a lien on your property. If the summary is not provided before you sign, the statute lets the buyer void the contract by written notice within 3 days after receiving it, or before closing, whichever comes first.
• The estoppel certificate (s. 720.30851). The association must issue it within 10 business days of a proper request. It states the regular assessment and what it is paid through, and it must include an itemized list of all assessments, special assessments and other money owed, plus any additional assessments and special assessments scheduled to come due during its effective period. It also discloses transfer fees, open violations and whether the board must approve the sale.

The estoppel tells you what is owed and scheduled, not what the board is considering. For that, ask for the budget, the latest financial statement, the reserve schedule and a year of board minutes. Minutes are where a roof or seawall project shows up months before it becomes an assessment.

A short note for condominium buyers: Chapter 718

Condominiums in Florida carry their own rules. For a residential condominium building three habitable stories or more, Florida law requires a milestone structural inspection by December 31 of the year the building reaches 30 years of age, and every 10 years after that, and it lets the local enforcement agency require the first one at 25 years based on local conditions, including proximity to salt water (s. 553.899). The association must also complete a structural integrity reserve study at least every 10 years for those buildings, covering the roof, structure, fireproofing and fire protection, plumbing, electrical, waterproofing and exterior painting, and windows and exterior doors (s. 718.112).

On a resale, the buyer is entitled at the seller’s expense to the governing documents, the annual financial statement and budget, the milestone inspection summary if applicable, and the most recent structural integrity reserve study or a statement that none has been completed (s. 718.503). Those documents are where to look for future assessments.

“Why has this home been on the market so long?”

A home can sit because of the price, the condition, the location within the neighborhood, or something in the paperwork: a low first floor, an old roof that complicates insurance, an open permit, an association issue, or a disclosure that scared the last buyer off. Read the price history, pull the permits and have your agent ask the listing agent what the previous buyers’ concerns were.

“How’s the market?” and “What do you think prices are going to do in the next couple of years?”

My answer is to use local data, not national, for that home.

Buyers sometimes tell me they are waiting for prices to come down further. My view is that waiting for a larger correction is the risk at this point. Buyers also assume interest rates do not impact our market. They do. People think Naples is a small town, and while I like to think of it as one, it is not. Figuring out what part of town you want to live in is critical. I go further into the myths in What People Get Wrong About Naples Real Estate.

“Is the seller paying the commission?”

Under Florida law, a real estate licensee is presumed to be operating as a transaction broker unless a single agent relationship, or no brokerage relationship, is established in writing with the customer (s. 475.278). How the buyer’s broker is paid is a matter of negotiation, not a fixed rule. Under National Association of REALTORS practice changes in effect since August 17, 2024, an MLS participant working with a buyer must enter into a written agreement with that buyer before touring a home, and the agreement must state the compensation and disclose that commissions are not set by law and are fully negotiable. We ask our buyers to sign a buyer broker agreement.

In my transactions, the seller is still paying my commission. I have only had one deal where a buyer had to pay, and they knew it when they made their offer. When buyers hesitate to sign, I ask them to look at what the agreement actually covers: the searching, scheduling, showings, negotiations, inspections, insurance and closing. Off-market opportunities are another big reason for people to commit to us.

“Is there a waitlist to join the club?” and “What are the fees to join the club?”

We help people navigate which club and then where to live, and five-year-plus waitlists are common at private clubs here. Many are golf clubs only, with no homes on the courses, while Grey Oaks is a golf and country club community. Initiation fees, dues and waitlists are in Naples golf clubs compared, and the Apex Team Golf Club Quiz is on our golf courses page.

Permits, open permits and what the title search will not catch

My background in new construction and development helps my clients here.

An open or expired permit is work that was started under a permit but never received its final inspection. It can hold up a closing, complicate insurance or a future renovation, and leave the new owner to close it out. A title search is built to find recorded matters like liens and judgments. It does not reliably tell you about an open building permit. So before you commit, pull the permit history from the City of Naples or Collier County portal, and compare the work you can see in the house with the work on the record: pools, docks and seawalls, additions, enclosed lanais, window and door replacements, roofs, generators and air conditioning.

Where the record and the house do not match, that becomes a negotiation point or a condition of the contract, and the time to ask the seller to close out permits is in the offer.

Survey

A boundary survey shows the lot lines, where the improvements sit relative to them, and any encroachments or easements, including the seawall and dock on waterfront lots. On a teardown lot, the survey is where every design conversation starts; see Buying a Teardown Lot in Olde Naples, the Moorings or Coquina Sands.

Title

A title search and title insurance protect you against recorded defects such as liens, judgments and unreleased mortgages. Read the title commitment when it arrives. Recorded restrictions, easements and covenants are listed there, and they can affect what you are allowed to build, fence or dock.

Your printable due diligence checklist

Print this list and cross items off as the documents come in.

My background, and what happens after closing

I moved to Naples in 1980 and have been in the Naples market since 1990, much of it in new construction and development. A client was out of town when their air conditioning failed; they called me, I scheduled the contractor, met them at the house and got it fixed.

If you are relocating, Moving to Naples from Chicago covers what tends to surprise buyers coming from the Midwest. If you are considering a new home, start with New Construction in Naples West of 41. You can read more about how we work with buyers on the buyers page and about me in Joe Belz, Naples Real Estate Broker at Compass.

Frequently asked questions