If you've been watching the Southwest Florida market the way most homeowners watch it — out of one eye, while pretending not to — you'd be forgiven for thinking the story is still "prices are soft, buyers are picky, and nobody wants to talk about insurance." That was a fair read for most of 2025.

It's not the read for spring 2026.

Three numbers landed in the last sixty days that, taken together, change the calculus for anyone in Lee or Collier County thinking about listing this season. None of them made the front page. All of them matter.

Number 1: Pending sales in Naples jumped 55.9% year over year

In February, the Naples Area Board of REALTORS reported that pending sales — homes that went under contract — climbed 55.9% compared to February 2025. Condo pendings alone rocketed up 82%, and single-family pendings rose 33%. Closed sales were up 21.3% for the month. (NABOR February 2026 Report)

That is not a "slowly thawing" market. That's the buyer crowd politely shoving the door open after waiting on the porch for two years.

Why now? A combination of mortgage rates settling near 6.4%, inventory that finally looks reasonable to buyers (more on that in a second), and a growing sense among Northeast and Midwest snowbirds that the post-Hurricane Ian discount window is actively closing.

Number 2: Bonita Springs months-of-supply fell 35% — the biggest inventory drop in SWFL

Bonita Springs went from 12.0 months of supply in March 2025 to 7.8 months in March 2026. Active listings dropped 23.1%. Closed sales were up 11.4%, and dollar volume rose 6.7%. The headline median sale price actually nudged up 1.8% to $580,000. (Worthington Realty — Bonita Springs March 2026)

Twelve months of supply is a deep buyer's market. Just under eight months is the front edge of "balanced." That's a meaningful shift in one year, and it's not isolated to Bonita — Naples overall inventory dropped 15.1% year over year, and luxury inventory above $1.5M contracted 17.4%, the sharpest pullback since the post-pandemic correction began.

The thing about supply contractions is that they're invisible until the day a buyer walks into your open house and there are three other couples already there. Then they're very visible.

Number 3: Florida's largest home insurer is cutting rates 8.7%

Here is the one nobody saw coming. After three years of "the insurance situation in Florida" being the universal conversation-killer at every dinner party in Lee and Collier County, Citizens Property Insurance is implementing an average statewide rate decrease of 8.7%, with renewals starting June 1, 2026. (Citizens Property Insurance)

This isn't a one-off. Citizens has shed 73% of its policy book since the October 2023 peak — over a million policies moved back to the private market through depopulation — which is a fancy way of saying the carriers came back to Florida, started competing, and the math finally moved the right direction. (Insurance Journal)

For sellers, this is the most important of the three numbers, even though it has nothing to do with your house. For two years, the single biggest objection in any SWFL transaction has been some version of "yeah, but what's the insurance going to cost me?" Starting in about a month, that conversation gets noticeably easier.

So what does this mean if you're thinking about listing?

It means you have a window. It also means the window is narrower and more conditional than the "list it Friday, sell it Sunday, pop the champagne" headlines from 2022. Spring 2026 in SWFL rewards a very specific kind of seller, and punishes a very specific kind of seller, and it would be useful to know which one you're being.

The market rewards sellers who price inside the data. Sellers who priced within 3% to 5% of recent closed comps in Lee County this spring have been finding contracts in under 60 days. Sellers who insisted on the 2022 number watched their listings join a familiar statistic: roughly 75% of homes that went back on the market in 2025 took a price cut, typically 5–7%, and about 22% had to cut more than 10%. (Bonita Estero Realtors 2025 Recap) Translation: the price reduction is going to happen. The only question is whether it happens in a Zillow alert that tells every buyer you blinked, or in your initial pricing strategy where nobody ever sees it.

The market rewards sellers who address insurability up front. With Citizens cutting rates and private carriers re-entering, the market for insurablehomes is loosening fast. The market for homes with a 17-year-old roof, no wind mitigation report, and a soft fascia board is doing the opposite. If your roof is over 15 years old, most carriers won't write a new policy on it — meaning your buyer either can't close, or can only close if you cover the roof. Get the wind-mit done before you list. Pull the four-point. Know your number before a buyer's inspector finds it for you.

The market rewards sellers who stop comparing 2026 to 2022. Lee County's median is hovering around $370,000, down about 5.1% year over year. Collier's overall median in February was $647,500. Cape Coral's median single-family is around $365,000. (Naples Golf Guy — Lee County March 2026) These are real, durable numbers — the same numbers buyers' agents are pricing offers around. Sellers whose internal benchmark is still "the neighbor sold for $X in March 2022" are going to spend the summer renegotiating with reality. The sellers who anchor to spring 2026 comps are going to spend it under contract.

The honest version

The SWFL market is not booming. It is also not crashing. It is doing the much more boring and much more profitable thing of normalizing — and that means inventory is contracting, buyers are returning, the insurance overhang is finally easing, and the people who price correctly and prep their homes are quietly moving them.

If you've been waiting to see whether spring would deliver real activity before you listed, you have your answer. The activity is here. The question now is whether you list while the door is open, or wait until the next group of sellers fills it back up.

If you're trying to figure out where your specific home fits in this picture — what it would realistically sell for, what insurance is going to look like for your buyer, and whether spring or fall is the smarter window — that's the conversation we have every day. Reach out. We'll bring the comps, the carriers, and the coffee.

Team Hawley — Southwest Florida real estate, with the data to back it up. 📞 Call or text us | 💌 Contact us at teamhawley.com

Sources: NABOR February 2026 Market Report · Worthington Realty — Bonita Springs March 2026 · Citizens Property Insurance Rate Filing · Insurance Journal · Bonita Estero Realtors 2024–2025 Recap · Naples Golf Guy — Lee County March 2026