Southwest Florida sees 250,000 new residents since COVID-19 began

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA, (WINK) — Between 2020 and 2025, Lee, Collier and Charlotte counties grew exponentially as COVID-19 transformed Southwest Florida into a boom town.

While the pandemic shut down most of the country, people from across the U.S. flooded to the area, seeking sunshine and outdoor living. Annie Richards, a realtor at Remax Nautical Realty, said most of her buyers came from the Midwest.

"It was February, and it's like, who wants to live in Wisconsin in the middle of February? They're thinking, well, I work from home, and I'm stuck in my house, and it's snowing, and it's frankly depressing," Richards said.

Richards has been a realtor since 2018. She said the appeal of Southwest Florida during the pandemic was clear.

"They're moving down to Florida because we can still be outside, you know, maybe our businesses are shut down, and people aren't going out to restaurants as much or at all. But it's, you know, it's still sunny, it's still nice. You can use a pool in your backyard if you have one. You can go for a walk. You can, you know, talk to your neighbors from across the street. So I think a lot of that was really pulling people here," Richards said.

During COVID-19, Richards started seeing clients from across the country, including California. Buyers started paying in cash, and property prices soared as more people moved to the area.

"Cape Coral really got put on the map, which is in Lee County, and it became a boom town in every sense of the word," Richards said.

David Farmer, a population analyst, said the influx of people was unprecedented. More than a quarter of a million people have moved to Southwest Florida since COVID-19 started in 2020.

"Charlotte County has really been an amazing place as far as growth, though Lee and Collier have also had very impressive growth since then," Farmer said.

Farmer said a healthy population grows by roughly 10% per decade. From 2020 to 2025, Collier County grew almost 14%, and Lee County grew more than 16%, but Charlotte County grew by almost 26%.

"The county had us do two updates last year, and each one for six months, and each six-month period, they grew by 5%. That's a decade where, well, so 10% is a decade's worth of growth, and they did that in the year," Farmer said.

When tracking permit approval, Farmer said Collier and Charlotte counties have a similar number of permits approved, but Charlotte County has roughly half the population size. He said it's not just retirees moving in—families and young adults have also moved to the area.

"Charlotte County really has had some really amazing growth," Farmer said.

Richards said that, from her personal experience, few people who moved to Southwest Florida during the pandemic have decided to leave. The 2020 turning point reshaped the community with more homes, more apartments and way more cars on the roads.